Feedback about Expressional Upgrade, and ways to improve it

[Alfons100]

 I've been waiting for this type of update for a long time, to see more expression and personality in the duplicants, because they felt a bit.. disjointed from the world, like ants that just did their work without really going 'Hey wait a minute, I have feelings?' other than the Stress reactions

Now with that adressed, there's a start. However, it is bare boned and balancing needs to be done for both the Recreation needs and Social interaction. The developers have acknowledged that. Here are my ideas to fledge it out, either if it is already planned or not. I just want to give my ideas

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One thing is that duplicants can sometimes 'Vent about their issues with other duplicants' they are currently suffering during Break time. It will have the 'Loud' speech bubble with the issue they've been experiencing with two explamation marks after. If the other duplicant has the same issue, they will nod in understandment. After this, the issue such as Soggy feet, Sopping Wet or Popped eardrums for instance, will have its duration decreased by say, 20%. 

However, this should also have a downside. If the same issue is brought up with enough duplicants, lets say, 3 of them, it will instead, become worse as their problem hasn't been adressed. With the stress from the problem becoming doubled instead and the decrease in duration from venting is no more. This will go away after they havent been able to vent about their problem in some time. 

This makes it so that problems that affect many people at once needs to be fixed ASAP, or else it will grow into a big problem, oooor, you could confine all your duplicants from eachother so they cannot complain! Which of course limits your capability of getting the QoL buff from chatting with eachother, but hey. Your choice, you dictator colony manager we call 'The player'

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Now, this would make social interaction even more useful.  However, there's... there's actually not a whole lot to complain about in the world of ONI. Soggy feet, wear an exosuit and mop it up. Popped eardrums? Exosuit! Since bad decor and hot temperature only temporary appear after going away after, they wont talk about this a whole lot, so. Some negative things should 'stay for a little time' if they're exposed for it for too long, and stick and become a subject they can vent about. Such as bad decor or hot temperature. If they're in minus decor areas for too long they will get 'Bored of decor' with +5% or something. Or 'Has been in a hot area for some time' blabla 5%'. 

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But as I said that there arent a whole lot to complain about in a colony anyways, Soggy feet and similar are quite easy to avoid. So they wont have a lot of bad things going for them. Thats why more things they can be upset about should exist, also dependent on traits. Examples can be:

Feeling lonely 10% "This duplicant has been working alone while being closed out from anyone to speak with", even during Breaktime this wont cure it. They will need a friend while working if they're alone for too long. However, if they go home with a friend on the way back home, it will reset. But when it kicks in, it will stay for a day.

Too crowded 10% "This duplicant wants silence and peace when working" comes from a new trait, Introvert, which will make it so that if +2 duplicants are in proximity for too long with this duplicant during worktime, they will become upset for a day. However, they won't be upset by greeting people or chatting with people once or twice, or during Breaktime.

Wants some space 10% "Lack of space is making this duplicant a little uneasy" a new trait, Claustrophobe (Ironic, you're stuck in a rock), now this isn't severe claustrophobia like some real life people have. Only in relatively contained areas. If a room is less than.. err, well, a small amount of tiles, this debuff will begin to kick in only when they've been in the room for some time so if they pass a small room while moving, they wont freak out instantly

Critter crazed 10% "This duplicants fingers are shaking with energy that can only be purified by petting an animal" Again from a new trait called Animal-hugger, this duplicant will have a new need to pet different animals, like Shinebugs, Hatches, whatever, honestly. Not sure how exactly it should work but it should encourage having rare bred animals. As they will get bored of the same animals. During Break time, they can go to Stables or just to any close critter to call and 'pet' them. Which satisfies their need and also functions as a Quality of Life bonus. So this trait is both a plus and a minus. However, if the animal type has been used for too long or they havent been able to touch any animals, it will cause a withdrawal and cause a day long unsatisfaction.

Their own bedroom +2 QoL Hey hey hey, this isn't a negative pet peeve! Well uh, I didnt know where to put this, but there should be a new room called 'Bedroom', the opposite of the Barrack. The barracks give no QoL, but +100% rest restoration, while the bedroom requires a bit more space, but gives QoL instead! So if you got space to waste, then you should spend it on Bedrooms for cranky duplicants with high expectations.

