The Game is Too hard!

[Ray_Garraty]

18 hours ago, DubbleTwice said:

The Game is Too hard!

No it's not.

[Jigsawn]

@Lifegrow

I agree with your philosophy in general, but like I say it's just a few things that I think need to be addressed. Why so aggro? I'm fine with these game over situations, but the problem is when the game doesn't give you enough information to start with to recognize or avoid them before it's too late. In many of these cases it's literally only because of the forum that I've been able to progress - such as dealing with overheating.

People can very dismissive on here of new players and the problems and frustrations they have with the game. Folks who have been with the game for a very long time perhaps don't realise how unfair and frustrating it can be coming into it with no prior knowledge. There's stuff veterans take for granted that can take new players days and multiple failed bases to realise, if they ever do. Like taking on too many dupes, building new oxy machines when they see low insufficient oxygen warnings. Yes, it's supposed to be hard, it's supposed to be a survival game. I'm not saying make it easier, just fix a few things to make it more transparent. This will smooth out the difficulty curve a little so they don't hit a brick wall or repeatedly make the same mistakes. 

Now I know all the things that I listed thanks to the forum, I am having much better fun with the game. I couldn't even reach the mid/late game after hundreds of hours of play (normal speed) and now I'm finally making progress from knowing things I wouldn't have known without coming on here. It's mostly simple stuff like not having too many deoxidisers, knowing where heat is coming from, that ice biomes and wheezeworts exist, how wiring/transformers/automation works. 

 

[Lifegrow]

44 minutes ago, Jigsawn said:

Spoiler

 

@Lifegrow

I agree with your philosophy in general, but like I say it's just a few things that I think need to be addressed. Why so aggro? I'm fine with these game over situations, but the problem is when the game doesn't give you enough information to start with to recognize or avoid them before it's too late. In many of these cases it's literally only because of the forum that I've been able to progress - such as dealing with overheating.

People can very dismissive on here of new players and the problems and frustrations they have with the game. Folks who have been with the game for a very long time perhaps don't realise how unfair and frustrating it can be coming into it with no prior knowledge. There's stuff veterans take for granted that can take new players days and multiple failed bases to realise, if they ever do. Like taking on too many dupes, building new oxy machines when they see low insufficient oxygen warnings. Yes, it's supposed to be hard, it's supposed to be a survival game. I'm not saying make it easier, just fix a few things to make it more transparent. This will smooth out the difficulty curve a little so they don't hit a brick wall or repeatedly make the same mistakes. 

Now I know all the things that I listed thanks to the forum, I am having much better fun with the game. I couldn't even reach the mid/late game after hundreds of hours of play (normal speed) and now I'm finally making progress from knowing things I wouldn't have known without coming on here. It's mostly simple stuff like not having too many deoxidisers, knowing where heat is coming from, that ice biomes and wheezeworts exist, how wiring/transformers/automation works. 

 

 

Wasn't intentionally being "aggro" - I just have a literal tone and don't often sugar coat my words. I'm English, we don't believe in speaking softly for risk of bruising delicate flowers  

I'm not trying to dismiss new players - quite the opposite, i'm encouraging them to actually play the game - and not just run off to the forums or google with the slightest little lack of understanding they experience. Every single time I get asked for "tips for new players" I always say the same thing - go and play the game, don't be afraid of killing your colony... then start again. 

The game is filled - literally overflowing - with data, all of which can be easily found by simply clicking on the tile you'd like to know more about. 

With one or two clicks you can go from knowing nothing about an element to knowing it's specific heat capacity, condensation point, whether it's useful/harmful/flammable, etc etc etc. 

There's a wealth of information within this game - enough to spark peoples own imagination and creativity, and certainly enough to answer most questions we find on these forums. Fact is most "gamers" are too lazy to look, and instead resort to alt-tabbing out and being spoon fed the answer.

With the new database it's easier than ever to find information within the game (and yes, I know it's not quite a complete encyclopedia yet) but once you click that little book icon once (right next to the name of the entity you've selected) it becomes incredibly hard to miss.

As regards individual play style learning, i.e. a comfortable amount of dupes to support, food requirements, gas handling, temperature management, etc - these can all be either calculated or learned by trial and error. Both methods are absolutely fine - what isn't fine however is to just give up and await someone telling you how to build your base  

There's nothing wrong with asking for help - unless you ask for it before you need it. That's my personal stance anyways.

[Whispert]

3 hours ago, Lifegrow said:

The only pop-up message needed here is "You're probably going to die - don't worry about it - they're only made of ooze - don't get too attached..." 

Honestly the game should open with this!

I should start by saying this game is hard.  This game is frustrating. This game is not casual. This game does make my brain hurt sometimes every cycle. Even in early access this game is beautiful. It is everything that so many games these days are not. It doesn't simplify, it doesn't limit, and this is what makes it so much fun. 

I agree @Lifegrow and most games have the potential to be so much more but are often sifted down into watery content to make it easier for the masses to playthrough quickly.  These forums are proof that there is a large community of gamers out there that want to be challenged, and want to be creative. (Please don't let this happen to ONI)

What worked on one seed may not work on another. You have to be flexible. You have to create a game plan based on your play style and hope for the best. When things go pear shaped you stop and look at what you could have done different and try again. If trial and error is not the way you want to engage with a game then ONI really isn't for you.

