What a horrible update

[Fishslap]

I have to say that some of the decisions made in the recent update confuse me. From my perspective, ONI had a few issues that made it quite difficult and frustrating, even for experienced players, never mind new players. These were:

1: Construction projects tend to take forever. The further away, the more forever they can take.

2: Farming nuts, wheat and even blossoms takes a lot of water that you can't necessarily spare early on.

3: Dupes are dumb and inefficient.

From yesterday's experience I feel as if all of these issues have all been made even worse by complicating something that was already complicated and inaccessible. And you have added massive stress for higher professions, unless you cook pepper bread or at least frost buns. But you can barely leave the base because of the stress anyway, so where are the nuts and wheat going to come from? And even if you can find them in sufficient quantities to feed the dupes while they constantly stress out and break your stuff, eat your crops and things, this is the developer forcing the players to do one or two specific things in order to solve their contrived new problem. Because nothing else will fix the profession related stress now. Not having 150 shine bugs flying all over the base and +200 decor everywhere, not the jukebot, not the espresso machine, not luxury beds and not the video game. No, you must cook frost cakes and pepper bread. I know that cooking was mostly useless, and an activity that was not at all necessary. In fact I have been saying that for months. But this is the wrong way to go about making it less useless, and has made the game significantly less fun. Player choice, not developer dictate is the way to go. I got to about cycle 300 before I couldn't take any more. Even with every amenity I could not get the stress down. Then my fully supplied NG generators refused to work anymore and I just gave up. Not a single enjoyable moment in the entire game past cycle 15. Just endless frustration with problems that don't have a solution, other than cooking your two stupid foods that I didn't have enough of to make steadily. And obviously couldn't start construction on anyway without spiraling into another stress hell.

And even though I thought it would have been impossible, the dupes are now even more ineffective than before because of the down time and bath time. The simplest thing can take them multiple cycles, while the water and other resources dwindle, and obviously the stress keep rising and rising with no solution. The combination of this already existing problem and Klei's new stress straight jacket just turns the entire experience into an ordeal, rather than something fun to do in your spare time. I spend much of my time yelling at the screen now. I did before as well mind you, but it was a different sort of yelling. I am now almost reduced to begging the dupes to do something, anything, meaningful that cycle. But usually they don't. They have to shower don't you know! And for an increase in stress, no less! There are just so many things that are now entirely pointless, and showers and bath time most of all. Make it do something about the stress!!!!! Just anything at all, please. It has no effect!!!!! Instead my super stressed miner has to spend half the day showering for more stress!!! Gah, just please!

[Yucie]

6 minutes ago, Fishslap said:

I have to say that some of the decisions made in the recent update confuse me. From my perspective, ONI had a few issues that made it quite difficult and frustrating, even for experienced players, never mind new players. These were:

1: Construction projects tend to take forever. The further away, the more forever they can take.

2: Farming nuts, wheat and even blossoms takes a lot of water that you can't necessarily spare early on.

3: Dupes are dumb and inefficient.

1. Travel time makes things take longer in reality too. (Common sense)

2. That's why you wait until you find a geyser to supply them in the mid-late game when they're actually needed.

3. They are just globs of ooze with no self-awareness of their own, that's why you're the brains of the operation. (Try being a manager in reality and you may find a few dupes in your workplace...)

It should be noted you can customize the schedule to make them sleep, eat, and shower for only a few seconds out of a cycle. You can get so much done by prohibiting their downtime that it's actually quite refreshing.  You can also create a night crew to work while the dupes are eating/sleeping to keep the pace going.

Honestly, the schedule is the best part of the update by keeping the player downtime reduced so you're not waiting around for things to get done cycle after cycle. You should really check it out.

[_Q_]

You obviously take to many dupes way to fast.

I have 8 dupes, everything is getting done slowly, there is enough of wild growing food, and no one is getting to high stress.

Water is not a problem either.

[Soulwind]

While there are decisions I definitely don't agree with (the power requirements for recreation items is a big one), you really just

need to take a deep breath and stop stressing (see what I did there?).

 

1) Start a new base.  It's really much, much, easier to handle stress and morale if you build with it in mind from the get go.

2) Don't rush to high-tier jobs.  Just use the jobs that are high enough to give you the perk you need that dupe to have. 

Honestly, there's really no reason to go to the top tier jobs (ever really, but especially early on).  That extra +2 isn't going to make

a big difference.  The only top tier jobs that make a big difference are mechtronic (not needed early on), exosuit (ditto), and

tenured scientist (nice to be able to analyze geysers, but definitely not required).

3) Middle tier jobs means middle tier food is plenty good (gristle berries and fried mushrooms are my staples;

with stuffed berries, omelets, and BBQ when it's available).  Gathering wild pepper nuts and wild sleet wheat will support a lot of

upper tier food without needing extra farming, you just have to plan your digging around them.

4) Building bonuses are your friend.  Just having a nice bathroom, barracks, and great hall for food time will make a huge difference in morale.

5) The new scheduling, when used properly, actually reduces downtime.  Sure you need more dupes available, but if you stagger their shifts then someone is always working 24/7.  I am currently running 2 shifts of 5 dupes with planning set up to run 3 shifts of 5 dupes eventually (+1 dupe on "swing shift" since I like to have 16 dupes in my bases).

 

[Kerrinico]

I'm not a huge fan of this update so far either. It really switches up how the game is played and if you have played since day 1 then this is quite a big change from where the game has come from.

