How do you feel about microtransactions in ONI?

[Fleetfeet]

I suppose to refocus the topic into something more specific, the crux of the issue isn't MICROTRANSACTIONS so much as Klei transitioning ONI from a singular product or series of products (I.E. you sell a GAME, then you sell a series of DLC) to a game-as-a-service model (supported by microtransactions, battlepasses, etc).

What I read in Klei's move here is that the individual product model is both not sustainable and does not align with their goals. Where working on DLC requires almost the whole team to be working on that project, a 'microtransactions' model may be able to sustain the income more granularly AND allow more dev time from designers to work on improving the game itself.

It is possible that "microtransactions" is ultimately a bad path for ONI, but there are plenty of examples where the model is successful and not inherently toxic, allowing players to support a game they enjoy without NEEDING to. Obvious examples are most of your multiplayer competitive games, I.E. Fortnite, Dota, League, etc. It isn't necessary to read "microtransactions" and default to "EA" or "Mobile games" and while I understand that fear, I also find it kind of silly.

Ultimately I'm not at all worried about microtransactions, and feel like those who are are overreacting.

[Magheat2009]

On 10/14/2022 at 1:27 AM, Gurgel said:

What "balancing issues"? The "I do not like feature xyz and I do now care what others think, change it!" type?

Here is a list of what I consider balancing issues with the game right now-

1. Food morale- Specifically, barbecue. It provides too much morale, so that other ways of gaining morale, and the morale-stress mechanic becomes pointless. The way to fix this is replace the normal food morale table with those used for Gourmet duplicants. This will make decor morale table consistent with food morale table. Another idea that has been suggested is favorite foods, to diversify the crops required to sustain duplicants.

2. Diseases- Food poisoning and Slimelung have very low impact. There is widespread consensus that diseases are a beautiful idea and should be revamped to make them more significant aspect of ONI experience. Introduction of radiation illness addressed this to certain extent. 

3. Decor morale bombing- The decor that can be experienced by a dupe at any given time is not capped. It is very tedious to avoid this, and significantly dilutes the decor game-play, as taking care of decor in all areas duplicants go to is replaced by a few rooms decked with very easy to build items. You can very easily have a very high decor gain from a single room, without even intending for that to happen. There is reason why transit tube are transparent and duplicants notice decor around them even in a atmo-suit. It is supposed to be a very interesting puzzle with heavy watt wires and all, but literally nobody experiences it that way.

4. Nuclear power plants and plant mutations- They turned out to be quite pointless and underwhelming. There is almost no incentive to run the nuclear juggernaut. It is odd that it is named the Research Reactor, when it does not play any role in research at all, unless you are willing to bend over backwards to make it so. However, nuclear power plants are an exciting idea, so even without proper incentives, people do try to conquer it, and the mechanic is not entirely collecting dust in the corner.

There are probably more, but these are most striking examples, which cannot just be called my personal preference. (Though, I am adamant that Great Hall gives too much morale early game, even if I am the only one who seems to think that lol.)

[Gurgel]

1 hour ago, Magheat2009 said:

Here is a list of what I consider balancing issues with the game right now-

[...]

Well, pretty much as expected then. I do not agree on any of these being real problems. And I do not see any of these having a strong negative impact. Seems to me another "make everything harder for everybody because I would like that" request, which I find tiresome. This crops up time and again and in other contexts has ruined many games where the developers were stupid enough to listen. Fortunately not here. 

[BakerBob]

As a whole I consider the base cost of the game and the DLC a steal for the level of content and enjoyment I've gotten out of them. While yes microtransactions are frequently implimented poorly in a host of games, the DST model is one that imo balances the needs and wants of the devs with gameplay impact and player satisfaction.

If Klei ended support for ONI today with no future updates but due to the lack of long term funding available, I'd be sad but understanding. If non game play microtransactions along the lines of the DST model are needed to continue on the regular update path I'm all for it.

Those who dislike these transactions aren't loosing anything by not buying them, and aren't being incentivised to purchase them (assuming the DST model). I wholeheartedly welcome this model to ONI assuming the quality of updates is worth the trade off. While the sweet dreams update was slightly lackluster the performance improvements cannot be understated. If future updates are more substance orientated I'll be more happy, but no matter what if they retain the Klei quality we're used to I'll probably enjoy them to some extent.

[blakemw]

So obviously there are a variety of definitions of microtransactions.

Personally I don't mind small DLC on steam. Like with Cities Skylines, about half of its DLCs are nothing more than radio station packs that have no effect whatsoever on gameplay. Also content like digital artwork. These kind of small DLCs provide a way for players to throw more money at the developers without fracturing the community.

If I really enjoy a game and didn't pay much for it I don't mind paying $5 for a small DLC even if I know for sure I'm not going to get $5 of value out of that DLC. Like I happened to really enjoy playing Dungeons 3, so I purchased every single DLC, now there's no doubt at all that the base game provides way more value than the DLCs, I just wanted to pay more than I had paid. Similar with Surviving Mars, some of the DLCs are actually trash, but I bought them anyway because I felt I'd got enough value out of the base game.

So like if Klei released DLC on steam which is just digital artwork (wallpapers, concept art whatever) I'd probably pay $5 for it even if I never open it just because I feel like I haven't paid enough for ONI and Spaced Out.

