Can Klei PLEASE fix the rage-quit trigger mechanisms?

[Dragony]

Face it. The dupes are only doing a good job when it doesn't matter. Hmmm... isn't that the definition of incompetence? "You are capable of doing it unless it matters..." LOL!

I have invested way too many hours in ONI. In the meanwhile I have accepted that the physics are just completely screwed up. (I won't go into detail here. I just refer to this one: https://steamcommunity.com/app/457140/discussions/2/3377008022021528838)

But one thing I just can't accept is the ultra stupidity of that dupes! After a few rage-quits I have finally rage-uninstalled ONI and I hope it stays that way until Klei fixes the obvious stupidity of that Dupes.

It becomes obvious if you send two dupes to a new planetoid in order to build a new outpost there. Naturally, the race begins anew, which isn't neccessarily a bad thing, because in the meantime your main colony is probably in a stable state so that you can leave it alone for 100 cycles.

I like challenges, so I decide to do it with 2 dupes, which should be enough, shouldn't it? Probably I have played too much Terraria...

Of course I haven't skill scrubbed them. Let them cry I thought. I made sure I didnt send that idiotic binge eaters, tho. (btw, never send binge eaters or destructive Dupes to space when you plan them to enter stress mode....)

Long story short, I failed. Not because I am unable to know what to do, but I am unwilling to micro manage the tasks to the neccessary level.

1. Why do they STILL only fetch 100 kg of that granite from the edge of the map when they know there is much more to build? NO, I will NOT build a storage first, set it to sweep only, select granite and priorize storage to highest and then hand-select a few tons. GET A BRAIN! So I have watched them running around most of the time. In the end they build 5 tiles in one cycle. Great job.

2. There is a big dig job on the far right side of the base. One dupe is far right, one dupe is left. I buy 2 ladder pieces on the left side. Since the building priority is highest, the left Dupe builds only one(!) ladder piece and the other dupe, besides being far away, runs 30 seconds to the left to build the second ladder piece, which takes one second. Then he runs 30 seconds back, tries to continue digging, but oh well, shift is over. Great job. NO, I will NOT build a door and manually lock it. GET A BRAIN!

3. That dig job is around 30x2 tiles, but easy tiles. The dupes are real pros, so one tile needs less than a second. 60 seconds for the job, you might thing. WHY on earth do that dupe waits around 4 seconds before doing the next tile? Just standing there and thinking about his life? Did I say 60 seconds? He needed half the cycle for it. Nearly the whole shift.

So I was sitting there face-palmed, looking what on earth they are doing while one dupe was crying half cycle (which isn't bad. Crying gives relief! Stress goes back to 60% so you can calculate with it and crying is one of the most harmless traits) and from time to time the starvation message popped up. Which isn't a problem. Enough muckroot buried everywhere. Just DIG THAT THING UP! Hey sweetie... there is some muckroot. Stop crying and eat it, would ya? Aww come on, your calories are dropping... you should really eat... where are you going with it? no.. please don't sit there on top of a long ladder... you could.... no dont let it drop... ok now he is crying again... could you please just... oh.... died. Yeah. Cried until dead. Completely reasonable. Thank you. Uninstalled.

 

[sakura_sk]

so... Why didn't you skill-scrub them if you knew what was going to happen? I have no intention to argue, I'm just wondering.

I lead dupes to space before and didn't care about their morale acknowledging there will probably be a time I just watch them do nothing but vent.. Some of them survived to tell the story 

Spoiler

How else would you find out...

...that ugly criers can create vacuum around them?
 

(Nails was cuter at creating vacuum though)

...or that destructive ones can angry-build?

...or that forgetting who the flatulent one was, wouldn't be wise to send them build the new planet?

..or that looking back just at the right moment, it can prevent a disaster from happening?

[QuQuasar]

There are certainly things that can happen in ONI to cause you to ragequit. What you've described, though, seem more like a series of preventable errors.

• Sent only two dupes, then refused to manage their job orders.
• Severely underestimated ugly crier and did nothing to negate stress.
• Refused to build with local materials and did nothing to relocate the materials when you noticed the problem.
• Dug with ladders, which require three job priorities, instead of by digging stairs, which require one.  
• Underestimated the productivity loss from lag.

[Dragony]

Just being able to name ways how the problems could have been avoided doesn't automatically mean the way it's implemented is good as it is. If you think that Dupes act reasonable, then fine. Maybe Klei thinks the same and won't fix anything. Fine as well.

I just decided to share my story, while others maybe just quit, thinking "Good idea, bad implementation" and play another game. I actually know a few players who have quit ONI because of similar shortcomings.

No offense meant. I wanted to report it, and I did. I assume Klei values it's customers feedback, may it be positive or negative.

 

[GuyPerfect]

Here I am being upset that they don't at least take the two seconds to finish their task before OOPS BREAK TIME. Like really, you were halfway through wrangling that Drecko, do you have to go to the potty now? Just finish what you were doing!

[SharraShimada]

So, you know, the mechanics are flawed, and you already know possible solutions, but you refuse to apply them... 

I guess, you should play another game.  

