Duplicant traits are boring

[crbd115]

When the spaced out dlc came out and added a ton of traits I was super excited. Though many of them are designed in such a way that they are very narrow in relevance. To me, duplicant traits kind of feel like a boring system that just ends up getting ignored now like the disease system. There are a few generic traits that are always interesting or relevant and I feel like some things need to be done to make this system feel like an actual part of the game and not just something that gets ignored in the background.

Idea 1: Make some of the more obscure traits have other negative or positive effects that make them something not quite as narrow in design.
Example: Critter Aversion: Duplicant can't perform ranching errands.
When does this trait ever matter? I assume that its mutually exclusive with the ranching interest like most of the other traits similar in design. So since dupes cant ranch normally anyway this trait gets ignored 99% of the time. Now if it was just a couple of traits were like this then fine, but there are tons of traits like this.
Potential fix: Critter Aversion: Duplicant can't perform ranching errands and duplicant gains some stress when near critters.
Now the trait actually does something that I have to think about. Sure if I get to a point where there's enough to counter the stress debuff I can ignore it but until I get to that point it at least is something to consider. There are a lot of traits that I feel could use this kind of treatment. Maybe not the exact same every time but something similar. If its just one narrow use trait give it something small that is widely applicable as well.

Idea 2: Make the more narrow focus traits appear in more relevant circumstances.
This would be more akin to how some of the phobia traits are mutually exclusive to interests. 
Example: Trypophobia: Duplicant can't perform digging errands, is mutually exclusive with the digging interest.
So if the negative is true can we then make it so that positive traits like Mole Hands or Skilled: Digging only have a chance of appearing on duplicants with the digging interest? This would then make it so the more narrow traits only appear when its relevant and the more generic ones that apply to every duplicant are a little more common. 

Edit: To further expand on this. You would basically have a pool of general traits for both positive and negative traits that you pull from when generating duplicants. Then the game adds/subtracts some traits to/from each respective pool of traits based on that duplicants interests. Similar to how some traits are mutually exclusive currently as well as how phobias are currently mutually exclusive with their respective interests.

Idea 3: Make duplicants by default have 2 positive and 2 negative traits.

This makes it so that duplicants have more depth and are generally more interesting. Then there can be a chance when random are selected in printer pod that they either have one positive trait replaced by a negative one or the opposite. Similar to the variance that can currently occur in traits.
Maybe also have a world config setting for players who want to move this dial up and down. Easier would be less traits and harder would be more traits. Alternatively less negative traits on easier setting and more on harder setting.

Idea 4: Have custom world settings for specific themed challenges using duplicant traits.
Maybe have a check box where all dupes are flatulent or vegan or any number of themes for the fun of it. Its a simple enough feature to add and makes for more re-playability for some challenge runs.

[TuxSam123]

Hmm. This seems awfully similar to Rimworld. Oni really could use some Rimworld mechanics on it. I like the changes!

[crbd115]

2 hours ago, TuxSam123 said:

Hmm. This seems awfully similar to Rimworld. Oni really could use some Rimworld mechanics on it. I like the changes!

Haven’t played rim world in a few years so not sure. Mostly just meant to be a refinement of whats already there. There’s a mod that does something similar to what I suggested but its based on vanilla only and some of the balancing is questionable.

[TuxSam123]

14 hours ago, crbd115 said:

Haven’t played rim world in a few years so not sure. Mostly just meant to be a refinement of whats already there. There’s a mod that does something similar to what I suggested but its based on vanilla only and some of the balancing is questionable.

Do you remember the series of QoL updates on Oni? They could do something similar with the DLC.

[Coolthulhu]

How about traits that are actually positive and actually negative at the same time (not like +cook -morale, which is only positive in "color", but mostly negative)?

• Friend of critters - won't eat omelettes or anything that counts towards carnivore, can't attack, but interested in ranching and has a good bonus to it
• Glutton - eats more, but cooks faster and gets higher morale from good food (combined bottomless+gourmand+2*no tastebuds)
• Steady - moves slower and this penalty scales with athletics (ie. at 20 athletics, it's not 100%+200%-30%=+270%, but (100%+200%)*70%=210%), but has higher morale, eats less, breathes less and needs less sleep
• Jittery - opposite of the above
• Slob - won't wash hands or shower, but immune to food poisoning and +strength (good at "dirty jobs")
• Hot - produces more heat, getting heat stroke if working in a suit for too long, but gets a scaling bonus to some jobs and speed. And radiates +decor.

On 6/16/2021 at 4:09 AM, crbd115 said:

Idea 3: Make duplicants by default have 2 positive and 2 negative traits.

I like this one.