I'm largely opposed to any kind of IAP that fractures the community into haves and have nots. In game cosmetics are tolerable but preferably the less significant the better, like a radio station DLC has no effect whatsoever on screenshots so that's good. I'd consider a golden toilet skin to be tolerable.

[ZombieDupe]

On 10/14/2022 at 3:05 PM, pether said:

ONI has 1000s of hours gameplay without even grinding systems, so that argument doesn't really fit ONI. Also, is it confirmed (eg by DST system) that ONI cosmetics will be grindy lootboxes? If not, why even bring this argument now?

What metric would you go for to reasonably argue that majority of 1000s of hours of gameplay in ONI really is not finnicky micromanagement and lots of waiting for things to happen? Because idling, staying paused for extended periods of time and finnicky micromanagement appears to take up a lot of gameplay time with ONI I find. There is a way to prove/disprove some of this by playing a session of the game for, say, 1000 or 2000 cycles until you complete everything you'd typically want to do in a playthrough (get all achievements for example), and seeing it through to the end of entering the temporal tear. Have that recorded, then on a spreadsheet, go again through over the footage and document how much time you spent doing things and observing some of the info real-time vs having the game paused, finnicking with micromanegement or just running the game at full speed to let dupes do something. Then add all that up, see how much time actual engaging gameplay time has been taken by the metric. My theory is it's going to be at least an approximate of 1:5 ratio or so, maybe even worse. This of course would be coming from a single playthrough of someone who is experienced and knows what they are doing, testing and observing their own experience thereafter, it's not a full documentation of a given player, but it would give some idea of what's true here. I would test this if I had the time, I started a gameplay session which is well over 1000 cycles in, but sadly did not record any of it for data assessment, plus I have some QOL mods installed anyway, so that would skew the numbers even more (blueprint mod especially since I don't have to spend time having the game paused, clicking on every section of a build to copy it over few tiles nearby).As for grind itself, that is more of a DST thing. Now the latest update for DST appears to be alleviating some of it now actually, despite years of having mechanics that would absolutely make you grind for resources and having to pick stuff up individually for minutes at a time very late into the game, or you having to set up a mechanical exploit farm of some kind to yield something that won't require so much tedium. That is still the case in many parts of the game, but we will see how it's changed going forward. Given how long most of that has been an issue and how any buff to efficiency has been almost superficial it appeared as though the grind was intentional. If it really truly wasn't, then there is definitely lack of testing along with lack of sufficient playtime on the designer/programmer side of things to come up with proper solutions, because half the QOL changes have been solely from year-long feedback of the community that was never addressed until now.

On 10/14/2022 at 3:05 PM, pether said:

That's why I said "if they were of a scope of DLC1". Also, I believe it's hard to make such DLC in ONI - one that's both big in scope and doesn't mess with other things. In ONI everything is closely connected to each other. Other games have easier time adding many DLCs of characters/maps/items. In ONI there are no characters that affect game in a big way, maps are generated randomly, items would need to affect game balace to be interesting. And even if you managed to make small, contained DLC it would look pale and not exciting when compared to SO!: DLC1 - unlocks totally new game mode, parallel bases, new sim systems, new buildings, new biomes with own critters and plants, new starting asteroids. DLC2 - here, we got a new biome for you - it contain's existing critters and plants not to disturb the balance, but it's new. 

Here lies our biggest difference about upcomming changes. I believe Klei when they said they are going to expand ONI by adding new features, systems, and mechanics, some of them of a scope of small DLC and I am super excited for that. I will gladly accept optional decorative system if that means Klei will have resources to continue adding good new content. Don't understand that I am excited for those cosmetics only - TBH I might not even care about them, I often ignore how my base looks, what my dupes wear etc. I am engineer, I have fun with ONI by solving problems and challenges with unique tools and mechanics. I am not excited that Klei will allow me to buy new painting variants I will ignore in my base - I am excited that I can buy them to support other changes that will make my game fun.

And believe me, if I will feel the game is moving in (IMO) wrong direction, focusing too much on cosmetics and not enough on gameplay, I will voice my opinion. I already addressed it at a time of Fast Friends update and I will do it again if future updates won't bring fun/unique/required changes to the game. But if they will, I will praise such update, believing that possitive feedback is as much important as constructive criticism - that doesn't make me Klei's cultist.

Here is a list of mechanics further DLC could explore (has potential for roughly 2 more DLC in my opinion).

Let's take combustion for example. I would assume new and existing resources (like coal or lumber) would be able to combust before they melt at a certain temperature with it. There may be some balancing issues if combustion mechanics are present on a planetoid balanced only for a gameplay with other DLC (I don't see that issue happening however if you're clever about it), but generally, I definitely think things could be make more uniform regardless. With the current Spaced Out planetoid layout, I even think Klei overcomplicated it yet at the same time made all the secondary planetoids way too much the same. There is a way to have done this much more simple, requiring less code, making sure things are uniform AND also making the secondary planetoid travels more interesting; make the secondary planetoids be the world generations of the other planetoids starts with some careful consideration for randomness pools (so you don't get magma/Volcenae planetoid as your second planetoid whn starting on Terra for balance and difficulty purposes). This would also mean, creating new planetoids with new biomes, critters, plants etc for DLC would also be an ease. Just add some at the end, and put them in the pool of randomly selected ones if DLC is enabled. But I guess I'm the only one who was clever enough to come up with that idea? Not entirely sure, but what they have now is kind of a mess they did not need to create at all.
 