Now this is only a few ideas, but more Traits havent touched in a long time, man. Last update that even did anything to it was.. err. Not sure which, but beyond Occupational Upgrade which slightly touched it with the new Interest system. With more traits and problems arising from that, people going into a revolt of the invisible force called 'The Player' and all go mad, stress out, and probably fail to upkeep the colony.

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Duplicants are capable of becoming friends or enemies with eachother, the same with Critters. Where each duplicant has a list of 'Possible friends' and 'Possible enemies' in the colony so bringing in a new duplicant can be a hazard if they can become a threat to another duplicant.

But I am not sure how I would explain it exactly. Duplicants may become angry at eachother and start fighting, but hey, not brutal fighting, just arm flailing and mostly emotional pain. Depending on the other duplicants Digging skill(Or combat skill) it will determine the damage they will deal to the other. Lets say it is x2 of the duplicants digging skill, this means that high digging duplicants needs to have friends, not enemies to minimize possible damage. However, I said 'Possible' so it isnt 100% guaranteed that this duplicant will hate the other person upon birth, it will begin to shape up as they chat with eachother with good and bad conversations. 

But duplicants do kind of have a 'We're all friends here!' attitude, so I am not sure how this would work exactly. 

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And... thats about it. I think. Aside from all the bugs, I hope they expand this system to be more in the line of other systems in terms of complexity and 'being able to estimate it'. Seeing duplicants do more cute things is always nice... other than the infamous no mouth glitch. Stuff of nightmares, enough to make a Shadow Manipulator and a Dark Sword. Anyways, have fun expressing yourself.

 

 

 

 

[DyingCrow]

Id go against anything that could turn dupes into someone like those idiotic guys from rimworld, but ill hope that, and i trust, that the dev team already has all this planned out, maybe with a few fresh ideas here and there. All i can hope is that they dont turn the game into a "dupe entitlement, tantrums, extreme babysitting and mental crisis management" simulator. This is not what the game is all about, i dont think.

[Alfons100]

37 minutes ago, DyingCrow said:

Id go against anything that could turn dupes into someone like those idiotic guys from rimworld, but ill hope that, and i trust, that the dev team already has all this planned out, maybe with a few fresh ideas here and there. All i can hope is that they dont turn the game into a "dupe entitlement, tantrums, extreme babysitting and mental crisis management" simulator. This is not what the game is all about, i dont think.

Well, in the end, all the grand machinery, all the vast amount of farms is just to keep your Duplicants happy.

Seeing your colonies downfall in ONI can be a little fun, sometimes. Right now the causes for it are limited, usually it is starvation, accidental suffocation and.. thats about it.

I want to keep 'the random' to minimum, unlike in Rimworld where there's little ways to keep people friends or enemies. In ONI pretty much every mechanic is predictable, and little is entirely random, the socializing system should be in line with the rest and not be entirely 'Hey look at this uncontrollable mechanic'

[DyingCrow]

Ill be honest, one of the things i like a lot about ONI is things are predictable for once, a game where i can actually control things, not just wait till the next disaster, then fix it. If something goes wrong, its entirely my fault. If there were such things as random fires, explosions, crop diseases, dupes going psycho, i would probably not play it. Got my fair share of those :/

[goboking]

12 hours ago, Alfons100 said:

One thing is that duplicants can sometimes 'Vent about their issues with other duplicants' they are currently suffering during Break time. It will have the 'Loud' speech bubble with the issue they've been experiencing with two explamation marks after. If the other duplicant has the same issue, they will nod in understandment. After this, the issue such as Soggy feet, Sopping Wet or Popped eardrums for instance, will have its duration decreased by say, 20%. 

However, this should also have a downside. If the same issue is brought up with enough duplicants, lets say, 3 of them, it will instead, become worse as their problem hasn't been adressed. With the stress from the problem becoming doubled instead and the decrease in duration from venting is no more. This will go away after they havent been able to vent about their problem in some time. 

This makes it so that problems that affect many people at once needs to be fixed ASAP, or else it will grow into a big problem, oooor, you could confine all your duplicants from eachother so they cannot complain! Which of course limits your capability of getting the QoL buff from chatting with eachother, but hey. Your choice, you dictator colony manager we call 'The player'

A disgruntled workforce banding together to tell me, the uncaring overseer, that they're not happy?  I love it!  Just don't make them unionize; I do have a colony to run after all.