[NeoDeusMachina]

The best thing you can do for yourself is accept that ONI is not a physics simulator, it's a game with its own sets of rules and "governing laws". Dupes AI, priority, errands, is one of the many systems you have to understand. Only advice I can give you is to stop trying to apply what you think you know about real life physics to ONI, and instead try to understand what it is that you are dealing with in ONI, what are those rules, constraints, etc. Then, instead of raging on the forums or rage uninstalling ONI, you can try to play within those sets of rules and everything should go well. You can try to find solutions that work within the ONI world instead of applying real world solution to a video game.

I have heard "it doesn't make sense" way too many times about a video game with genetic ooze printed duplicants shooting weird laser digging guns and cohabiting with weird but cute looking three-eyed-flying space critters. Honestly, you will save yourself so much time and frustration if you can just accept that, and then you can start enjoying the game for what it is, and enjoy real life physics, problems, and solutions when you are doing real life stuff. What "doesn't make sense" to me is when expectations are that somehow, if something in ONI is not implemented in a way that it obeys whatever law of conservation you can name, then it would not be well implemented. Would you go around in real life studying a "real physical system" for the first time and rage at mother nature for implementing it wrong because you can't quite understand it yet?

[Dragony]

With that argumentation logic you can justify just everything. I am talking about common sense. If a dupe starves because he prefers crying instead of eating because the last two days/cycles weren't very brightful, then that is not common sense.

With that argumentation, you could justify Klei implementing a logic that dupes die by freezing if they don't touch lava at least once per cycle. Because you can argument the same way. "You can do it easily that they can touch lava once per cycle. It's possible, just do it and you will be happy."

I don't need a flawless game, but I don't want it to be ridiculous either.

 

@sakrua_sk I didnt see your hidden content until now. LMAO. Seems you are a real pro and know most of the quirks of the game and how to use them for your advantage. I don't understand the last pic tho. What disaster is going to happen? That dupe won't be buried, just sit atop of that tile until you order them to destruct the tile again.

Actually I was in a shock situation as I only sent one Dupe to a new planetoid (obviously played too much Terraria....) and he managed to get head-stuck while building tiles.... THAT one was screwed. Unfortunately I forgot making a screenshot...

 

 

[6Havok9]

Dupes are "simple minded" and you have partial mind control on them according to the lore.

Working around stress, dealing with bad traits, building something without getting someone entombed or stranded is a good chunk of the game. They have a pretty limited brain, but you don't.

A "perfect" automatic resource and worktime allocation routine would not belong in this game. It would make it an idlegame equivalent of sandbox mode.

You are their routine! 

Dupes really need to finish their current task before going for their downtime activities. Even if it means allocating more free time. And we have lots of free time activities for them.

This is the "ragequit" moment I experienced the most. One can plan around duplicant inherent stupidity when building or digging, but having to cancel orders before downtime just because a critter or ultrahot piece of material could be dropped in the most inappropriate place is not fun at all.

[Mastermindx]

2 hours ago, 6Havok9 said:

but having to cancel orders before downtime just because a critter or ultrahot piece of material could be dropped in the most inappropriate place is not fun at all.

I quite relate to this...  Even worse is that if the transported item was marked to sweep, it loses it's "Sweep" tag. So if the only storage is "Sweep only", it will never get picked back up. So much ice melted in the middle of my base because of this.

[sakura_sk]

6 hours ago, Dragony said:

I don't understand the last pic tho. What disaster is going to happen? That dupe won't be buried, just sit atop of that tile until you order them to destruct the tile again.

I was timing the build around the geyser to be at the in-between eruptions while I was doing other things around the base. The door was there so the dupes wouldn't build themselves to the geyser's side. That dupe deciding to build a tile while standing on top of it means they would stay there while the geyser erupted meaning scalded dupe -> slow dupe -> more dupes would go for help if you even consider to deconstruct that tile using yellow alert meaning -> dead dupe in the next 3.. 2.. 1 eruption. If I remember correctly Marie was also my only build-digger with an extra "free" skill (I don't remember if it was mechatronics or rancher). Hence-> Disaster about to happen!

[melquiades]

For 3, unfortunately, the only way to minimize it is by installing the Fast Track mod, so to increase the performance of the game. The dupes not doing anything is just the game saving CPU time to compute other stuff.

[ZombieDupe]

I eagerly await the release of your thoroughly researched paper on exactly how to program AI in a game that requires mid-level computing components, such that multiples of them work in tandem to always do what you could consider "common sense" from an out-of-the-box perspective.

[Dragony]

What?????

... Oh ok. You are completely right. We can't make it perfect. So nothing can be done. You smart, me stupid. Topic done.

Excuse me, but I am gonna play some Factorio with my friends now.
PS: If a developer decides to go the path that the player has nearly no direct control, then they also have to be aware about the difficulties this decision brings along. Maybe a solution would be that the player can print themself in the pod. A special "super dupe" the player can directly control like in Terraria, without needs like food or toilets. Critical tasks don't happen very often, but if, I would love to take full control.

[QuQuasar]

I was originally responding from a gameplay perspective, but since you seem to have moved onto the more technical side of things, I'll try to explain my understanding of some of your issues...

