Dynamic Difficulty via Environmental Impact

[Yogi]

There have been many people who say that after awhile that after someone has built themselves a nice camp with farm that there is little incentive to venture further. I think that the best way to do this isn't to make crops grow longer, since it only extends the time until you get your secure farm. Instead, I think that the players actions should have an impact on the environment, so if the player decides to collect resources to build his farm, the environment decides to push back.

For example: Currently you can harvest grass to plant at your camp. After an initial investment of grass and manure, you get infinite grass forever. None of the two actually has any real effect on the environment. However, if the Beefalos and Jackalopes need to eat grass to live, and that new grass can only grow from their manure/droppings then removing a large amount of grass and manure will cause the animals you need to either migrate away, die, or try to feed on the grass in your farm.

Examples like this will dynamically alter the difficulty since the more you put into your base, the more resources you will draw from the environment, and the more impact you will have and, if you aren't careful, you can completely screw things up. This also creates a natural balance between stationary and nomad characters, since nomads will only take a little resource at a location, and then move on, not having a huge impact.

[Excess]

First of all, welcome to the forums. I'm glad you registered to discuss such an interesting topic.

Reading your post got me re thinking on an old suggestion about Beefalos eating grass. I think beefalos should eat grass, but not only the collectible product, but the turf as a whole, removing it from existence. To compensate this, if a particular pile of beefalo's manure is left laying a while over the yellowish hay fields, it should make a brand new grass turf to appear.

How would this affect us?

1. If you pick up a lot of beefalo manure, grass won't re-grow, so beefalo's won't have new grass to eat, and die of starvation.
   
2. If you pick up a lot of grass turfs, they won't have enough grass to eat, and die of starvation.
   

Perhaps something like this could work? It need polishing, but it's a start.

[Prancelot]

I really like the idea of dynamic balance, and consequences that have weight/permanence. and these changes to manure would also help make farming less OP.

[Yogi]

On the most basic level, everything should have a circle of life (Grass -> Beefalo --> Manure --> Grass) and for animals, a life cycle. For something more complex, predation should come in, such as spiders preying on Jackalopes. Eliminate the spiders, and the Jackalopes will spread unchecked. For something even more complex, there should be penalties to overpopulation, such as contagious diseases or wildfires.

This will probably need the addition of a lot more creatures to round out all the steps in the food chain. Seeds and the birds that bring them, in particular, still appear out of nowhere, yet are a crucial part of any players farm operation.

I think this is a better approach than the two tiered system we have now in which items are either infinitely respawnable with little consequence in collecting them, or not respawnable at all.

[mobius187]

Reading your post got me re thinking on an old suggestion about Beefalos eating grass. I think beefalos should eat grass, but not only the collectible product, but the turf as a whole, removing it from existence. To compensate this, if a particular pile of beefalo's manure is left laying a while over the yellowish hay fields, it should make a brand new grass turf to appear.

How would this affect us?

1. If you pick up a lot of beefalo manure, grass won't re-grow, so beefalo's won't have new grass to eat, and die of starvation.
   
2. If you pick up a lot of grass turfs, they won't have enough grass to eat, and die of starvation.
   

Grass turf? Oh, grass tuft. Gotcha.

I'm not sure if it was my suggestion you were thinking of, or another forum member's, but I originally suggested that once baby beefalo are added that we could end up with a population control issue, unless one was coded into the game. A better solution would be to require beefalo to eat grass from the grass tuft, say 2-3 grass per day. Then, as the player harvests grass and beefalo eat it there would certainly be beefalo who didn't get a chance to eat any. This would lead to starvation and those beefalo that cannot eat grass perish. That way the player impacts the beefalo by replanting wild grass in the base camp, and beefalo can impact the player by eating all the grass... even wandering into their base camp and eating all the replanted grass tuft "grass".

And yes, another form of population control could be predators. The hounds, for example, could start attacking beefalo and not just the player.

[Toaster Fu]

Well, technically, turf works too…