Concern about paywalls

[cheeees]

(If someone read the post I made some minutes ago, I hid it because I didn't like how I worded it. Don't mean to make spam btw)

So I wanted to make a post alone regarding the realese of the DLC and I have to say, objectively somethings feel intentionally locked behind the DLC and kinda dislike that.

What are those things?

Paywall for better fish

This one has already been said but still, the points are that:

Pacu got nerfed with the update and the DLC, since water critters in a way got a rework to how they work.

Now the thing about that is, anyone that hasn't bought the DLC is getting an inferior version of not only pacu, but jawbos too.

The grooming station gives a unique +5 happiness to critters, the problem here is that the +5 happiness are only aplied with the grooming station. There is no other way to get the groomed buff for pacu or jawbos.

The easy fix would be to make the aquiatic grooming station a base game addition.

Paywall for light production

The DLC added a brand new light producing building, the "Jelly ceiling lamp", this ceiling lamp produces 3 times the lux a regular ceiling light produces, at the same time it consumes 3 times the watts the regular ceiling lamp does.

Problem: with 4 or 5 jelly lamps, you can accomplish the 10000 lux requirement gas grass, bonbon trees, and beachchairs have. Outclasing sun lamps and breaking some balance.

Seems like an easy fix to add them to base game, or add a new ceiling light that does the same thing the jelly lights do with the exception of it not being submergable.

Paywall for swimming

I just can't see any reason for swimming skills to be locked behind the DLC.

They would be a great addition to base game, duplicants can now swim. Making exploration, progression and desinging buildings get a nice fresh air with the new possibilities.

Problem is, that is locked behind the credit/debit card.

So people withouth the DLC miss the opportunity to make the duplicants swim and get a new movement option, and not only that, but the tier 1 swimming skill is another example of powercreep behind a paywall, since it increases dupes breath, people with the DLC can have duplicants work for longer in unbreathable zones.

Paywall for some quality of life additions

The clearest example of this was the insulated conductive wire.
Still, I don't get why the mini-fridge had to be DLC exclusive and same thing goes for the glass background walls.

Now why pointing out those things? Becuase it can lead to the next DLC to do the same thing, locking a feature that could be used in any game and isn't exclusive to the DLCs biomes.

[Paperbag]

57 minutes ago, cheeees said:

The clearest example of this was the insulated conductive wire.

I'm pretty certain the 4KW wires were actually added to base-game, they're made with Plastic. It's in the patch notes.

I'm more or less indifferent to the other stuff tbh, but I think the Aquatic Grooming Station should definitely be added to base-game. The Pacu mechanics change was perfectly fine, but for people without the APP, Pacu ranching is genuinely worse now.

Edited June 13 by Paperbag

[ALCRD]

1 hour ago, cheeees said:

I just can't see any reason for swimming skills to be locked behind the DLC.

I thought they added this to base game too without needing the dlc, no?

[Gurgel]

We have capitalism and even very benign commercial enterprises need to make money? Also, look at the actual prices, and then think about how many hours you have to work for that and how many hours of entertainment you are getting. And then maybe stop complaining about things costing a very low amount of money compared to the value provided?

[missasch]

It is completely normal for a business to charge money for a product. If they did all things for free they would not be in business anymore. 
Many times in the past they have added new things to the base game and so perhaps they will still add the aquatic grooming station to the base game. And if they don’t I’m sure a mod will fix the issue. They have also much later made changes that update things (think about plug slugs needing only ore and being updated to refined metals, which are renewable, this was added much later)

Because they care about their game they are constantly trying to balance it. In the past pacu were very easy to do ridiculous things to. So they have been making changes, then they see how the community uses those changes and then tweak them a bit. So it’s quite possible if people have a hard time with this change they will tweak it again. But the tone of your post is extremely entitled, if you want them to listen maybe think about how you would respond to someone throwing around a lot of accusations when all you were trying to do was balance the game. 
I have over 4,000 hours in this game. The amount of money I have spent on it is nothing compared to other games, there are many developers that have rather predatory behaviors, this is not one of them. 

[yvvt0379]

It's like selling hamburgers and you pay money for bread, meat pie, sauce and everything, but one day they announce that they removed everything between two slices of bread and you only get the bread slices; meat pie and sauce? Pay extra money.

Edited June 13 by yvvt0379

[Fleetfeet]

13 minutes ago, yvvt0379 said:

It's like selling hamburgers and you pay money for bread, meat pie, sauce and everything, but one day they announce that they removed everything between two slices of bread and you only get the bread slices; bread, meat pie, sauce? Pay extra money.

