Negative trait rework/tuning in the future

[Gunhaver]

Too many of the negative traits we have now are simply deal-breakers. I just don't see the point to even having them in game if no one in their right mind would pick them. I was thinking about anemic for instance. I believe when it was introduced there was a lvl 50 cap to skills so eventually you would overcome the penalty, but as the game has evolved it has become brutal. It's bad enough starting with a dupe with a broken leg, but permanently loosing 5/22 to your max speed at end game is a tough pill to swallow. I guess It would be nice to have some of these re-tuned for the final game product. I think everyone agrees that mouth breather/allergies/flatulent are all just terrible. Why even have them if it ALWAYS will disqualify a dupe from being selected? 

Constructively, I can say I like how some of the neg traits have thoughtful trade offs (small bladder/irritable bowel/narco/loud sleeper) you can work with/around. 

I don't know; is this unreasonable? Even changing anemic from -5 to -2 would be acceptable IMO. 

[DarkMoge]

Flatulent is probably okay, it is a negative trait that could technically be turned positive, but it is just too much bother to do that. 
Allergies is a deal breaker at some colony setups, but it can be irrelevant at other setups.
On the other hand, mouth breather seems to be always a deal breaker... Why not just get 2 duplicants with diver lungs for the cost of 1 mouth breather... Oxygen just tends to be a bottleneck in this game... Maybe, in late game you might not care about it, but it is definitely something that you will never pick early and mid game.

Narcoleptic is always a deal breaker for me, I used to take them before, but they are just bad... They break my automation by falling asleep at random places or even worse, fall asleep somewhere they might die. I will rather take anemic than narcoleptic. Maybe even mouth breather over narcoleptic.

[Promethien]

They could give us bonus skill points in interest skills plus athletics and strength. So no cooking? Easy trait, no bonus. No digging? Workable trait but a noticeable penalty +2 points in a random interest, ath or str. Narcoleptic? Severe flaw +3 to 3 interests, ath or str. Can tailor the bonuses to specific flaws too. Mouth Breather? The extra oxygen gives them more energy +5 athletics. Bottomless stomach? The extra calories help them build muscle mass +5 str. 

[metallichydra]

the worst part about the this problem, is that some of the negative traits are just not bad enough. yokel, gastrophobia, squimish and pacifist dont really do anything.

 

i never take:

anemic, mouth breather, bottomless stomach or flatulent.

[Nebbie]

28 minutes ago, metallichydra said:

the worst part about the this problem, is that some of the negative traits are just not bad enough. yokel, gastrophobia, squimish and pacifist dont really do anything.

 

i never take:

anemic, mouth breather, bottomless stomach or flatulent.

You're forgetting by far the worst offender of negative traits that aren't significant: small bladder, which makes a duplicant's bladder fill in 598.8 seconds instead of 600.

[MorsDux]

we have been over this, these negative traits dont mean much by themselves.

 

anemic: give them a job within the base, like cooking or working the metal refinery. Dont let them store stuff or if you do just forbid them outside the base.

mouth breather: The limiting factor for Liquid Hydrogen is hydrogen itself, the more air the dupes take the more hydrogen I can generate (I know, I could vent the extra oxygen into space...). Maybe I wouldnt take them on oasisse in the beginning but once I have a hand on some steel it becomes meaningless again. Water is plentiful on all maps, and once you can effectively cool your oxygen its not difficult to make a bit more of it.

bottomless stomach: If food is a problem I might skip on these but on ravenous they really only take 25% more than usual. You can keep him at low morale doing something you need a lot done continuously like ranching or farming. If the morale req is low you can feed him raw stuff. Like bristle blossoms made of water alone. It IS a negative trait in all its sense, but it is no game breaking stuff...

flatulent: if one comes along with +7 husbandry I will take it. Really all you need to watch is forbidding them to store and supply as they could fart up your chlorine filled kitchen setup or a vacuum room. 

narcoleptic: if you dont let them carry stuff that can be dropped their trait isnt too bad. What I dont like is dropped ice, dropped critters etc.

 

 

Nothing of the above is game breaking, terrible or extreme, maybe on some of the hardest maps, in the beginning it will limit which dupes you can choose, but thats all, the rest can be overcome easily without any continuous micromanagement at all.

[Sasza22]

Allergies aren`t that bad as when it was introduced. It no longer makes your dupe get 100% stress in half a cycle. Now it`s pretty igorable actually.

Mouth breather and bottomless stomach is terrible earlygame when resources are sparse but late, when you got 1 million calories banked who cares about a dupe eating more? Oxygen also shouldn`t be too problmatic once you get a stabile setup, still might screw your calculations about the usage though.