On 10/14/2022 at 3:05 PM, pether said:

Merch is out of the question for me - as I live in Europe, I would pay more for shipping than for the items themselves. Also, I don't like buying useless things just to have them, I don't have enough space for them. This idea might be a good addition, but I don't think it can support ONI for as long as paid cosmetics.

I don't see how ONI could be educational nor how to earn money with it. Who you gonna teach? Pip ranchers? Saturn farmers? Astronauts? Oxygen breathers? Sure, it's better than FIFA or CS, but nothing in the realm of simulators you bring up.

When you think merch, you probably think just basic t-shirts with logos, plushies and plastic toys, am I correct on that assumption? That's bare bones. The merchandising potential for this game certainly can go two steps beyond that.

1) Trinkets with function. Maybe a complex timer of some sorts that looks like ones in the game, and while it may seem also as just a useless trinket at glance, it could also serve a function instead of just sitting on your desk or shelf. Maybe you could even have it delivered in parts with instructions to build one yourself, which goes into my next point.
2) Functional engineering toys to learn how these things work. Miniature buildings of ONI would be something to sell in this instance. Given they pass a risk assessment, it would work well not only for creative and useful toys to keep you thinking (I mean lego became a decades long franchise just from the idea of constructing blocks together) but also reinforce the educational potential. Schools, universities etc could order several of these to give something useful to build and learn the functionality of such systems, as opposed to cutting up frog guts and lighting dangerous chemicals on fire with no apparent reason. May very well still be a risky endeavor, but I'm thinking building a miniature electrolyzer that looks like the one in ONI, just smaller in scale. There is already a market for such toys, so imagine how much more that aspect could further the merchandise.

Shipping price for merch could be a potential issue however, but could be lessened if institutions and potentially even some stores were to buy in bulk for aforementioned reasons.

As for education in terms of the game itself, this game taught me the basics of thermodynamics. Something I could not grasp no matter what I was taught until I played the game. Then reading up and looking up some guides of the game a bit after having the more solid understanding of them because of it. Had it not been for ONI, I would be as clueless of it as I have been prior to it and it would be much more of a nightmare for me to even attempt to learn anything further about physics and engineering subjects. There is plenty more to go with that with the aforementioned merchandise strategies and DLC mechanic suggestions.

On 10/14/2022 at 3:05 PM, pether said:

not everyone is up to date with everything. that doesn't mean that Klei does shady things to conseal their evil plans in the future. I believe there were 3 announcements about future system already, they are pretty transparent about it.

You read that completely wrong, just pointing out something that I fully expected to some degree to have happened right there. I have no malice intended at all.

 

 

On 10/14/2022 at 3:05 PM, pether said:

Again - is that a case for DS? I understand DST is coop and by definition requires you to be online.

On 10/14/2022 at 3:21 PM, Primalflower said:

It isn't the case for either, really. To my understanding, you do not need to be online in order to play characters that you weave/pay for. In fairness, this is a fairly recent development, but I suppose while I'm at it i should also mention that out of the 7 "new" characters added to DST from DS,  3 are free entirely, 1 is free with the purchase of hamlet, and lets face it, all of them require an infinitesimal amount of effort to acquire if we're going by practically any other video game with a similar system at play.

Last I checked, if you had a paid character unlocked you COULDN'T play with it without having an online connection. But I just checked now, and unless I've mistaken something, it is now possible. Maybe I missed a hotfix, or they made that change unannounced. I did make a topic discussing that issue a while back, pointing out the issue, guess they must have actually addressed it, props to them for doing so. Seems as if though the skins you have already unlocked are usable as well, which is even better.

 

21 hours ago, Fleetfeet said:

My reasoning certainly isn't "other people like it so it must be good", it's that I'm an overly pessimistic butt, and the fact that I can't enjoy The Witcher 3 doesn't entitle me to be upset that other people do enjoy it.

You haven't made any compelling point. To some extent, criticism of a shift in the monetization model of ONI is merited; it's a good thing for people to discuss and there are MANY harmful microtransaction models we can look at. My issues with your approach are that you're citing issues sight unseen, doomsday forecasting the end of ONI via lootboxes and skins, with the supporting evidence being "lootboxes and skins are bad" and anecdotes about how they might implement such a thing. Pessimist though I am, I enjoy and have enjoyed ONI as what it is, and tend towards trusting Klei to make decisions for their own game. They've done well so far, and if they do "mess up" and implement unsavory microtransactions, then.. oh well, I just go play other games!

That's kinda where I'm at. You're coming across like a dupe in a sandwich board saying "THE END IS NEAR, MICROTRANSACTIONS ARE COMING" and that's not really something imma give much weight to.

Is your assumption that I'm somehow annoyed that other people enjoy what I don't? Because that is not the line of reasoning here at all. I look for value in the experience with thorough examination of it from my own and others' experience and think back to what people say about the game and why they might have said that. The contrast here doesn't have the reasoning you appear to have outlined here.

