Should the devs balance fans who want hardcore survival and people that want sustainability?

[MrVonDeathray]

Hello everyone, I just got this game a few days ago, and have been having a ton of fun with it! Two of my favorite games are Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress, and I think this could become one of my favorite games as it develops!

I know that this game is still being developed, and is indeed not even in beta yet, but I am wondering about what the teams future vision for the game is. Personally, I want the game to be like Dwarf Fortress or Rim World, where one can make a sustainable base by the mid game, and make large scale construction projects to expand the base or its defenses, and late game fun becomes about surviving random events (much like Rimworld), or making super projects, like in Dwarf Fortress making elaborate systems or exploring underground.

However I know after reading through some of the forum that a very sizable portion of the people, perhaps even the majority on this forum actually prefer the opposite, where survival is very tough and one must keep expanding or exploring to survive and there not being a way to create sustainability thus the challenge and fun comes from lasting as long as you can, as this more like their last game Don't Starve.

I'm not going to pretend that my want is more valid then anyone elses, nor do I want anyone to tell me my way is wrong, preferences are preferences. Is it possible that we can coexist in the same game? and how do we achieve that? At first I was thinking of a "Sustainability/Hardcore" option might be good to cater to both sides, but I doubt the devs would want to split the game in two like that, and would prefer one overall mode to the game, although i'm not sure, did Don't Starve have anything like that? Any other ideas which can make both groups of people happy? or is there a middle ground that can be achieved for both types of people? Also side question, have any of the devs talked about this subject somewhere I haven't seen?

[alcurad90]

Problem is the new version is neither the two

 

In old version, you run out of O2 and algea in about 50 cycles, then water in 100 cycles, and sand in about 200-300 cycles. So you always have a problem to face before you get boring, and you know your large buildings will solve one of the problem (and lead to another)

 

The new version, however, it's like the “Don't Starve” :"live the first winter, then there is nothing difficult". You won't run out of O2 with a small pool of water in 300-400 cycles. Put the genrators in water and cold area will make them work for quite long time. and the boiling system won't be needed in 500 cycles. There is an totally excess of resource.

[AlexRou]

I'd say make the game for sustainability people, for those that want hardcore make the worldgen have world type selection so they can have a planet of only ice biomes with tweaks to spawn copper/coal/algae? so they have some chance of living.

Since you played rimworld, try playing on a icesheet where the temps are always in the negative  

[tamercloud]

I love sustainability. I think for people who never want a winnable game, have a separate mode. For me personally, there is no point in playing a game that you can never win.

[DoctorOverlord]

This is an interesting question.  It would be cool if they could somehow satisfy both player bases, but they need to be careful about diluting their efforts.  I'd rather see them focus on one goal and do it well rather than ending up with a game that does both but ends up not being as engaging for either audience.

Not an easy decision, but if making good games was easy everyone would do it  

[Troxism]

The problem with low resource availability becomes that you are incentivised to always run a very small colony, which means you are encouraged to build a small base, which means you are 'done' building your base very fast and then you just sit there and run out the clock until you die which isn't very interesting (and scaling up a base to accommodate many people can add a lot of challenges to solve as scaling doesn't tend to be exactly linear due to the way gas propagation ect work). However I agree there is also a flip side to this and post hotfix, this update is going a little too far the other way where water is basically worthless (too common) and food is back to being nearly irrelevant too. Having said that, the game doesn't even have all of it's major features, and even if water/food are easy, there are many ways they could make the end game more challenging (make heat a bigger issue, have events happen, add enemies, ect).

To be honest, I think much like with Don't Stave I will end up modding the game to make it much harder when it's done (and I'm sure I'm not the only one who does 'personal mods' of this sort). But I tend to fall on that spectrum of 'I want it to be theoretically sustainable even for large bases, but become harder over time/be a fairly thin margin so you can't be wasteful', which I know is a very very fine line to walk and pretty much requires modding to tweak, and I know most people don't fall into this category; most either want to 100% die after X time (completely finite resources) or they want to be able to easily live forever and just mess around.

[QuQuasar]

My suggestion: I enjoy the stepped system, where you've always got a resource you will eventually run out of. First it's algae, then it's sand, then water, then oxygen. I think all of these resources should reach a stage late-game where they can be recycled with perfect efficiency.
         
However, I do think there should be a final step in this system, one you can never overcome: heat death. It might take thousands of cycles, but eventually the asteroid will lose all it's heat to the void at the top of the map and freeze solid. You can prolong this to hundreds of thousands of cycles by insulating your base and conserving your heat, but eventually it should run out.
         
Reaching the stage where heat is your final barrier would be the equivalent of a sustainable base, since it would keep the simulation running long enough to pull off just about any megaproject you might choose.