Sure except instead of the two pickles you used to get, you now get one. The analogy holds, but the scale doesn't.

I think OP is correct and it's kind of skeazy to change/nerf the base game in line with a DLC release, but I only really agree that pacu are at issue. The rest is just content you don't have in the base game, which is literally what DLC is.

[Gurgel]

38 minutes ago, yvvt0379 said:

It's like selling hamburgers and you pay money for bread, meat pie, sauce and everything, but one day they announce that they removed everything between two slices of bread and you only get the bread slices; meat pie and sauce? Pay extra money.

No, it is not. Not even close. What you want is the upgrade, extended version with salad, fries, a drink, but you do not want to pay for the extra value provided. Look, capitalism is not difficult to understand. "I deserve stuff for free!" has no place in it.  

[Neat Modding]

1 hour ago, Gurgel said:

No, it is not. Not even close. What you want is the upgrade, extended version with salad, fries, a drink, but you do not want to pay for the extra value provided. Look, capitalism is not difficult to understand. "I deserve stuff for free!" has no place in it.  

This is the reason you can no longer own a car because it needs a server and will not let you turn on the heated seats or even start if manufacturer goes out of business, or a phone that goes out of support and you cannot fix it or use an alternate operating system on it, why farmers can no longer fix their gear, why your car sells your data to insurance companies, why your TV sells your watching habits by capturing what you do on it, why games just stop working because publishers turn down the servers.

Ultimately society lets capitalism to exist, and if society says that clean water is more important than someones wish to make money, or that minimizing ewaste and pollution is more important than someones wish to make money, or right of ownership is more fundamental than someones wish to profit, then companies will jump, ask how high to jump, and jump.

Thanks god there is still some common sense and initiatives like 'Stop Killing Games' or 'Right To Repair' are slowly moving forward, because all this enshittification that has happened over the years is beyond ridiculous.

And while I agree that Klei is one of the good examples of companies, if there are some bad calls, then response from the consumers should be swift and strong to discourage slow enshittification like it has happened in all segments of our lives at this point.

If someone bought a base game, was able to play it, and then few updates later pacu farming becomes unsustainable for example, then it's a problem, so call it what it is. It's very likely unintentional with the complexity of the game, but complaint is valid.

Same as the ******** skin shop that requires internet to work. Are you ok that in say 5 years back end servers go offline and you loose all the stuff you got via the gambling mechanics?

It's beyond stupid to give away ownership or expectation that things that you bought keep working like they did when you bought them.

Or do you expect that authors of books and paintings come to your house and take pieces of painting because they decided to paint or write new ones.

[cheeees]

For anyone reading this. My current opinion of this, are mixed feelings.
This topic is basically one that will have a lot of very subjective opinions, agreements and disagreements.

On 1 part I can understand that the company wants to monetize a product, they have to get something out of the work put into it and makes sense.
There was time put into the coding, ideas, and drawings. And after all this is a Single-player game. It's not that anyone here gets an advatage againts another.

On the second part, the examples given are ones that I don't really think should have been behind the DLC, it was mostly analizing everything the DLC unlocks and questioning, "Should this be locked behind a paywall?"

Critters, biomes, and plants are the DLCs main focus so it makes sense these are behind the DLC.

Swimmming, jelly lamps, mini fridges, glass walls, and the aquatic grooming station feel like a questionable choice to make them DLC exlusive.
"Should they be locked behind a paywall?", to me: no.

Swimming would have been a great addition for the base game, and people that bought the DLC can experience a map desinged specifically for that.

Extra breath for dupes, the jelly lamps, and aquatic grooming station. For now, are examples of a powercreep between people that bought and didn't buy the DLC.

 

Again, this is probably a topic with a lot of variable opinions, for me, I just feel a bit weirded out. Because what if the next DLC isn't that appealing to me, but they added a new building/mechanic, and for the FOMO I end up buying the DLC for that, and not the planet, critters or plants.

[Shinkarr]

Sublimation station should also be part of the base game. Can't ranch pufts at scale without it.

[MinhPham]

The base game is not free and my problem is when they make more DLC stuffs they also make some changes to the base game to fit the DLC, but not for the based game.

• Polluted dirt off-gas was reduced because of the spaced-out DLC and they added a sublimation station exclusively for spaced-out, for the base game you will need 800t of polluted dirt to get 60kg/cycle of polluted oxygen.
• The aquatic DLC comes with more fishes and they are now required grooming, but the aquatic grooming station is exclusively for the DLC so pacus in the based game is pretty much a decoration.

