Bioprinting Duplicants - Fixing Core Game Mechanics

[Rusjcd]

Attempt number two.
Hello, I love your game very much; it's my favorite.

But there are a couple of things that really ruin the experience.

First, I ask again, please make it possible to select a specific duplicants on the starting duplicant selection screen and then reroll them.
Who would be harmed by this? Why not? I like specific duplicates, and I spend a lot of time rerolling the characters I need and like.

I don't play with mods on principle.
And by the way, why do achievements work with mods? Don't you think that's wrong? Or what's the point of disabling achievements in sandbox mode?

 

The second question is more profound.

I'd like to discuss the entire system for selecting new characters to print.

I see that even after so many years, you're still improving the game and making important changes. So let's discuss this existing system.
What's the point of this random gamble?

Characters' attributes and skills greatly influence the game, so naturally, you try to choose the best characters, or at least those that suit you.

No matter how you play, whether you try to play fairly or use save-load cheating, this system is equally infuriating. It's terrible and pointless.

95% of the characters offered are absolute garbage. You'll never take them. I can't imagine a situation where you really need to take someone urgently and you'd have to choose from several completely inconvenient, unnecessary characters. Perhaps in some complex worlds with some additional difficulty settings, this system would add complexity and interest, but how much of a gameplay time do such situations represent? I've never encountered this.

More often, something completely different happens. The existing character printing system adds no interest or challenge whatsoever. It simply SLOWS YOU DOWN. That's it.

Seriously, who in their right mind, playing a regular game, would happily choose characters with interests in, say, digging and cooking? Or operating, supplying, and ranching?

Most professions are professions where it's better to have maximum stats in one attribute. And even if there are good combinations, like operating and supplying, they absolutely don't need junk interests that reduce the necessary attributes.

And then there are personality traits. You still haven't fixed the situation where a character has an interest in a particular profession and a personality trait that reduces attributes in that same profession. Does this seem plausible to you? Like, a character loves to cook, but they're terrible at it? Okay. But who are you making a game for? Do you think anyone would pick a character like that? It's just another garbage option that no one will ever choose, but it takes up all the choice slots.

And then there are absolutely garbage traits in general. For example, anemic. I'm a simple man. I see anemic, I cross that character out of my choice. Not only is it an unacceptable trait, but for some reason it takes away 5 points of athletics, while other traits only take away 3 points. Why 5? As a result, a character with anemia is completely unplayable. No one ever picks them, except once, when they realize it's red-flagged forever.

And there are only four options when printing. And some of them are resources. Most of which are also absolutely garbage options. And that's another problem. If you need something specific, you'll never get it. But resources aren't that important; characters are, so you simply skip resources. But resources also take up choice slots.

As a result, if you play fairly, you simply skip most of the printouts. Yes, you might print some junk resources. But if you only have a choice of duplicants, you simply skip them. What does this stupid system give us? More fun? No. More difficulty? Not at all. The only result is that you progress slower. That's it. Period. So you're just wasting your time waiting for three or five duplicates to do what ten could do ten times faster.

Does this improve the gaming experience? Not at all.
Does this make the game better for beginners? Not at all.
Does this make the game better for experienced players? That's hateful. As an experienced player, you know various aspects of the game well, you can do cool things, almost everything in the game depends on you and your skill. But this crap is the only thing holding you back. It's something you can't influence in any way, and it doesn't give you any new or unique gaming experience. It's simply a pointless waste of time.

On the other hand, if you play using save-and-load, the game still doesn't get much more enjoyable. Sure, you don't waste time on a boring game with three and a half characters, but you waste a ton of time on endless rerolls. It's the most frustrating experience, staring at hundreds and thousands of completely useless, garbage choices when you simply have nothing to choose from.

And again, why do we need this terrible system if we have the ability to reload the game and get a new choice on the same turn? That is, both on the very first selection screen when you start the game, and throughout the game, we have the opportunity to customize the character we want. But if we want to do that, if we want to play comfortably, with good characters, then we must first SUFFER a lot of time. Why? For what purpose?

I've played this wonderful game for several thousand hours. This is the game I've played the most on Steam. And I thoroughly enjoyed it for most of it. But I also spent almost a quarter of that time just rerolling. And it was a terrible, hateful experience.

Yes, I play using save-load because I'm wasting time anyway, but at least this way the gameplay itself will be interesting and exactly how I want it to be.

I used to play fairly, but I'm tired of these pointless restrictions. I want to progress as quickly and efficiently as possible. And for that, I need good characters. That's why I regularly reload character selection.
And yes, I'll say right away: if you keep the existing printing system but decide to simply remove the reload option so that save-load cheating no longer works, then that will be my last day playing this wonderful game.

 

So, I beg you.
Please change this system; it's terrible and useless. And I beg you, don't leave it to mods, as you usually do. Fix this in the vanilla game. I want your wonderful game to be perfect in every way, and this system is the only thing that's ruining it.
It's important to change this in the vanilla game because it will make it more friendly to new players. People who are playing games for the first time never play games with mods. They play the vanilla game without mods. The other day, my wife, who has been watching me play ONI for 10 years, decided to start playing too. I taught her the basics, but I still couldn't explain the purpose of this stupid printing system; it looks more like a bad gambling game than a well-thought-out game mechanic in an engineering game.

And there are many possible solutions to this problem. From the simplest, for example:
- Give more options. Not just 4, but at least 12 options on every print.
- Remove junk combinations. Clean up the choices no one wants to make.

To more thoughtful ones:
- The best option is to let people create the characters they want.

First, I'd like to be able to choose a specific character—Ellie, Max, Gossman, etc.
Second, at a minimum, we should be able to choose the interests of the Duplicants ourselves. That's why we're here. I don't need junk characters. I'll still spin or wait for the people I need. So why not give us the option to choose the ones we need right away?

Third, traits and features. And here we can take different approaches.
The most obvious is to create a balance system. Let there be a set number of points, and we can choose different traits that have different "weights": some provide benefits and deduct balance points, others provide penalties but also provide balance points. Ultimately, you build the character you want, with a specific set of strengths and weaknesses.
Another option is to give us complete freedom to choose and customize the entire character background.
A third option is, okay, let traits be random. At least give us the option to choose interests.

 

And one more important point. Over the years—I've been playing practically since the game's first release in Steam Early Access—a multitude of difficulty settings have been added. And almost all of them make the game easier than the standard version. So, you're trying to make the game more beginner-friendly. But all these settings are also quite excessive. If you're going to add a difficulty setting, then you should definitely give us the option to disable this horrible gambling system, where almost every option is a losing one.
So here's another solution: make it so that you can disable this gambling in the game's difficulty settings, allowing you to choose and customize your characters yourself. Just don't make it so unbalanced that you disable achievements.

Once again, as a devoted fan of yours, I sincerely ask you to resolve this issue. If you do, I'll reward you in a few years, too. I promise, and you won't regret it.

 

 

NOTE for Dear Forum Visitors! If you're not a game developer, please don't reply to me. Don't give me advice. Don't tell me about mods. If you disagree with me and don't want to support my request, simply ignore this post. Thank you for your understanding.