On 6/16/2021 at 4:09 AM, crbd115 said:

Then there can be a chance when random dupes come through the teleporter that they either have one positive trait replaced by a negative one or the opposite.

I really don't like this one. Sounds grindy - I don't want to have to teleport dupes around to optimize traits.

If trait changing is desired, I'd rather have it as "radiation therapy" where a dupe can gain traits that fit their other traits, but is guaranteed to end up with 50%/50% between good and bad. Not too random, because I don't want to have to euthanize the unlucky ones.

[crbd115]

10 hours ago, Coolthulhu said:

I really don't like this one. Sounds grindy - I don't want to have to teleport dupes around to optimize traits.

If trait changing is desired, I'd rather have it as "radiation therapy" where a dupe can gain traits that fit their other traits, but is guaranteed to end up with 50%/50% between good and bad. Not too random, because I don't want to have to euthanize the unlucky ones.

Lol so I'm an idiot and I said teleporter when I meant printer . I will fix this. It was supposed to be similar to how there's currently a chance duplicants can have additional traits. Since my idea though is the default being 2 positive and 2 negative traits, I thought it would be better to have no more then 4 total traits so it was meant for variance in dupe selection.

10 hours ago, Coolthulhu said:

How about traits that are actually positive and actually negative at the same time (not like +cook -morale, which is only positive in "color", but mostly negative)?

So in your example the +cook and - morale trait, in my idea that would only be possible on a dupe that has an interest in cooking so then it would be mostly positive. My issue is that since we are sort of pushed to specialize our dupes to reduce travel time and etc. it seems weird to have all these random traits that are mostly irrelevant unless they are used in specific scenarios.

10 hours ago, Coolthulhu said:

• Friend of critters - won't eat omelettes or anything that counts towards carnivore, can't attack, but interested in ranching and has a good bonus to it
• Glutton - eats more, but cooks faster and gets higher morale from good food (combined bottomless+gourmand+2*no tastebuds)
• Steady - moves slower and this penalty scales with athletics (ie. at 20 athletics, it's not 100%+200%-30%=+270%, but (100%+200%)*70%=210%), but has higher morale, eats less, breathes less and needs less sleep
• Jittery - opposite of the above
• Slob - won't wash hands or shower, but immune to food poisoning and +strength (good at "dirty jobs")
• Hot - produces more heat, getting heat stroke if working in a suit for too long, but gets a scaling bonus to some jobs and speed. And radiates +decor.

My only issue with most of these is I'm trying to keep things still relatively simple in design so there is minimal change that needs to be made. For example friend of critters seems like a combination of pacifist, vegan (doesn't exist but should) and animal lover. I could see making pacifist more generally applicable like adding "duplicant gains stress from seeing others fight" (either someone nearby attacking or being attacked), but I think it would be better to keep things simple so it can be easily understood by newer players. As well as if dupes would have 2 positive and 2 negative traits that's a lot for people to keep track of if all the traits do 3 or 4 things.

[ZombieDupe]

On 6/16/2021 at 3:09 AM, crbd115 said:

Idea 3: Make duplicants by default have 2 positive and 2 negative traits.

Another alternative could be 1 positive, 1 negative and 1 that is in-between. Some traits show up as green indicating positive or red indicating negative, but can actually be the opposite given that they come with both a positive and a negative perk together. Color of these types of perks could be changed to yellow. A variant for this could also be a duplicant with 3 yellow type perks only, which could keep things balanced but more interesting.

Expanding on the whole yellow perk idea, some negative traits could go hand in hand with some positive ones. For example, increased calories would have increased strength alongside it, increased air consumption with increased athletics, flatulence with may be germ immunity if the germs finally are made more of a problem and so forth.

[crbd115]

5 minutes ago, ZombieDupe said:

Another alternative could be 1 positive, 1 negative and 1 that is in-between. Some traits show up as green indicating positive or red indicating negative, but can actually be the opposite given that they come with both a positive and a negative perk together. Color of these types of perks could be changed to yellow. A variant for this could also be a duplicant with 3 yellow type perks only, which could keep things balanced but more interesting.

Expanding on the whole yellow perk idea, some negative traits could go hand in hand with some positive ones. For example, increased calories would have increased strength alongside it, increased air consumption with increased athletics, flatulence with may be germ immunity if the germs finally are made more of a problem and so forth.

There was a mod a while ago that I think stopped updating or was taken down at some point but it added a third trait type that was blue, it mostly had to do with what your dupes would be stressed out by. I think this would be a reasonable option though having a third trait type, and I'm all for it if the devs want to do it. My suggestion was more just meant to simplify and refine what was already there so there was less work that they would have to do.