[Ecu]

Honestly, why does sustainability and challenging survival have to be mutually exclusive?  Why can we not have a challenging road towards sustainability.  One where even if you eventually achieve stability, changes to your environment (a new dupe, for example) can throw a wrench in the works and once again cause you to fight to become stable.

I will say to those suggesting a different mode for different playstyles that this is a terrible option.  Different game modes ends up splitting development time between two methods of balance.  It increases the avenues for bugs and dilutes the focus of the game design.  Instead, I feel it is important to focus on the experience you wish to present with a game and focus your content on that, period.

Now, I cannot speak for Klei, but the impression I got is that the goal is to be a challenging colony simulator where with reasonable physics simulation.  If you could attain stability in a simple fashion, I think it would kind of ruin the whole point.  The developers have also stated that they intend the players to eventually maintain stability.  Again, however, the impression they gave at that time was that it would not be a simple process to do.

Does anyone here really want easy stability?  If so, why?

[MrVonDeathray]

Well, I personally prefer stability as a mid game thing, sort of like Rimworld, where setting up heating, electricity, beds, and hydroponics is something you can't do off the bat, but not something I feel like I have to rush to before everything falls apart. where the challenge after that is setting up effective defenses against invaders or trying to stockpile a bunch of medicine just in case a disease spreads through the colony, or expanding the base to accommodate more colonists, and etc. This isn't to say this is what the game should be, but what I prefer, and I'll play it regardless of either direction.

I have not heard any developer dialogue on their goals however, and definitely want them to make the game they want to make. I just know personally I like to expand my bases in these kinds of games methodically, and without having to panic about absolutely needing something to be done the next cycle. Although my experience with the game so far is positive, even with that panic on most cycles of gameplay. I would love A happy medium and I didn't consider a solution like being able to pick a harder starting location, that would be a really cool idea.

[Ecu]

23 minutes ago, MrVonDeathray said:

Well, I personally prefer stability as a mid game thing, sort of like Rimworld, where setting up heating, electricity, beds, and hydroponics is something you can't do off the bat, but not something I feel like I have to rush to before everything falls apart. where the challenge after that is setting up effective defenses against invaders or trying to stockpile a bunch of medicine just in case a disease spreads through the colony, or expanding the base to accommodate more colonists, and etc. This isn't to say this is what the game should be, but what I prefer, and I'll play it regardless of either direction.

I have not heard any developer dialogue on their goals however, and definitely want them to make the game they want to make. I just know personally I like to expand my bases in these kinds of games methodically, and without having to panic about absolutely needing something to be done the next cycle. Although my experience with the game so far is positive, even with that panic on most cycles of gameplay. I would love A happy medium and I didn't consider a solution like being able to pick a harder starting location, that would be a really cool idea.

I suppose I question what is stability.  If you take no additional dupes, you can become "stable" rather easily early on.  However, as you expand the amount of people you wish to support, you need to expand your resources production.  I have played a reasonable amount of RimWorld and I wouldn't say I've ever been endlessly stable.  Instead it is more of a situation where I may be stable for now until the next event happens.

What kind of stability are you wanting out of ONI, really?

[Octyabr]

My two cents:

I think people care too much about sustainability, (I was one some time ago) but after founding some packets of algae trying to discover all edges of the asteroid, I realised how big it is and how much will it take to consume all its resources, even key ones. 

Then I remembered a dumb quest I made when I used to play Don't Starve: since flint back then was non-renewable, one must be wise to spend that, so I hoarded all flint available, just to realise that even finite it would suffice for thousands of days.

So I propose myself to do the same again in this game in several stages to make oxygen: 

1. Burn all algae in the asteroid,
2. Convert all slime into algae, store surplus cont-water and cont-oxygen for later.
3. Once all algae have depleted, turn water into oxygen.
4. Use all sand to produce more water.
5. When there is no more algae, sand and water; seal off Main Base, using a network of pumps all over the asteroid import all cont-oxygen (with or without liquefying) and pump out CO2.
6. When all oxygen has finally run out, with an almost hollow asteroid full of CO2, and everyone suffocating to death, then Game Over.

No sustainability whatsoever.

The thing is... after 600 cycles I was still stuck on stage one. That's why devs have said that maybe they'll add full sustainability. At the moment it's really not needed.

Pursuing sustainability is effectively hurting your game!

Kevin and Jamie wrote about this some time ago:

Quote

...
2. Rewards (in our case, achieving sustainability) can cause players to care less about everything else
Players looking for a reward become so focused on the reward, that any distraction is exactly that—a distraction.

3. Rewards can cause players to perform worse
Players who are trying to optimize for the reward will often stop taking risks, in fear of losing the reward, even if this risk taking behaviour could actually improve their performance.
...
The actual result was exactly what I described previously. First, players would optimize for the goal—in this case, it was surviving for four nights. Except, they now did this to the exclusion of all else! Players simply cowered in a corner, hoarding some food, and waited for the time to run out.
...