There is no doomsday forecast of any kind that I'm trying to make. Yet another assumption about my reasoning that is completely mistaken, or so it appears. I get the notion of black box - white box sort of thinking with how you're thinking about this issue in relation to what I have said. DST has always been a subpar game for many reasons, but primarily terrible game design in relation to its potential as a great horror-esque survival experience, which to be fair, makes sense given the time of original Don't Starve game's creation and the turmoil from what it was initially meant to be until its first few alpha builds.

While not quite there, Klei has improved in designing games they want from the start, as is seen with ONI, which they made several years later. There are games that are better designed, and there are ones that are worse than what Klei has produced, I've been here just hoping they listen and address what really needs to be be addressed if none else will so these two games can succeed further as whole experiences of their potential instead of stagnating. With microtransactions and DST, I would say it's overall ok, even if the game's potential is capped down just a little by them, and not as big of an issue as it would be introducing them into ONI because ONI has much more potential in a different sector that would absolutely be undermined a fair bit with the presence of them. Potential I have already outlined a little more in response to @pether in this post. There is a time and place for microtransactions, I don't think ONI is one for it. It can work, but I see it being a much bigger issue going forward than it would be for some other games. There can definitely be a lot of clash between having microtransactions in ONI and potential outlined by me, and some of the same stuff also being outlined by a few others as well, @arvenilmade a prime point about that, and that's just the start of potentially compounding issues.

19 hours ago, sylvia wander o said:

I'm at 3,000 hours in DST currently, and I've only got ~30 hours in ONI currently but my wife's been playing and loving it for a good 11k hours. Don't understand this claim that having lots of hours in a game is like, inherently bad, that's silly. Personally if I disagreed with a game's inclusion of skins and believed that it had gone down hill 7 years ago, I would quit playing and quit talking about it constantly, rather than continuing playing it and following the developer for 7 years after the fact.

It's about what it takes for you to do in those hours and how, to at least complete one full run to the end and having a great experience throughout to do it that matters. Since you only have a few dozen hours into the game, I don't expect you to have stumbled on these roadblocks yet, but key issues are:

* Finnicky micromanagement (think liquid locks and storage/sweep filters, it gets really annoying)
* Letting the game run for way too long to let duplicants finish building something (some of this has been alleviated with SO as you can just put your focus on another planetoid a bit more for setting up construction tasks while duplicants on the other planetoid finish what you set them out to do)
* Pausing the game way too long at times, trying to come up with a solution (much harder to work around, may even be ok at times to improve your problem-solving skills)

And of course the cooling issue still in the vanilla game. Expect to be stuck without guides or help at around cycle 200, unless you started playing with the DLC enabled. Developer-side solutions for these have been outlined before, or if they haven't, I may make a thread later on making the suggestion or outlining these issues more, as it may go off-topic from this, since this is more about the microtransaction side of things for ONI.

Most high-quality indie games usually take up around 20 hours to complete in my experience. Some may take less, like 5, some may take more, like 50 or even 100. But nothing of ONI or DST degree. And it's not because there is so much potential to be played through within 1000 hours casually, it's that a lot of it is spent on time sink issues that don't need to exist, yet haven't been addressed for years. Worse yet, not knowing what to do beyond a certain point to progress or even that there is content to be discovered and engaged in without looking up guides. Claiming they are sandbox games does nothing to wave the issues away, otherwise why even bother making a complete experience. There is a lot of replay value for ONI and DST, but that's not what I believe takes up most of the time people spend on these games. It's either time sinks trying to have fun in the game in-between the times you do and/or being an unpaid play-tester for Klei. Maybe even an unpdaid game designer/programmer to some extent if you go into modding and Klei implement exactly what you made themselves into their games.

[BakerBob]

20 minutes ago, ZombieDupe said:

 

Here is a list of mechanics further DLC could explore (has potential for roughly 2 more DLC in my opinion).

Let's take combustion for example. I would assume new and existing resources (like coal or lumber) would be able to combust before they melt at a certain temperature with it. There may be some balancing issues if combustion mechanics are present on a planetoid balanced only for a gameplay with other DLC (I don't see that issue happening however if you're clever about it), but generally, I definitely think things could be make more uniform regardless. With the current Spaced Out planetoid layout, I even think Klei overcomplicated it yet at the same time made all the secondary planetoids way too much the same. There is a way to have done this much more simple, requiring less code, making sure things are uniform AND also making the secondary planetoid travels more interesting; make the secondary planetoids be the world generations of the other planetoids starts with some careful consideration for randomness pools (so you don't get magma/Volcenae planetoid as your second planetoid whn starting on Terra for balance and difficulty purposes). This would also mean, creating new planetoids with new biomes, critters, plants etc for DLC would also be an ease. Just add some at the end, and put them in the pool of randomly selected ones if DLC is enabled. But I guess I'm the only one who was clever enough to come up with that idea? Not entirely sure, but what they have now is kind of a mess they did not need to create at all.
 

 

The primary reasoning behind no major dlc 2 is dev time/payoff and fracturing the community further. Assuming 2 DLCs plus the base game there are 8 different combinations of game running. Splitting both dev time to maintaining 3 active braches, modders frustration with 8 combinations of code base and just general community engagement is unattainable.

[Sasza22]

Ok where do i start...