Flatulent and narcoleptic are a problem all game but you can make a bit positive out of both, still they re mostly negative.

IMO the worst are still unconstructive and trythophobia that just make your dupe unable to do basic tasks. Yokel might also be bad as it blocks the path for the dupe to become an astronaut.

[Yunru]

All your supply dupes should have allergies, that way they spread floral scents for your non-allergic dupes to enjoy.

[NathairNimheil]

2 hours ago, MorsDux said:

we have been over this, these negative traits dont mean much by themselves.

I'm not sure who "we" are but a lot of us never, ever print a dupe with some of these traits. That suggests the need for retuning even if it is theoretically possible to make use of an anemic, narcoleptic, mouth breathing dupe. If we could but we don't, then we don't. If people are just saying "nope, nope, nope" then the traits are not being played with and what is the point, then, of having them in the game at all?

[DarkMoge]

4 hours ago, MorsDux said:

narcoleptic: if you dont let them carry stuff that can be dropped their trait isnt too bad. What I dont like is dropped ice, dropped critters etc.

Imagine placing motion sensors around your base that do something on a specific timer after they detect a dupe. Imagine a narcoleptic falling asleep under one of those.
Imagine keeping your doors open only for X seconds at the start of the day and than forcefully lock them out the base to assist the dupe ai. Now imagine narcoleptic falling asleep during the time the door is open.

[cblack]

3 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

IMO the worst are still unconstructive and trythophobia...

Trypophobia is amazing late game!  It can be just as good as Yokel after you've researched everything, or better if you want to send your dupe in a rocket.

[MorsDux]

Hm, maybe dont lock the doors while a dupe is inside? I have never used this config so maybe its more of an issue in this case. Send them to be permanent astronauts.

[CDoroFF]

3 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

 

Allergies aren`t that bad as when it was introduced. It no longer makes your dupe get 100% stress in half a cycle. Now it`s pretty igorable actually.

 

Picked a bunch of dupes with allergies in Arboria. No troubles at all. (There is no slime biome in arboria, hence no buddy bud)

[DarkMaster13]

The real problem with mouth breather is not that they consume extra oxygen in your base, nine times out of ten that's easy to deal with.  The problem is that they can't hold their breath for as long and their suit oxygen runs out faster.  This means that the trait is terrible both at the start of the game (when dupes are spending time in unbreathable atmospheres to work) and at the end of the game (when dupes are spending large parts or even most of their work shifts in exosuits).  This is also why diver's lungs is a spectacular trait, dupes can spend extra time outside of oxygen atmospheres and in exosuits.

Most players do not heavily specialize their dupes and allow them to do most tasks after whatever they're skilled at is done.  This is why no digging and no construction are dealbreakers, but most of the other disallow job traits are completely ignored.  Personally I like to avoid yokel so I can take the research skills for faster attribute gains, but that's just me.

In order for mouth breather to be acceptable as a negative trait, it would need to have something like extra lung space and something that makes them last as long as other dupes in suits.

[Gilhelmi]

I really haven't seen a "deal breaker" negative trait. I use Anemic to do science and cooking, though if they exercise enough they can completely counteract it. I have an anemic digger who has Athletics of 0 right now because I also used her on the manual generator. Won't ever be as good as a regular dupe, but they won't be as bad either.

I feel like most of the are relatively balanced, if anything I want to see a greater variety of negative traits. Because they make me think more about which dupe I want for each assignment (also a greater selection at the printer, maybe let us reroll once or twice).

[storm6436]

Eh, I'd be in favor of leaving them in the game if they added a path to address them mid-late game... Say, for example,

1. Your anemic dupe needs to visit the doc once a week for a "check-up" that may or may not need some sort of medication.  This makes it as reasonably addressable as allergies are.  Give it a random chance as a function of repeated treatments to cure some dupes altogether. 

2. Flatulent and narcoleptic could be treated with medications similarly to allergies as well.

3. A new medical building, say, a surgery table that greatly speeds up healing of dupes <10% health (and all the hilarious animations that could go with that.  Nisbet, NO! ) ... but also allows you to apply some staples to Mr. Bottomless Stomach's digestive tract, nullifying the trait once he's healed.

4. A "therapy" room that requires >120 decor on all tiles and a new medical couch...  once-twice a week, your phobic dupes sit down with doc for therapy (Again, queue hilarious animations), and there's a random chance every session that their phobia trait gets changed to a new intermediate trait, aversion, which causes a minor amount of stress when they perform that act...  but continued therapy again has a weekly chance to remove said aversion altogether.