 

12 hours ago, Alfons100 said:

Duplicants are capable of becoming friends or enemies with eachother, the same with Critters. Where each duplicant has a list of 'Possible friends' and 'Possible enemies' in the colony so bringing in a new duplicant can be a hazard if they can become a threat to another duplicant.

But I am not sure how I would explain it exactly. Duplicants may become angry at eachother and start fighting, but hey, not brutal fighting, just arm flailing and mostly emotional pain. Depending on the other duplicants Digging skill(Or combat skill) it will determine the damage they will deal to the other. Lets say it is x2 of the duplicants digging skill, this means that high digging duplicants needs to have friends, not enemies to minimize possible damage. However, I said 'Possible' so it isnt 100% guaranteed that this duplicant will hate the other person upon birth, it will begin to shape up as they chat with eachother with good and bad conversations. 

But duplicants do kind of have a 'We're all friends here!' attitude, so I am not sure how this would work exactly. 

Friendships forming between dupes who work and play in close proximity does sound like a natural progression of this system.  Enmity could be fun, too.  Fights could break out, resulting in trips to the med bay or a night in the brig (everyone keeps a brig in their colony, right?).  But as you said, it such dupe-on-dupe violence doesn't really match the game's tone.

[Alfons100]

9 hours ago, DyingCrow said:

Ill be honest, one of the things i like a lot about ONI is things are predictable for once, a game where i can actually control things, not just wait till the next disaster, then fix it. If something goes wrong, its entirely my fault. If there were such things as random fires, explosions, crop diseases, dupes going psycho, i would probably not play it. Got my fair share of those :/

That is what I were trying to say, the random got to be minimum.

But you can estimate that if there is a puddle lying around that has high traffick, then you can adress that before everyone finds it annoying. And duplicants becoming friends and enemies could be entirely monitored before even bringing them(within the Printing Pod UI) in with a ’list’ of who they’ll like and dislike after enough hanging out

[Ratzap]

Since you ask for feedback, here you go:

The update seems a lot of work to basically implement 25% break/sleep time, 75% work time. They still drop whatever they are carrying when they change their bird brains which is infuriating. You're on a break for gods sakes, just go put that in the right place THEN go to the crapper. Instead it drops one of the remaining food items all the way down the ladder and into water.

All the cutesy "speech bubbles" nonsense is completely wasted on me. I just want quiet, efficient peons in my video game. I couldn't care less about immersion or the plight of my "pixellated little friends".

Mood seems a little quicker to go downwards but moving decor up the research queue is all it takes to fix and is it just me or are they eating more? Over all: D+, try harder next update.

 

I like ONI as a sort of ant farm game. I don't care about the ants or what happens to them: there are always more ants right? If the game had a plot or story (apart from one popup at the start of a new game) that might change but as it is, no. Long term I want to be able to build a sprawling, self sustaining colony of little two legged ants. I think to sum up, don't try to out Rimworld Rimworld. Be ONI.

[Oozinator]

I hope Expressions get more game impact.

[Slvrsrfr]

i hope this feature is optional. I do not care at all about socializing dupes, what game is this? A builder or a social circle simulator?

They gonna get iphones next demanding more download bandwidth? please. Fix the mechanics of the game. More emotions to go haywire...

[Slvrsrfr]

21 hours ago, Ratzap said:

Since you ask for feedback, here you go:

The update seems a lot of work to basically implement 25% break/sleep time, 75% work time. They still drop whatever they are carrying when they change their bird brains which is infuriating. You're on a break for gods sakes, just go put that in the right place THEN go to the crapper. Instead it drops one of the remaining food items all the way down the ladder and into water.

All the cutesy "speech bubbles" nonsense is completely wasted on me. I just want quiet, efficient peons in my video game. I couldn't care less about immersion or the plight of my "pixellated little friends".

Mood seems a little quicker to go downwards but moving decor up the research queue is all it takes to fix and is it just me or are they eating more? Over all: D+, try harder next update.

 

I like ONI as a sort of ant farm game. I don't care about the ants or what happens to them: there are always more ants right? If the game had a plot or story (apart from one popup at the start of a new game) that might change but as it is, no. Long term I want to be able to build a sprawling, self sustaining colony of little two legged ants. I think to sum up, don't try to out Rimworld Rimworld. Be ONI.

eloquent, I wish i could write better...,