I think theis thread is needed. The devs need to know how we feel about microtransactions. Obviously not everybody is happy about that. Althrough it`s important we see the pros and cons of it. Aslo we need to make sure they are implemented in a way they don`t interefere with how we enjoy to play the game. I see concerns that they might ruin our game experience. If they lock stuff like technology, traits and machines behind a paywall it would be pretty bad. But if they just make it cosmetic without it affecting how we play it wouldn`t hurt.

Now the thing is it all boils down to economic calculation. ONI might be Klei`s second biggest game (i don`t actually know the numbers though) after DST. Seeing how DST obviously makes them money they decided that ONI might work similarly. Remember when we got DLCs for DS? They put out 3 of them with the last being kinda unfinished. Now ONI got 1 DLC and would probably get another. That would be it. No more updates aside of maybe some bugfixes. With the DST model we won`t get a full dlc but we will likely get content for a much longer time. DST is still getting large scale updates after all those years. ONI isn`t that big but if it works out it might get supported for years to come instead of getting a final dlc in a year or so.

Microtransactions don`t mean the devs will focus exclusively on payed stuff. In DST most of the focus is on new content and skins are just a bonus. I see this as a chance for the game to survive longer and become prettier (possibly more silly but it already kinda is so it wouldn`t hurt IMO). It should still be possible to play it like we were used to and just ignore the paid content.

I know every company we used to love eventually becomes evil and greedy, then starts pumping more low quality stuff (Blizzard, Disney among others). Klei might eventually end like those giants as well. Yet i think it`s not that day yet and we can still expect some quality stuff down the line. But what could i know. Regulars on the forum know i`m an optimist and seek the good things among the bad ones so don`t feel like you have to agree with what i said.

[Magheat2009]

4 hours ago, Gurgel said:

This crops up time and again and in other contexts has ruined many games where the developers were stupid enough to listen.

In my experience, more games are ruined by calls to dilute the game and make them easier. The brutality of chess has hardly ever been a barrier to its popularity. The call is not to make things harder, but to make various aspects of it's design shine. In your opinion, the game is perfect, for me it is 8/10. I see possibility of greatness here, you are satisfied with the way things are. I can understand where you come from, ain't broke don't fix it.

In my opinion, food preservation nerf was one of the steps in right direction, towards a more "sensible" game. Notice, that contrary to what few idiots cried about on this forum, the change did not suddenly turn ONI into nightmare difficulty. It made the entire food mechanic, proper, sensible and beautiful. A game being hard and a game being cheesy are not in an either or relationship.

At the end of the day, I am of the opinion, that Oxygen Not Included, in its nature, is one of the harder games. However, a game being hard, does not mean necessarily mean a less enjoyable game. Celeste, is celebrated for its push your teeth in difficulty level. The reason it achieves that, it because it fulfills its design, rather than leaving it half baked. Not every game is supposed to be hard. Stardew Valley having Dark Souls difficulty combat would make no sense and break the vibe of the game.

My suggestion won't necessarily multiply the difficulty. Many of these have been tested by me in playthroughs. They take out unnecessary chessiness in a way which will game less likely to become boring and boiling down to solving different iterations of heat problems. There is more than enough morale to go around in early game, Great Hall just takes the thinking and puzzling out of it. Effects of some of these don't even kick in till mid or late game. +4 morale from barbecue is still good at that stage of the game, but preserves incentive for producing better food later on. If I have to make something 10% harder to make it 50% more interesting, I will take that trade.

[Gurgel]

20 minutes ago, Magheat2009 said:

 In your opinion, the game is perfect, for me it is 8/10.

And here we go again: YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME! Stop it! I never said anything like that. I will block you now though. 

 

[Magheat2009]

15 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

And here we go again: YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME! Stop it! I never said anything like that. I will block you now though. 

 

Just so that you know, I wondered if I should just block you or try to engage with you on this topic after I read the reply you gave to my previous comment. Turns out, you enter many conversations on this forum from simply an antagonistic point of view. There was nothing to be so upset about my presumption that you find the game to be perfect. There was no reason to shout and be rude. I hope this conversation gives a hint to people as to the quality of your contribution on this forum.

This is not the first time you have responded rudely to me, it has been the theme of all our conversations. Goodbye.

[Fleetfeet]

Guh.

@ZombieDupe

"I look for value in the experience with thorough examination of it from my own and others' experience and think back to what people say about the game and why they might have said that."

This line is not the only time you just straight contradict yourself (You also said "the average player doesn't play this game", which is a C O M I C A L thought xD) and I think I'm done interacting. For clarity, you claiming you look for value in the experience with thorough examination from yourself and others experience when you're willing to immediately discard evidence such as "Overwhelmingly positive reviews" and countless anecdotes of people greatly enjoying DST is DEEPLY IRONIC.

I'm out! Good luck with this thought experiment, though I don't know why you asked the question in the first place when you seem to struggle to listen to anyone else's opinion.

[Tranoze]

1 hour ago, Magheat2009 said:

There is more than enough morale to go around in early game, Great Hall just takes the thinking and puzzling out of it. Effects of some of these don't even kick in till mid or late game. +4 morale from barbecue is still good at that stage of the game, but preserves incentive for producing better food later on. If I have to make something 10% harder to make it 50% more interesting, I will take that trade.