For me the base game is the real game, with  DLC stuffs are either a far more easier game, or just simply have more stuffs with the same mechanics. But given how things are going right now i fear that the base game will become a demo version of the game itself, if you ever played The Sim 4 maybe you will understand what i mean.

And no please don't make dupes swim in the base game, i like the way of how it is right now.

Edited June 14 by MinhPham

[Curry MAMA]

It seems pointless to be having this discussion when TAPP hasn't even been released for a week.

Even in the current vanilla ONI, you can successfully raise Pacu and earn sufficient happiness and metabolism. The Aquatic Grooming Station is one way to increase happiness, but not having it doesn't mean you can't raise Pacu at maximum efficiency.

(I understand that the difficulty of raising Pacu until now was too low, and I think this is a natural balance adjustment.)

If you're unhappy that "only those who pay can easily raise Pacu," shouldn't you also raise your voice against "only those who bought SO! can use the low-temperature geyser"?

What about the inability to use radiation disinfection in vanilla ONI? What about the Power Bank in TBBP? What about the Smoker and food in TPPP?

(Well, actually, if you imagine grooming all 12 Pacu in one pool, you'd worry the herder would collapse from exhaustion. The designers probably didn't anticipate players grooming Pacu.)

As for the other claims, it just seems like they're saying "it's unfair that only those who buy the DLC can experience the new features." Generally speaking, that's perfectly understandable.

[asurendra]

Cant agree with point "Pacu now inferior than DLC fishes". Pacu was extremely overpowered before, nerf had been required no matter what. Getting 5600 kcal per egg for 7.5kg algae only? Without skill requirement and dupe labor? Thats much, much better than any other food source. Now they balanced. And DLC critters dont look too strong too. So I definitely wont call Pacu "inferior". 

 

Actually this DLC doesnt look paywalish at all. Bionics patched lategame lack of energy usage. Frosty DLC adds a lot low-temperature plants which trivialise surviving on Frozen Forest-like maps. New DLC adds... what? Which part is so important that it changes everything? I dont know. New critters look cool but there is no actual reason to rush them on any map. So its strange to complain about paywalls right now.

Edited June 14 by asurendra

[yvvt0379]

The topic is not whether Klei should weaken Pacu. The topic is whether klei can lock full pacu ranching behind paid DLCs.

[Gurgel]

So this is about $10 or so. I have trouble thinking anybody that owns a PC that can run ONI reasonable well has trouble to come up with that. What I see is people that are cheap and looking for ways to not have to pay for something they want, but do not actually need.

Seriously, WTH? Yes, there are scummy companies out there that increase prices without need or remove features in things you actually need. Even for things that are life-critical. Maybe call them out? Maybe stop trying to badmouth and punish companies that have found a very reasonable balance like Klei?

[asurendra]

1 hour ago, yvvt0379 said:

The topic is not whether Klei should weaken Pacu. The topic is whether klei can lock full pacu ranching behind paid DLCs.

Its not locked. You just need to use pacu treats. They available without DLC. And they are enough to get fully happy Pacu

Edited June 14 by asurendra

[MinhPham]

2 hours ago, asurendra said:

Its not locked. You just need to use pacu treats. They available without DLC. And they are enough to get fully happy Pacu

So +1 happiness is fully happy ? I'm aware each happiness gives 16.6% production per cycle, and that you can give it another +1 happiness with the water fort or whatever they renamed it into, and when you're fully stabilized with space materials and have a consistent bracken income from the moos you can give it another +5 hapiness but at that point do you even need pacu.

But don't deny that the underwater grooming station is locked behind a DLC and it affect base game pacu ranching a way that it doesn't worth the effort or the cost.

[cheeees]

I hope I my points are clear in this coment.

Fisrt of all, I'm not saying I dislike klei or the developers.

My point is that some additions, new things the DLC has, don't JUST have a use in the DLC, they can be used in any other asteroid, and the DLC is a lock to those things.

As the first part of the post says, all of those things; to me, seem unnecesary to be locked behind buying the DLC.
If everyone had access to them not much would change between people that own and don't own the DLC.

Some of the things the DLC unlocks (for now) give anyone that bought it an advantage over someone that didn't, in different ways.

I bought the DLC. I'm happy it exists. I like it. And I like the game.