I have played for over 260 hours. I have restarted the game so many times I lost count. Most of my colonies aren't even dead I just got stuck and rather than screaming at the screen I just started over with a tweak to my strategy. In my first colony I got a crap seed and my entire starting biome was surrounded by slimelung. Having just started I was terrified to leave home base and thought my dupes would instantly die if I tried to dig out. I was worried that maybe this game just wasn't for me, but I went out and found a seed that someone had suggested. That colony didn't go much better, but it did help me realize that every playthrough is different.

My current colony is the longest I have survived (just got to 200 cycles) and haven't hit a point of imminent doom. I know it's coming just around the corner though and I relish it because I have learned so much in this colony. I just found my first oil biome, made my first plastic, and I still have yet to make a single exosuit.

One thing that should be said is the game (by itself, minus the community around it) makes some things sound very doom and gloom. First time I found an ice biome it sat there untapped for a long time because the wording in the game had me thinking my dupes were going to die of hypothermia. Meanwhile I was running out of algae because everytime it warned me of O2 production I built another deoxidizer and my colony was heating up. When I was running out of water there was a huge reserve of water right there in the slime biome next to my colony but I thought my dupes would instantly contract slimelung and it would be an immediate outbreak in my colony. So my well went dry.

There are some things that @Jigsawn has mentioned that have some merit.

• The O2 warning is a bit of a problem for a new player, because you are trying to take in so much information it never occurs to you that you're probably OK. You just keep slapping down another Deoxidizer in hopes of making it go away.
• Everytime the printing pod goes off you feel like you have to take a dupe or you'll lose the chance for another 3 cycles. This leads to early overpopulation and can really be the biggest stress early on because you can't get ahead of the dupes needs. There has to be some way to let players know you can choose to just close pod window (without rejecting them) and they will still be there for you to pick up when you are ready.  I only use the reject button if I don't like the quality of dupes I'm being offered.
• Finally the game gives you little notes "Colony requires toilets", "Colony requires food source". Maybe after a few cycles have passed a little note could say "Monitor colony temperature". Honestly this was the last thing I was thinking of and just a little message would have been helpful.

All really minor things that wouldn't dumb down the game.

Eventually I learned hypothermia is no big deal. Prance around in the ice all you want, but getting a cold will slow your dupes down. I learned 1 or 2 deoxidizers is enough for quite a while. Slimelung is scary but manageable if handled with care (and it takes a while for a dupe to get full on sick). I spam the "Save As" whenever I'm about to do something I've not tried before, and I am hoping for the worst while I prepare for the best. 

To the OP be patient and use the community if your stuck. This forum is full of people who have both been playing since day one and who just started. They all have different play styles, and different ideas about what they get out of the game. While sometimes they can be a bit gruff when approached with a topic; they are all here willing to help and share their ideas. You don't even have to ask anything just sift through the pages of the forum you will see so many discussions (*cough* arguments *cough* ) of the different builds and playstyles maybe it will help you see the potential of this hard game.

[Asteru]

I like the difficulty and the challenge personally. The learning curve is very steep though, and the basic requirement of outside sources doesn't help ease that learning curve. however, this is early access still where there is more emphasis on adding new content than it is on balance and even bug fixing, so to me its all to be expected at this point, and i choose to keep playing it as is and am enjoying my time. 

The only criticism i have involving the games difficulty/learning curve isn't about dying and having to start over and hopefully learn from the mistakes, but is the pacing. For the past month i was playing with debug speed, and found that to be a good pacing allowing me to get to different parts of the game play that i'm working on learning quicker, and then if i die, i can start over and get to that point and try to progress further again. I started having a lot of food problems though on debug speed, and with the new update it made it almost impossible to sustain my dups properly on debug speed. I went back to using the base speed 3 again, and food problems went away completely while doing the same thing. My current game i'm only about 150 cycles in, and spent more time to get there than i i get to cycle 300-400 on debug speed. That ends up being a huge time investment to be able to get to the points i'm trying to learn and work on.

That's my only criticism. The pacing. As you learn more and progress further, messing up and losing the colony is far more punishing cause of the amount of time to get back to that point on a new colony. Even with that though, i do not want to lower the difficulty though, and would prefer to have a speed 4 (current debug speed). The challenge is the point of the game, but challenge doesn't really necessitate time sinks to get to the parts challenging you. 

[FullMetalArthur]

Well. My first colony was a mess. After nearly 20 cycles I didnt want to keep going without some sort of guide. So, during dead   hours at work I put some ONI gameplay from random youtubers (which I got attached then and watch every ONI video they make) and had a general idea of what's what in the game.

I started by making bathrooms and planting mealwood. The design of my colony was always 4 squeres high. Never put electrolizers in the middle of the colony. Or any power generation buildings inside your colony.

After a hundred hours into the game and in my 4th colony I learned about geysers on my own and how to cool down my colony with the cold biomes. Also learned about how lethal slimelung can be.

After 200 hundred hours I get to make plastic and play with petroleum generators. I am currenlty struggling to make my steam turbine work. The new rancher update letme without geysers in my old colony so I plan on making that steam turbine work and then start a new one. But I havent had any colony really die. 

My advice is watching some youtuber gameplay. Just look at their set upts and priorities (and their mistakes) That's how I learned.