Then again, I'm fond of the idea of having libraries where idle dupes can go to XP up most skills (prioritized by interest) and gyms for XPing strength, and athletics..

[Skrivener]

Mouth Breather and Bottomless Stomach don't bother me. I always have enough food and oxygen and I haven't noticed too many breath-holding issues, but I haven't played the harder worlds much yet.

Unconstructive, Yokel, Tryptophobia I avoid as limiting. Anemia, Flatulent, Narcoleptic and Allergies I avoid for the inconvenience. None of them are impossible but all are annoying.

Maybe it's a problem that it's so easy to reroll and avoid the inconveniences, or maybe that just takes away some of the pointless frustration. It might be nice if every trait had both an upside and a downside, that might make them more worth taking thus mixing up the gameplay.

[Gunhaver]

22 hours ago, Nebbie said:

You're forgetting by far the worst offender of negative traits that aren't significant: small bladder, which makes a duplicant's bladder fill in 598.8 seconds instead of 600.

I never noticed that... My brain interpreted it as 20% ala the calculator fractions.... Wow that's so insignificant.

23 hours ago, metallichydra said:

the worst part about the this problem, is that some of the negative traits are just not bad enough. yokel, gastrophobia, squimish and pacifist dont really do anything.

You may be right; that IS why I always pick those traits. Maybe it's the negitive no brained perks need to be tuned as well. Regardless I do think many should be re-examined as they were set in the early beta and the end game is SO different.

[KittenIsAGeek]

On 8/24/2019 at 3:04 PM, Gunhaver said:

Too many of the negative traits we have now are simply deal-breakers. I just don't see the point to even having them in game if no one in their right mind would pick them. I was thinking about anemic for instance. I believe when it was introduced there was a lvl 50 cap to skills so eventually you would overcome the penalty, but as the game has evolved it has become brutal. It's bad enough starting with a dupe with a broken leg, but permanently loosing 5/22 to your max speed at end game is a tough pill to swallow. I guess It would be nice to have some of these re-tuned for the final game product. I think everyone agrees that mouth breather/allergies/flatulent are all just terrible. Why even have them if it ALWAYS will disqualify a dupe from being selected? 

Constructively, I can say I like how some of the neg traits have thoughtful trade offs (small bladder/irritable bowel/narco/loud sleeper) you can work with/around. 

I don't know; is this unreasonable? Even changing anemic from -5 to -2 would be acceptable IMO. 

I've played bases where I take dupes completely at random.    I've played bases where I am extremely picky about which dupes I get.  None of the negative traits are completely out of line -- though allergic comes close.  You can lock your allergic dupe out of your bristlebloom farm, or force them to wear an atmo suit.    You can even make them  pill poppers and give your doctor something to do (manufacturing more allergy pills!)  .. Or you can just plant sporchids all over your base and make EVERYONE suffer.

Anemic just means your dupe will move a little more slowly -- its the worst when they're first printed, but after enough sweeping jobs they are a bit better.  Lock them AWAY from the atmo suits, though.  An anemic in an atmosuit will lose a race against a snail.  Frozen molasses moves faster.  But, hey, if you get one with researching, just sit them down at the computer and don't let 'em leave.

Flatulent is annoying, because you have to set up some method of pumping nat gas out of your living area, but again, its not a deal breaker.  Just don't let them near your airlocks and for the love of Nisbit, keep them out of vacuum chambers.

I've intentionally taken dupes with mouth breathing in the past to intentionally increase the oxygen consumption. I had an asteroid with lots of water and pitiful amounts of oil and natural gas, so I needed a way to produce more hydrogen.  This was before you could vent to space and I didn't want to trick my electrolyzer out.

The hungry dupe (I can't remember what its called) has almost killed my base in the past.  He was a stress-eater as well.  Thought I had a nice buffer of food saved up... then they went and got stressed and next thing I know I've got dupes complaining about being hungry because there isn't any food left.  That was definitely a challenge to work around.

I've even taken a dupe with THREE negative traits (biohazzard, anemic, trypophobia) just because they were totally ridiculous.

The point is: Just because you (and presumably others) always skip a certain kind of dupe doesn't mean that they're bad dupes.  Some disadvantages are more difficult to compensate for -- but then, that's sort of the point.  Playing with allergic dupes on Rime can be quite a challenge, as Bristle Bloom are much easier to grow there than mealwood.  An allergic dupe in Oasis will rarely have problems if you don't plant buddy buds.  Mouth breather dupes can actually be a bonus in the right circumstances.  I'm still debating a base where I take as many flatulent dupes as I can -- just to see how that goes.