Decrease food morale might work for base game, but for space out and space mission, food morale is the only thing keep my dupe sane. Spaceout DLC is the "20% harder to make it 60% more interesting" that you need. I think it fine for base game to be simple and not that hard as new player often try it first, and if you like more hardcore managing world, space out is the way to go.

[ZombieDupe]

3 hours ago, Fleetfeet said:

"I look for value in the experience with thorough examination of it from my own and others' experience and think back to what people say about the game and why they might have said that."

This line is not the only time you just straight contradict yourself (You also said "the average player doesn't play this game", which is a C O M I C A L thought xD) and I think I'm done interacting. For clarity, you claiming you look for value in the experience with thorough examination from yourself and others experience when you're willing to immediately discard evidence such as "Overwhelmingly positive reviews" and countless anecdotes of people greatly enjoying DST is DEEPLY IRONIC.

You would have to show at least one example of where exactly I may have contradicted myself, keeping in mind that opinions may change over time, for one reason or another. And for what reason is "the average player doesn't play this game" a comical thought?

"Overwhelmingly positive" is a metric based on recommendations, and if you look at the reviews more thoroughly, you'll understand why that positive outlook is there, despite the fact that the game is, and has been, for the longest time, an incomprehensible grind to play overall. That metric doesn't necessarily tell you the details of that experience. Neither do even many of the positive reviews, many of them go something along the lines of "Entered the game, went into a forest to chop trees, got attacked by a spider and died, 10/10".

It is decent to take a glance at it and determine what to expect going on usually. DST however, and possibly ONI a bit too, are rare exceptions where the quality isn't necessarily reflected based on the reviews. It's just that the prolonging 1000-hours issue has not made the issues clear enough to have anyone but those who stick with the game long enough see the flaws in them and just how major they really are. It is a very strange scenario of people not completing or engaging with most of the content with a game, and not writing anything specific and still recommend the games regardless indeed.

Given what I have told you, and the plethora of things I haven't had the time, energy or the relation to the topic to elaborate, especially without getting into a tl;dr zone, I stand by what I've said so far. You'll have to explore this yourself, but here's 2 videos as pointers. They don't necessarily relate to this topic all too much, but maybe you'll get a better understanding of where I was coming from with all of this eventually.

Playtesting: Avoiding Evil Data

Why the Sound of a Gun Had to Be Nerfed in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory

3 hours ago, Fleetfeet said:

I'm out! Good luck with this thought experiment, though I don't know why you asked the question in the first place when you seem to struggle to listen to anyone else's opinion.

Listening is not the same thing as agreeing. I can understand where you're coming from given your experience from what you have said but if you can't explain why you think what you think and can't understand what I'm trying to tell you and why, then who's really not listening here?

 

4 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

Now the thing is it all boils down to economic calculation. ONI might be Klei`s second biggest game (i don`t actually know the numbers though) after DST. Seeing how DST obviously makes them money they decided that ONI might work similarly. Remember when we got DLCs for DS? They put out 3 of them with the last being kinda unfinished. Now ONI got 1 DLC and would probably get another. That would be it. No more updates aside of maybe some bugfixes. With the DST model we won`t get a full dlc but we will likely get content for a much longer time. DST is still getting large scale updates after all those years. ONI isn`t that big but if it works out it might get supported for years to come instead of getting a final dlc in a year or so.

This is one point for which I'd like to bring up a thought that I don't ever actually hear anyone point out. Games don't need to be perpetually updated. In fact, I would argue no game has infinite potential for that to happen, very few would actually fall into a ballpark where you would probably want to update the game for well over a decade to meet the most potential it could have. Past a certain point, you may very well be just stuffing a game with redundancy, if it somehow happened to be a near perfect experience, generally speaking. I would have to agree with @Magheat2009 that currently ONI is an 8/10 experience overall, given the content it has, but if it had all the content it could reasonably have and were a near perfect experience, well, it would be reasonable to move on to a new project past that point, not try to think of something new just to keep player numbers on and microtransaction economy flowing. A game being in development for an extended period of time, to me seems like a struggle to either get a better game up and running, or perpetually changing and updating it for the sake of it, or both. With DST currently, I would say it's more of the former at the moment, but I have definitely seen the latter in a completely different game. Games as a service overall is just generally very anti-consumer and awful for a game's longevity when it is set up as a service.

8 hours ago, blakemw said:

Personally I don't mind small DLC on steam. Like with Cities Skylines, about half of its DLCs are nothing more than radio station packs that have no effect whatsoever on gameplay. Also content like digital artwork. These kind of small DLCs provide a way for players to throw more money at the developers without fracturing the community.

Curious, why would big DLC like Spaced Out fracture a community though, for a single player game none-the-less? Don't Starve's DLC system seems fairly decent, even if there are technical hurdles that would need to be streamlined if they were to add more DLC in the future or just wanted to make it all more comprehensive, though I do think as far as that is concerned, the game has peaked, even if the base game and the DLC could use some more quality content and QOL polish.

[Fleetfeet]

2 hours ago, ZombieDupe said:

You would have to show at least one example of where exactly I may have contradicted myself, keeping in mind that opinions may change over time, for one reason or another. And for what reason is "the average player doesn't play this game" a comical thought?