Instead of sustainability what I'd want is more trickery ways of delaying this end scenario through discovery and experimentation.

As final advice: explore, take risks. With their own wise words:

Quote

Embrace the intrinsic fun

···

If you want to read the full text I took those excerpts, here it is, in my honest opinion, pure gold:

Spoiler

 

[MrVonDeathray]

Perhaps I am not that good at the game yet, because I thought water algae and sand were finite? My last base I did alright, set up a basin for fresh water and one to collect and recycle contaminated water, But I eventually ran out of fresh water while trying to get at a large supply of contaminated water a distance away. I was also just about out of algae and sand at the time too, although I learned that I was probably using too many algae terrariums at the time. I heard that the devs were eventually going to add a way to create water. Maybe its because I never got to the temperature part of the game I was struggling, as I was focused on getting water and algae as I felt I never had enough.

As for what specifically, I'm not sure, right now I feel like expansion and digging deeper and doing so quickly is a requirement to survive, whereas I would prefer being able to set up a base and plan out my expansion, and get into a place of resource safety before I do my exploration and digging.

[Ecu]

6 minutes ago, Octyabr said:

~snipped to keep post shorter~

Very well said.  Thanks for this.

4 minutes ago, MrVonDeathray said:

Perhaps I am not that good at the game yet, because I thought water algae and sand were finite? My last base I did alright, set up a basin for fresh water and one to collect and recycle contaminated water, But I eventually ran out of fresh water while trying to get at a large supply of contaminated water a distance away. I was also just about out of algae and sand at the time too, although I learned that I was probably using too many algae terrariums at the time. I heard that the devs were eventually going to add a way to create water. Maybe its because I never got to the temperature part of the game I was struggling, as I was focused on getting water and algae as I felt I never had enough.

Algae is finite.  However, you can turn slime into quite a bit of algae and as such you can survive a very long time using algae if you process slime.  As of the thermal update, water is completely infinite due to geysers.  Prior to the thermal update, water was still infinite via dupe vomit/urine (abiat a bit more tedious to deal with).  As for sand, while it is rather finite, you can create it by superheating dirt.  However, as of the thermal update this is a bit tricky to accomplish.  Dirt can also be created by boiling contaminated water.

As you can see, pretty much every resource you need to survive can be generated infinitely.  It is just a matter of learning as you go in order to get these systems in place before you run out of your current resources.

Striving for perfect stability is kind of a trap.  It is better to try out new things each time and just enjoy the experience of playing the colony.

[alcurad90]

8 minutes ago, Ecu said:

Very well said.  Thanks for this.

Algae is finite.  However, you can turn slime into quite a bit of algae and as such you can survive a very long time using algae if you process slime.  As of the thermal update, water is completely infinite due to geysers.  Prior to the thermal update, water was still infinite via dupe vomit/urine (abiat a bit more tedious to deal with).  As for sand, while it is rather finite, you can create it by superheating dirt.  However, as of the thermal update this is a bit tricky to accomplish.  Dirt can also be created by boiling contaminated water.

As you can see, pretty much every resource you need to survive can be generated infinitely.  It is just a matter of learning as you go in order to get these systems in place before you run out of your current resources.

Striving for perfect stability is kind of a trap.  It is better to try out new things each time and just enjoy the experience of playing the colony.

Problem is not just "finite "

 

Before the thermal update, you have limited resource which will run out in 100-200 cycles, enough for build some huge system to reduce the cost, nod enough to get boring

 

After the thermal update, a cup of water will be enough for living over 200 cycles which make you don't want to anything at all

[Ecu]

Just now, alcurad90 said:

Problem is not just "finite "

 

Before the thermal update, you have limited resource which will run out in 100-200 cycles, enough for build some huge system to reduce the cost, nod enough to get boring

 

After the thermal update, a cup of water will be enough for living over 200 cycles which make you don't want to anything at all

Well, you're running into the issue of this being an alpha and not all the content being available yet, I think.  While we can indeed get endless water currently from the geysers, that doesn't mean we won't see use for this water in the future.  If they cannot find a use for the water that they find suitable, they can easily reduce the amount that geysers produce as simply as a hotfix.

Additionally, it isn't like a majority of people weren't exploiting vomit/urine anyways in order to maintain infinite water.  So really, in that regard, not a whole lot has changed.

[alcurad90]

1 minute ago, Ecu said:

Well, you're running into the issue of this being an alpha and not all the content being available yet, I think.  While we can indeed get endless water currently from the geysers, that doesn't mean we won't see use for this water in the future.  If they cannot find a use for the water that they find suitable, they can easily reduce the amount that geysers produce as simply as a hotfix.