ONI is somewhat unique as a game because the challenge is all in your hands. Think steam turbines are too easy for dealing with heat? Build your next base without using them.  Think escher water falls are awesome, even if they break physics?  Build one or two.   Don't like Pips?  Well, sucks to be you. Pips are awesome! Every base should have at least a dozen running around knocking stuff out of your storage bins...  Wait, I think I got distracted.  Whatever. Its after midnight and I'm gonna go feed my Mogwai.

[Vim Razz]

On 8/24/2019 at 2:04 PM, Gunhaver said:

Too many of the negative traits we have now are simply deal-breakers. I just don't see the point to even having them in game if no one in their right mind would pick them.

They may be deal-breakers for you, but for some of us they're one of the biggest things that helps mix things up and keeps things interesting, especially in the first few hundred cycles when the game can get pretty repetitive setting up basic infrastructure.  None of them are gamebreaking.  It's just a matter of figuring out how to work around them, and that process of "figuring out what to do" depending on what stage of the game they pop in to throw a wrench in your works is the fun part.

You don't have to play with them if you don't like them, but they're not pointless and some of us do enjoy them.

 

On 8/24/2019 at 2:04 PM, Gunhaver said:

I believe when it was introduced there was a lvl 50 cap to skills so eventually you would overcome the penalty, but as the game has evolved it has become brutal.

I disagree. A lot of the old challenges have been nerfed into the ground. The game has been far more brutal at various points in the past than it is now.  Things like agricultural difficulty, stress management, disease risk, early heat management, ravenous hunger, water supply, regolith management and any number of other things have been made a lot easier, and nothing has really stepped in to fill the void.  A few types of challenges have the potential to be modded back in, but others with complex mechanical aspects might be difficult to re-enable, and are probably lost forever.

 

On 8/25/2019 at 4:45 AM, NathairNimheil said:

I'm not sure who "we" are but a lot of us never, ever print a dupe with some of these traits.

I'd assume they're referring to the fact that this topic pops up on the forum every few months.  People who hate severe negative traits claim that they're impossible and useless and "no one in their right mind would pick them", or whatever.  Those of us who like them point out that they're not impossible to deal with, and the process of dealing with the random challenges they introduce to a colony adds a lot to the game.  Sometimes the conversation gets heated.  The cycle continues.

 

13 hours ago, Gunhaver said:

You may be right; that IS why I always pick those traits. Maybe it's the negitive no brained perks need to be tuned as well. Regardless I do think many should be re-examined as they were set in the early beta and the end game is SO different.

People liking or not liking severe negative traits has been a thing since at least the start of early access.  I'm pretty sure it has more to do with individual player preference than anything about the way the game has evolved over the last ~2 years. 

Personally, I think cutting them or nerfing them down just makes the game more repetitive and less interesting.  For example, Biohazerdous dupes used to be a significant challenge in the early game when playing under miserable conditions (or whatever it's called now -- outbreak prone?) because once their immune system hit zero they'd spend most of their time in the medbay until you got vitamin chews.  In my current game I had one in my starting three, and I can't even remember who has it because it's effect on gameplay has become so insignificant.  That sucks and is not fun.  I'd rather not see other negative traits get the same sort of treatment.  If anything, I'd love to see more of them get worse so that they have a more noticeable impact on the overall colony.

[Gunhaver]

@Vim Razz Ahh; I think I understand where you're coming from. I want to clarify; I don't think the games too hard. It's very easy. Unless I walk away from my computer, I can't think of a way my dupes would die. I actually really like a brutal challenge (Don't starve is one of my favorite games.) I'm also not saying that I want negative traits to be removed. Actually I said that I hope they are reworked. I want the game to throw interesting challenges at me. I want to have to be creative to find work arounds for.

I'm aware that "fun" and "interesting" are relative terms. To each their own. There are people who enjoy imposing greater and greater challenges on themselves to keep something interesting. We see people who play games and impose meta-challenges onto themselves. Gamer X gets so good at Final Fantasy 6 that he replays it with no healing items, magic, 1 character, upside down, with someone slapping their face every 30 seconds etc. I think it's a very specific type of person who enjoys these challenges. I understand there are people who play ONI with this mindset. "I'm going to take EVERY dupe, i'm only going to take narcoleptic dupes, all dupes shall be anemic etc..."  That's cool; no judgement. I think differently; After reading many people's comments on traits and learning why many people don't take certain traits, the reasons are generally b/c the trait is irritating/slows game progress down needlessly/requires micromanagement.  I don't recall anyone ever saying a trait makes the game too hard.