Quote

1. Why do they STILL only fetch 100 kg of that granite from the edge of the map when they know there is much more to build?

They actually do batch their jobs. Specifically, they pick up and bring over any reachable materials of the same type within a 3-tile radius of the targeted pile, and bring them to any reachable buildings within a three-tile radius of their targeted construction.

Batching causes it's own issues, however: of particular note, construction supply jobs take longer and are more prone to being interrupted by things like downtime and gasping, and other duplicants are prevented from helping since the dupe who batched it has dibs. And to be clear, this is fundamental to the way ONI assigns jobs. Two dupes cannot be assigned to the same job.

I assume the 3-tile radius was chosen as a compromise between the problems of not batching and the problems of batching.

On 11/11/2022 at 11:33 PM, Dragony said:

2. There is a big dig job on the far right side of the base. One dupe is far right, one dupe is left. I buy 2 ladder pieces on the left side. Since the building priority is highest, the left Dupe builds only one(!) ladder piece and the other dupe, besides being far away, runs 30 seconds to the left to build the second ladder piece, which takes one second.

There is no technical solution to this. The closer dupe could interrupt the further dupe, but that would only cause worse problems like dropping resources. The further dupe could prioritize the local dig job over the more distant construction job, but that would be going against your explicit orders. The first dupe could try to batch the second ladder piece as part of the first job, but they can't actually pathfind to the second ladder piece when the job is assigned, so there's no way to batch the supply job without delivering resources through solid tiles.

Ultimately, this behavior is exactly what you want in the very early game, when you've three duplicants who build and dig slowly and need to operate in parallel to get things done. Any solution would have to not break the early game.

8 hours ago, Dragony said:

PS: If a developer decides to go the path that the player has nearly no direct control, then they also have to be aware about the difficulties this decision brings along.

They are. That's why yellow and red alerts, proximity priority, schedules and the entire priorities page exist.

The reason Klei can't provide some form of direct control is because not having direct control is a design premise of ONI, one it shares with most colony simulators. Managing your colonies workload and your duplicants time efficiency such that critical tasks continue to get done in a reasonable timeframe is what the game *is*.

Ultimately, enjoying a colony simulator means working within and around the limitations of the AI agents. I measure the quality of a colony simulator by whether or not the game gives you the tools to do that, and by that measure, ONI is one of the good ones.

 

[SharraShimada]

On 11/27/2022 at 5:02 PM, Dragony said:

What?????

... Oh ok. You are completely right. We can't make it perfect. So nothing can be done. You smart, me stupid. Topic done.
 

Well. Finally!

Have fun

[village_idiot]

On 11/27/2022 at 9:02 AM, Dragony said:

What?????

... Oh ok. You are completely right. We can't make it perfect. So nothing can be done. You smart, me stupid. Topic done.

Excuse me, but I am gonna play some Factorio with my friends now.

I mean, if you’re happier playing factorio, go play factorio? Not every game is going to be the same, nor will they be for everyone. Why spend time raging here at everyone who disagrees with you when you know what would make you happy?

[Primalflower]

On 11/12/2022 at 10:13 AM, 6Havok9 said:

Dupes are "simple minded" and you have partial mind control on them according to the lore.

only when you want to! Isn't the "move to" command the only bit of mind control that the dear printing pod employs?

[tuxii]

3 hours ago, Primalflower said:

only when you want to! Isn't the "move to" command the only bit of mind control that the dear printing pod employs?

When a dupe goes for break just before finishing an errand you can often make them turn right around and finish the task by making it a yellow alert priority.

[asurendra]

Give dupe complicated logic looks appealing ofc, but there is huge "STOP" sign, and it is called "lags". Even with current level of intellect pathfinding eats a lot of CPU time. If Klei adds additional checks it will make things much, much worse. And you know that we will not get better CPUs in next 10 years. So we have to work with technical capabilities we have. Thats means sometimes dont do "the best" things. Sad but true

[cpy]

If you wanted to play with physics go to flippin university, study hard become engineer build stuff in real world!

You want to whine about stupid dupes? Write logic in C# / C++ and give it to Klei.

This game is designed to be a game with some challenges to overcome. YOU are overseer! YOU have to make sure dupes don't do stupid stuff! You control their decisions. That makes me feel like you suck at this game.

Also those freezes are there because Klei aren't the best coders when it comes to optimizing code. But it runs somewhat tolerable now with performance mod. They made the best 2D colony sim game so far. Music is great, sound effects are great. Not everyone is perfect. I used to rage quit due to horrible performance in game. But with fasttrack mod I don't have to! Game now runs bearably ok-ish.

[village_idiot]

I personally view dupe stupidity and stubbornness as part of the game mechanics. 

[Slvrsrfr]

some heartless replies.

I sympathize OP

[Glassyfo]

I don't. His language and phrasing invited it.

[nyonyonyo]

Part of the fun is watching your base implode due to lack of attention and micromanagment. Happened quite a lot to me. Solution? Regularly have multiple saves and reload if you need to rollback. The thing with the game is you play with the rules and limitations you have been given and work around them.