Additionally, it isn't like a majority of people weren't exploiting vomit/urine anyways in order to maintain infinite water.  So really, in that regard, not a whole lot has changed.

 

I am not so hopeful to those people who designed Algae Trarrariums. They even use it on twitch

[Ecu]

1 minute ago, alcurad90 said:

 

I am not so hopeful to those people who designed Algae Trarrariums. They even use it on twitch

I use use them early on as well.  It doesn't hurt to use them, honestly, given that you can acquire a sizable amount of algae from distilleries. 

[alcurad90]

2 minutes ago, Ecu said:

I use use them early on as well.  It doesn't hurt to use them, honestly, given that you can acquire a sizable amount of algae from distilleries. 

In the last verson, it cost 5 times the water to produce O2

[Octyabr]

I do that too, produce a decent amount of oxygen, get rid of CO2 early on, consumes a tiny amount of algae and water, and make duplicants run all day to feed them...

[Ecu]

1 minute ago, alcurad90 said:

In the last verson, it cost 5 times the water to produce O2

You have infinite water, and nothing to use that water on in the early cycles.  I don't really see an issue with this.

1 minute ago, Octyabr said:

I do that too, produce a decent amount of oxygen, get rid of CO2 early on, consumes a tiny amount of algae and water, and make duplicants run all day to feed them...

Lmao.  You could water them, at least, via a water drip (from what I understand).  Though it is fun to watch your guys run all over.

[MrVonDeathray]

Oh, I was not opted into the beta, so I think I was playing prior to the thermal patch, prior to the Geysers, and I heard about the vomit thing, but seemed too gamey for me so I didn't try it. So maybe this patch is exactly what I was looking for. Although I am sure there are some players that would prefer the game to be without geysers forcing them to expand to survive to find new water supplies.

I'm really not ragging on the game or anything, I think its really fun, and I know its just an alpha.

I just want to be able to have both, so someone that wants a hardcore survival game with only finite resources, and someone who wants a game with achievable sustainability (as it sounds like the game is right now) I'm just thinking of ways we can have both, like an embark modifier, where you can designate "No geysers" or "algae terrariums create algae" or something like that.

Edit: Does watering plants with pipes actually work? thats pretty cool, my colonists were always running around watering them

[scientas]

I'm in the sustainable camp. My ideal end game would be for me to have mined every block out of the asteroid and somehow managed to to pressurize and oxygenate the entire hollowed-out asteroid. Once you meet that criteria, the barrier between the inside and the void begins to crack and oxygen begins to seep out slowly.

However, if you can survive long enough after that, "The Void" changes to "The Atmosphere" and a single muckroot shoots up on the surface. Then a hatch pops out of the ground and runs around. Inside your base dupes start to automatically come through the printing pad on their own. Roll credits. Game Over (though you could at that point continue your game and maybe the crack would widen to a hole you could go through).

[alcurad90]

9 hours ago, MrVonDeathray said:

Oh, I was not opted into the beta, so I think I was playing prior to the thermal patch, prior to the Geysers, and I heard about the vomit thing, but seemed too gamey for me so I didn't try it. So maybe this patch is exactly what I was looking for. Although I am sure there are some players that would prefer the game to be without geysers forcing them to expand to survive to find new water supplies.

I'm really not ragging on the game or anything, I think its really fun, and I know its just an alpha.

I just want to be able to have both, so someone that wants a hardcore survival game with only finite resources, and someone who wants a game with achievable sustainability (as it sounds like the game is right now) I'm just thinking of ways we can have both, like an embark modifier, where you can designate "No geysers" or "algae terrariums create algae" or something like that.

Edit: Does watering plants with pipes actually work? thats pretty cool, my colonists were always running around watering them

 

No, you don't need the geysers.

 

With the algea and water near your point of birth you can live over 150-200 cycles, unless you build a row of ****y trarrariums.

 

No, the pipe system can;t water algae ****y trarrariums, your dupes have to pick up the water on the ground and water it

[Breizhbugs]

It is not a game like factorio with an inifinite map so i think the fight survivability vs sustainability is not pertinent at the moment because the developper don't tell us what endgame they want to give to the game. If the asteroid is all we have, then it must have an end i think but the dev can add a macanism for the end game where you jump to another asteroid for example...

In any cases, the game is still in alpha and, for now, the dev must provide us alpha/beta testers, a way to survive long enough to test a broad variety of game feature!

[Keshire]

12 hours ago, Ecu said:

 

Honestly, why does sustainability and challenging survival have to be mutually exclusive?  Why can we not have a challenging road towards sustainability.

 

I agree with this 100 percent. Each Worldgen, and each Dupe choose should be a puzzle that needs to be solved to achieve sustainability. As long as it's possible (barring outside events or special scenarios) I'll be satisfied.