ONI gives the player choices and I believe the intent is that we are supposed to make careful decisions and plan out building and managing a colony with what you're given. We're given a choice of dupes to asses and should they all be terrible, we can always refuse them. With that in mind I tend to pick dupes that are "close enough" to my standard because... That's what I find interesting about the game..

Actually  I want MORE of what you're talking about. A dupe with -5 speed or-3 strength isn't interesting. A dupe who can't use the attack, doctoring, cooking abilities isn't particularly interesting on it's own either. When I say i hope for a re-work, I mean I'd think it would be awesome if an anemic dupe would have to stop more often to catch their breath when doing supply errands (avoided by not supplying). or a noodle arms dupe moves slower when carrying stuff. Maybe a squeamish dupe can't do doctoring errands, but also gets stressed/makes faces around wounded/sick dupes (pushes the player to heal and use med-bays). A pacifist that likes ranching, but gets upset if they're around too much animal culling.

I think challenge/pitfalls/obstacles should be something that even a new player has to engage or deal with right away.  Yes, after someone plays 1000+ hours they may take the current harder traits to make the game more "interesting" but why not just make the traits more nuanced in general?

 

Anyway thanks for the response, it's nice to really think through why I like/dislike something occasionally.

[Derringer]

On 8/24/2019 at 9:42 PM, Promethien said:

They could give us bonus skill points in interest skills plus athletics and strength. So no cooking? Easy trait, no bonus. No digging? Workable trait but a noticeable penalty +2 points in a random interest, ath or str. Narcoleptic? Severe flaw +3 to 3 interests, ath or str. Can tailor the bonuses to specific flaws too. Mouth Breather? The extra oxygen gives them more energy +5 athletics. Bottomless stomach? The extra calories help them build muscle mass +5 str. 

Traits used to work something like that. Negative traits added 2-3 starting skill points, positive traits deducted 2-3 starting skill points, depending on the weight of each specific trait.

55 minutes ago, Gunhaver said:

After reading many people's comments on traits and learning why many people don't take certain traits, the reasons are generally b/c the trait is irritating/slows game progress down needlessly/requires micromanagement.

That might be a useful defining line between minor and major negative traits: whether they require nontrivial player effort to work around.

Errand management might be a lot less hassle if there was a way to define door permissions based on traits, attributes and training. For example, 'NOT Flatulent AND NOT Allergic' to the Bristle Blossom farm, 'Athletics ≥ 6 OR Exosuit Training' to the atmo suit docks, or 'NOT Electrical Engineer' to miscellaneous time-sinking machinery.

[Promethien]

I know. Didn't mention it specifically but I had that fact in mind while I was writing that post.

[Gunhaver]

28 minutes ago, Derringer said:

Errand management might be a lot less hassle if there was a way to define door permissions based on traits, attributes and training. For example, 'NOT Flatulent AND NOT Allergic' to the Bristle Blossom farm, 'Athletics ≥ 6 OR Exosuit Training' to the atmo suit docks, or 'NOT Electrical Engineer' to miscellaneous time-sinking machinery.

Exactly! for instance I think flatulence would be acceptable if maybe after a dupe eats certain foods they get gassy. Solution: untick the box; solved! However when Food's short and they are forced to eat it or maybe need the morale bonus... unsolved! Brace yourself. It would be something to be mindful of, but forgetting Stinky gets gassy when he eats meat wouldn't be a continuous problem and wouldn't make the trait an "always pass" decision.

12 minutes ago, Promethien said:

I know. Didn't mention it specifically but I had that fact in mind while I was writing that post.

The way you put it reminded me of character traits in Don't Starve. You take the good with the bad, you may have to modify how you play to an extent,  but It's mostly manageable and dare I say it... even the negative trait can be fun and make gameplay unique.

[Promethien]

18 minutes ago, Gunhaver said:

Exactly! for instance I think flatulence would be acceptable if maybe after a dupe eats certain foods they get gassy. Solution: untick the box; solved! However when Food's short and they are forced to eat it or maybe need the morale bonus... unsolved! Brace yourself. It would be something to be mindful of, but forgetting Stinky gets gassy when he eats meat wouldn't be a continuous problem and wouldn't make the trait an "always pass" decision.

The way you put it reminded me of character traits in Don't Starve. You take the good with the bad, you may have to modify how you play to an extent,  but It's mostly manageable and dare I say it... even the negative trait can be fun and make gameplay unique.

Yes! They could even give something really special for the especially bad traits. Flatulent already does this. If you can harvest the random NG it becomes a rather valuable resource. Imagine if they did something like narcoleptics have a chance to instantly finish any job they start to make up for the danger they are in from falling asleep in hazardous locations. Can set one up to be a super genius chef or to work your farms and get the occasional instant harvest/fertilization.