Awesome solutions instead of lame nerfs

[tHe_silent_H]

The problem:

Over reliance on meal wood

The Nerf:

Reduced values of mealwood(and liceloaf), and made it not wholly sustainable(dirt fertilisation)

The Awesome Solution:

When too much mealwood is harvested in proximity and/or is rotting on the ground, a lice golem forms(consuming plants and meal lice lying around), that would be immediately aggressive, hunting down dupes. Takes quite a few(~12) dups to kill and it kills a few (~4-8) drops meat on death and a couple of seeds

[BlueLance]

13 minutes ago, tHe_silent_H said:

The problem:

Over reliance on meal wood

The Nerf:

Reduced values of mealwood(and liceloaf), and made it not wholly sustainable(dirt fertilisation)

The Awesome Solution:

When too much mealwood is harvested in proximity and/or is rotting on the ground, a lice golem forms(consuming plants and meal lice lying around), that would be immediately aggressive, hunting down dupes. Takes quite a few(~12) dups to kill and it kills a few (~4-8) drops meat on death and a couple of seeds

As much as I love the idea of hostile creatures, this would most likely kill off all new players who are still getting to learn the game. Remember the games needs to be balanced for new players and for skilled players.

New players and lazy players rely on meal wood, lazy players would just go to the next laziest thing because they most likely have an understanding on other late game things, a new player would be sitting and suddenly have his colony under a serious threat which requires 12 dupes (48 planters) to kill and they would then lose half of their colony and that is only if they have enough dupes to fight it in the first place.

Awesome, Yes.

Balanced, Practical, New player friendly? No

The solutions implemented are, requires dirt, depresses dupes and takes up space. In no way is the first a nerf. There is enough dirt in the map for even the greenest of players to learn how to grow different crops and build a decent colony. (They used to take fertiliser anyway so I do not see the big deal, at least its better than free food which you don't even need to harvest)

Food expectations has always been in the game but it has never really had any consequences, now it seems to actually do something and gets more severe as your dupes improve their jobs. This has always been something to be in the game. 

So for brand new players, it teaches them to make better food as time goes on, but doesn't force them to suddenly change food source. Which means they can go at their own pace, Your solution on the other hand just says, lets outright punish new players who have yet to learn.

 

Not having a go at you, but you need to think about the little people as well, I would be pretty annoyed if suddenly a Golem kept eating me after 20 cycles, and I would never learn anything past that. unless I rapidly moved away from mealwood and onto something else, Mushrooms = Slime + Slimelung, SleetWheat = Cooling System, Pincha Peppers = Phosphorite + Heat. For any new player most of these would either kill them due to disease or some sort of temperature issue.

[tHe_silent_H]

6 minutes ago, BlueLance said:

As much as I love the idea of hostile creatures, this would most likely kill off all new players who are still getting to learn the game. Remember the games needs to be balanced for new players and for skilled players.

I think your assuming it would need about 10, or 20 to form, i'm talking about 100's of plants(enough anyway so that most players would be past the new stage) and you'd have more then enough dupes at that point to combat it, so it's only affect lazy players, and those that want a challenge(even then at that point the loss of dupes would not be significant) combat has to come in at some point, so why not the first be a punishment(like in don't starve) Lastly it would make meat renewable for those that love their meat.

[BlueLance]

20 minutes ago, tHe_silent_H said:

I think your assuming it would need about 10, or 20 to form, i'm talking about 100's of plants(enough anyway so that most players would be past the new stage) and you'd have more then enough dupes at that point to combat it, so it's only affect lazy players, and those that want a challenge(even then at that point the loss of dupes would not be significant,and it would make meat renewable for those that love their meat.

Ok so 100 planters is roughly 33 dupes if i rem right, by that point no one is usually on meal wood if they have that many dupes.

Plus they would run out of dirt eventually, and thats if the dupes dont stress themselves out.

Yes it would be a challenge for players but would they really want to kill dupes for meat? If dupes die then you need less food to feed everyone. 

I reckon disease and possibly some sticky fingered critters will affect plants and steal food

[Guest]

I think it's good that mealwood no longer is "sustainable" (there are ways to continually produce dirt and make mealwood sustainable). Just that other plants hardly are sustainable either. Both sleet wheat and bristle berries demand quite a bit of water, and the former requires huge demands in cooling, pincha peppernuts require phosporite which is a finite source and dusk caps require slime, which although technically is not finite, is very hard to come by.

[BlueLance]

8 minutes ago, turbonl64 said:

I think it's good that mealwood no longer is "sustainable" (there are ways to continually produce dirt and make mealwood sustainable). Just that other plants hardly are sustainable either. Both sleet wheat and bristle berries demand quite a bit of water, and the former requires huge demands in cooling, pincha peppernuts require phosporite which is a finite source and dusk caps require slime, which although technically is not finite, is very hard to come by.

I think food management is to play a larger part now, feed only the dupe who expect the best food the best food. and use alternatives for others, that way you spread the strain over different food groups. Use the new fridges to disable/enable the grills which cook the food required e.g only make it so the fridge only ever has 5000kcal of a food in it, an connect that to a cooker which has that specific meal on continuous. 

This would help reduce the rate at which you burn some resources and hopefully make things such as slime and fertiliser more manageable.

[chemie]

The main reason people stayed on mealwood was:

1. no stress penalty as food quality was effectively ignored (they are trying to fix this)

2. Huge imbalance on water requirements, especially cooling that water, for alternatives.

[Wedeueis]

The solution given by the devs is simple and effective, for me this is an awesome solution. 

[NanoD]

Have you try to feed a no employed dupe grade 5 food. If not check the stress when it eats it