I just feel a bit weirded out by the fact that my decision to buy the DLC is being influenced by:

• New mechanics that have retrocompatibility getting locked (swimming, being a new movement option)
• Quality of life additions (mini-fridge)
• Decor: Glass walls (don't have much to say about those, other than question their exclusivity)
• Powercreeping (swimming skill tier 1 doubles dupes breath; pacu are inferior withouth the +5 happiness the groom buff gives, jawbos too; jelly ceiling lamps outclass ceiling lights and sun lamps)

After all this is a single player game, no one here is going use an advatage againt another since there is no competition.
There still is an advatage there and that's what I want to point out.

I just question why some things had to be locked behind a paywall.

Edited June 14 by cheeees

[asurendra]

33 minutes ago, MinhPham said:

So +1 happiness is fully happy ? I'm aware each happiness gives 16.6% production per cycle,

Erm, what? There is no such mechanic in ONI. Critter can be happy, satisfied or glum. Only 3 states possible. Additional happiness do nothing. 

May be you mean that you can place more critters inside stable? But pacu doesnt even need stable, Pool size isnt limited by anything. So there is no sense in having happiness higher than 1. 

I really cant understand what do you guys mean by "locked". Pacu ranches dont even need to be changed, you just have to add some pacu treats production, which uses comon resources. No technology needed. It can be done on cycle 1. Even before first science station has been built

 

28 minutes ago, cheeees said:

I just feel a bit weirded out by the fact that my decision to buy the DLC is being influenced by:

This is how any DLC in any game works. If it doesnt add new mechanics, what it even should do? Be pure cosmetic? 

Edited June 14 by asurendra

[Jussatoon]

10 minutes ago, asurendra said:

This is how any DLC in any game works. If it doesnt add new mechanics, what it even should do? Be pure cosmetic? 

They probably haven't realized yet that ONI isn't the same as DST in terms of monetization?

[MinhPham]

32 minutes ago, asurendra said:

Erm, what? There is no such mechanic in ONI. Critter can be happy, satisfied or glum. Only 3 states possible. Additional happiness do nothing. 

May be you need to read their change log or actually play the game to understand how things are going.Critter reproduction rate are now depend on their happiness level.

Edited June 14 by MinhPham

[Maxposting]

Yeah, the issue is capitalism but I don't think we should be very surprised at that, companies produce commodities purely and only for money and the free market is notoriously inefficient at producing good games.

The release of the dlc being scheduled to kleifest is giving some heavy mismanagement vibes. The poorly-communicated feature of backwalls, I don't know if it was meant to be a feature that adds natural backwalls to all asteroids, but it doesn't. The aquatic grooming and lack of critter morphs, is yet another point. The lack of a lab asteroid too.

I do expect Klei to get their act back together and polish these things soon as they usually do, though.

(I ask you, please get rid of the random skin system. Let everyone have the base skins and keep the dlc ones as they are. The current state of the base game skins isn't even producing any sales and it's just padding playtimes for whoever is interested in them.)

Edited June 14 by Maxposting

[Russian_Philin]

I'm willing to give even more than 10 bucks for an honest job. Devs listen to the community and try to make high-quality content that will continue to fascinate you. 

I understand these resentments about what should be in the base game, but guys, if you want the game to continue to live, then paying for a new DLC is the least you can do. Even if, in your opinion, it includes things that should be in the base game version.

Appreciate what you have while time permits. One day it will pass…
 

Spoiler

like original “Don’t Starve”.

 

Edited June 14 by Russian_Philin

[Carib94]

This thread is something else LMAO, but here is my take.

Past DLCs have locked away their selling point mechanics/features because if they add the key things that makes the DLC...well a DLC to the base game then are players gonna even buy? Maybe loyal fans of Oni to support the devs since Oni dont really have any monetization. Thing is all these dlcs do not change the core part of the game but just adds new and different ways to do things and more. How I see it as long as a DLC doesnt change the core part of the game then im alright with it. And im alright paying for it...

In regards to Pacu, I will say that they nerfed Pacu a lil too much but the nerf was warranted. In the base game you can still get high happiness on pacu but will take some effort ofc. Brakene can be made with the plant pulverizer ppl tend to forget that lol. 

With that I do think that APP was on a clock or tight deadline because of Kleifest Mybe. Some things from APP that the patch notes did point out were not exclusive to the DLC such as natural backwalls but clearly no other planets besides Aqua planet has it. So there is room for an update to properly add features and more things that the devs wanted to add later this year possibly.