You goof, I provided two in that short reply! One being that you claim to value the feelings and opinions and reviews of others while simultaneously and immediately discarding "Overwhelmingly positive" as reviews, as well as several opinions of those disagreeing with you here. The second being that "The average player doesn't play this game" is a self-contained oxymoron. You cannot have an average player that is also not a player. It defies some very basic constructs of logic.

Also, hi! I'm a game developer with multiple games available on steam. I, too, find game design fascinating! Please don't pretend my failure to understand you is borne of a general ignorance involving game design and feedback.

[gabberworld]

6 hours ago, ZombieDupe said:

This is one point for which I'd like to bring up a thought that I don't ever actually hear anyone point out. Games don't need to be perpetually updated.

there comes now this point. lets say if they would not regularly update , would you be still here? you know games like those usually would be forgotten. but we are still here so it must be that they todo something right.

[Magheat2009]

15 hours ago, Tranoze said:

food morale is the only thing keep my dupe sane.

This is probably a good point. Still, not sure whether you necessarily need to do rocket missions with high morale requirement dupes. That is why piloting was moved from being a tier 4 skill to a tier 1 skill. Also, is producing surf and terf so hard? Sometimes I fear people are unwilling to have incentives introduced in the game because they have preconceived notions about what will be too difficult. Outcry over food preservation nerf and suit durability are good examples in my opinion. I will stop now, I am sidetracking the thread.

[Tranoze]

53 minutes ago, Magheat2009 said:

Still, not sure whether you necessarily need to do rocket missions with high morale requirement dupes. 

my rocket mission dupe all need digging 3 (for actually doing stuff in other asteroid) and exosuit training(so they can actually walk or land without dieing). one need to be able to capture critter, one need to be able to research geyser, and one need to be able to construct conveyer rail and heavy watt wire. Im playing moonlet so all important resources are from other asteroid, which is why job requirement for those dupe are so high. 

[ZombieDupe]

On 10/16/2022 at 12:22 AM, Fleetfeet said:

One being that you claim to value the feelings and opinions and reviews of others while simultaneously and immediately discarding "Overwhelmingly positive" as reviews, as well as several opinions of those disagreeing with you here.

I don't disregard them as reviews per se, they just aren't good quality reviews that give you any insight into why someone thought a given game has good qualities. The example review I gave you, describes what happened and claimed it was a positive experience. No details as to why that would be. But I do find it strange that after 3000 hours of play for DST, you as a game developer, would not realize the major flaws of the game. I could write you an entire detailed essay, and how to improve as well, though I don't see any particular point right now.

Any other game that tried to pull some of the stuff DST has, it would be bombed with some more negative feedback for sure. Negative qualities that DST holds are rarely ever discussed in reviews for one reason or another (one potential reason being, many players have not encountered them yet, or have not realized the scope of the game to judge it for it, but reviewed the game quickly, never to play it again anyway), but the issues that would tank most games are often disregarded in quality assessment of the game.

On 10/16/2022 at 12:22 AM, Fleetfeet said:

The second being that "The average player doesn't play this game" is a self-contained oxymoron. You cannot have an average player that is also not a player. It defies some very basic constructs of logic.

This could mean 2 things depending on your definition, and the above interpretation is neither of those. The "average player doesn't play this game" could mean someone who tried the game, but dropped it for one reason on another, . I the post I made before, if I recall correctly, both definitions can apply since I'm talking about ONI here. It is a rather nerdy game, there will be people who will drop it simply because it's not their thing, but there will also be people who will drop it due to gameplay problems, some of which I have outlined before. Then there will be the broader player bases of other games, among many who have never even heard of this game, some even disregarding it for being worth their time simply for being an indie game. That's what the "average player" part is supposed to mean, do you understand now? I hope we can get back on topic now.

On 10/16/2022 at 3:54 AM, gabberworld said:

there comes now this point. lets say if they would not regularly update , would you be still here? you know games like those usually would be forgotten. but we are still here so it must be that they todo something right.

Then make new games, as we should expect from games companies. Perpetual updating of a single game for no quality reason can undermine the many things I already mentioned. Better to have a quality product to last for ages rather than some service that due to lack of funding may eventually get dropped at sub-par quality.

[gabberworld]

38 minutes ago, ZombieDupe said:

Then make new games, as we should expect from games companies. Perpetual updating of a single game for no quality reason can undermine the many things I already mentioned. Better to have a quality product to last for ages rather than some service that due to lack of funding may eventually get dropped at sub-par quality.

they could also make this ONI for playstation 5, this mostly can handle that, not to mention that unity engine have consoles support

[Sasza22]

17 hours ago, ZombieDupe said:

This is one point for which I'd like to bring up a thought that I don't ever actually hear anyone point out. Games don't need to be perpetually updated. In fact, I would argue no game has infinite potential for that to happen, very few would actually fall into a ballpark where you would probably want to update the game for well over a decade to meet the most potential it could have. Past a certain point, you may very well be just stuffing a game with redundancy

I want to understand your point properly here. You want ONI updated but only to the point where the updates add to the gameplay. And you think with the DST model it will be updated beyond that point which adds nothing useful just wastes dev time which could be used on a sequel or another interesting game. Did i understand you right?

Personally i think ONI has enough potential to be expanded for a long while. The amount of ideas i`ve seen on the forums could fill the next 3-4 DLCs. Obviously at some point we will exhaust the possibilities but i think we are far enough from that to not be concerned about it yet. At some point it might deteriorate into a skin only cash grab but at that point most people will leave the game. It`s a niche game after all so they can`t just go for useless updates and hope it works. When people lose interest updates will stop and free the devpower for something else.

For now though i think the perspective of continous support is better than the game ending after the next dlc. And if they add something annoying there are always mods that can disable it. I can see an "good`ol times" mod in the future which makes the game play like it is now.

[Fleetfeet]

10 hours ago, ZombieDupe said:

I don't disregard them as reviews per se, they just aren't good quality reviews that give you any insight into why someone thought a given game has good qualities. The example review I gave you, describes what happened and claimed it was a positive experience. No details as to why that would be. But I do find it strange that after 3000 hours of play for DST, you as a game developer, would not realize the major flaws of the game. I could write you an entire detailed essay, and how to improve as well, though I don't see any particular point right now.

Any other game that tried to pull some of the stuff DST has, it would be bombed with some more negative feedback for sure. Negative qualities that DST holds are rarely ever discussed in reviews for one reason or another (one potential reason being, many players have not encountered them yet, or have not realized the scope of the game to judge it for it, but reviewed the game quickly, never to play it again anyway), but the issues that would tank most games are often disregarded in quality assessment of the game.

This could mean 2 things depending on your definition, and the above interpretation is neither of those. The "average player doesn't play this game" could mean someone who tried the game, but dropped it for one reason on another, . I the post I made before, if I recall correctly, both definitions can apply since I'm talking about ONI here. It is a rather nerdy game, there will be people who will drop it simply because it's not their thing, but there will also be people who will drop it due to gameplay problems, some of which I have outlined before. Then there will be the broader player bases of other games, among many who have never even heard of this game, some even disregarding it for being worth their time simply for being an indie game. That's what the "average player" part is supposed to mean, do you understand now? I hope we can get back on topic now.

Then make new games, as we should expect from games companies. Perpetual updating of a single game for no quality reason can undermine the many things I already mentioned. Better to have a quality product to last for ages rather than some service that due to lack of funding may eventually get dropped at sub-par quality.

Incorrect! It's literally an oxymoron. While you can claim to have meant "The average GAMER doesn't play this game" or "The average player doesn't play this game ANYMORE" those are both fundamentally different statements than the one you made. 

Also, as a point of order, I have not, and have not claimed to have played DST for 3,000 hours, and while I wouldn't question either of our abilities to write a lengthy essay about its shortcomings, I do very much doubt the value of said essays, as neither you nor I have proven ourselves more successful devs than the people at Klei. Being a critic is all well and good, but do note that you're being the 'evil playtester' in one of the lectures you yourself linked.

Lastly, if you do have interest in 'getting back on topic', I am not stopping you from doing so, and have voiced my opinion on the topic at the start of this page.

[SharraShimada]

On 10/15/2022 at 7:00 PM, Magheat2009 said:

for me it is 8/10.

And how many games you would consider a 10/10 for YOU?

Everyone here has to deal with the pure fact, not everybode likes or dislikes the same things. So a overall 10/10 Game for everyone just can NOT exist.

(Except you make it 100% modular, which would take forever, and in the end some of the gamers would still complain, because they dont like x or y)

ONI is a 8 out of 10 for you? Be happy. Its as good as it will ever get. 

I have >4000 hours into the game. Yeah i do not like some of the aspects. For most of them i found workarounds or mods from our gigantic mod-team. (i cant thank them enough...)

The game is still not 100% perfect. It may never be. Thats how it works, if the game is not made for you, and for you alone. 

[ZombieDupe]

23 hours ago, Fleetfeet said:

Incorrect! It's literally an oxymoron. While you can claim to have meant "The average GAMER doesn't play this game" or "The average player doesn't play this game ANYMORE" those are both fundamentally different statements than the one you made. 

To me it was semantics, I tend not to use the word "gamer" at all. But if substituting the word, makes more sense for you, sure, go for that.

23 hours ago, Fleetfeet said:

Also, as a point of order, I have not, and have not claimed to have played DST for 3,000 hours...

My mistake, someone else had mentioned that, happens sometimes when there's a lot to discuss.

23 hours ago, Fleetfeet said:

Being a critic is all well and good, but do note that you're being the 'evil playtester' in one of the lectures you yourself linked.

I half expected you to mention that, may very well be true, but I think that's less of a concern on my side when I attempt to do what the devs themselves do, so there's quite a bit more retrospective feedback that I, and I'm sure you too, can provide because of that aspect.

18 hours ago, SharraShimada said:

The game is still not 100% perfect. It may never be. Thats how it works, if the game is not made for you, and for you alone. 

I never thought of it that way and I don't think the Magheat thinks of it that way either. There can be overlap, but many changes I have personally voiced about ONI barely even affect my own gameplay experience I have had so far. Some of it is purely from the perspective of seeing how it would be better for other players, even if they themselves or none else recognizes it.

[tuxii]

I want Klei to make money from Oxygen Not Included because it is a great game and they continue to update it.

I hope they come up with sensible way to monetize it since they've moved away from DLCs.  I would've paid $5 for this Dream Update no problem.  I already own the base game, the DLC and the soundtrack.

However, I don't even see how microtransactions could work in ONI and I probably would pass on them.

Maybe I should by the poster.