I am sticking with it though. The pace of the game is slower so my playing sessions have become somewhat shorter because I get a little bored. I shall stick it out and see what tweaks follow this update. I'n not going to complain. This is the first update that I haven't liked and I have been here for all of them so I've easily had my money's worth already.

[Dan Thorpe]

This update is ace imo.  I loaded my cycle 700 from CU and within a few cycles had sorted all the new room types to help with the morale.  There was an early stress rise but no one went over 50, now it barely goes over 15 and I’m almost 100 cycles later.  This was before the +20 upgrade bonus was available.  Can’t wait to start a new colony too.  Having to play smarter is great.  Sometimes I would just ignore certain things but now I need to diversify.  Well done devs tbh.  Keep the updates coming.  

[blash365]

I am having no problem with stress in my current colony (literally 0% stress) and i barely have any decor (only in the bed-, break- and lunch-rooms. I am using stuffed bearies though.

So, i would argue that you can handle the morale with less food quality and more decor.

That being said i am using my old base, so i had quite a few things set up already. Maybe the key is to stay on lower job tiers for longer.

[_Q_]

Can you post screenshots of your CU bases that can't win with new morale mechanic?

[SharraShimada]

I dont see any issues here. 

The further away, the longer it takes. Set a higher priority, and they will dig a whole bunch of tiles and not only one at the time, and then return to base. And to make ways shorter, build other tiles (plastic, metal) with higher run-speed, or use fire poles to shorten trave times down. And the ultimate travel-speedup are transit tubes. 

As for the farming "problem": Its supposed to work this way. At early stages you use microbe mushers and make something from dirt and water, which is crude and not efficient. Later, you use meat lice, resulting in less water comsumption and better food. And from there you upgrade, one step at the time, to better food, while your base grows and you find more ressources, like water geysers. 

What would be the point, if you could use the best plants, making perfekt food, at the very beginning? That way, we strip food from the game, because its no issue anymore.

[AzeTheGreat]

2 hours ago, Fishslap said:

But you can barely leave the base because of the stress anyway

Use exosuits - my dupes leave the base all the time.

2 hours ago, Fishslap said:

And you have added massive stress for higher professions, unless you cook pepper bread or at least frost buns.

I average around 20 morale with feeding my dupes fried mushrooms.  You absolutely can make it up without the higher tier foods.  Decor can still provide huge bonuses.

2 hours ago, Fishslap said:

And even though I thought it would have been impossible, the dupes are now even more ineffective than before because of the down time and bath time.

They’re more effective - they don’t randomly interrupt their tasks to run all the way back to base just to eat or use the bathroom.  It’s actually made distant constructions noticeably quicker for me, because I’ll have a few dupes that work for about 70% of the entire day.

3 hours ago, Fishslap said:

Make it do something about the stress!!!!!

Yeah, showers should be more useful (only thing I agree with in your post).  At the same time, you know that they’re not, and yet you’re too stubborn to just disable them and move on until they are?  That suggests to me that all of these issues are more you having problems adapting, than actual issues with the game.

[withers]

Game settings, bro...

[Dracian]

I won't be as extreme in my judgement as OP, but there's definitely some things in the game that need to be tuned, and Morale is one of those things (it's not the only one).

Right now, the main problem I have with the game is that, even with the default settings, it can't be played casually. It is incredibly difficult to have a viable base if you don't follow a very strict path. I'll take the example of Don't Starve : DS is a challenging game, but there are plenty of ways to survive and strive. For example, you don't need to set your base near beefalos to have plenty of food, you don't need to kill every Giant to survive, you don't need to pick flowers to keep your sanity high, etc... In ONI, I have the feeling that there are not enough different ways to survive and strive, that there's only one or two development paths and if you deviate a little bit, you're screwed. Personally, I had one of my Dupes that started to exhibit stressful tendencies. I promoted him some cycles ago to the second level of Scientist and the poor guy wasn't able to handle the pressure. My food wasn't exceptional, consisting in Liceloafs and Mush Fries. To compensate that, I prioritized Room organization and could count on Latrines, Barracks and a Recreation room. I tried to maximize Decor in those rooms and around the Research Station and Science Computer where the guy spent most of his cycles. Of course, I took care of leaving no debris on the floor.

Guess what ? The poor guy's stress never went down. It never even stabilized despite my efforts. This is not normal. Had he been promoted to the final Scientist level, I would have understood... The guy is at the apex of his job, it's the final Tier, he sure needs high quality food in addition to the high quality decor he was already surrounded by. But there, it was the intermediate level of the job. This should have been the "warning level" like, "you have promoted your guy too early, look what happened, you lost a considerable amount of time trying to improve his condition, remember this the next time you promote someone".

The point is, in a sandbox/survival game such as ONI, you should have multiple options to survive and strive, not just one or two. Additionally, you should have the opportunity to fix - or at least to mitigate - some mistakes at the cost of time and resources.

[Promethien]

I've been posting this on the daily new "morale is unreasonable! I can't make it work!" threads on the steam forum.

Morale is easy enough to deal with but we have to be careful about advancing dupes in jobs now. We can't just give a dupe the scientist hat right away. They require 4 morale for that. 1 base, -1 for early food, +1 bedroom, +1 bathroom, +1 take a break, +1 water cooler. Should be able to get all that up before finishing the basic techs. Just can't rush straight into higher tier.

Once you have that get the Meal Preparation tech then put your water cooler and however many mess tables you need into a single (large) room. That will get you +3 until you can add a painting or statue. Then it upgrades to great hall and gives +6. With the great hall you should be good for going into tier 3 jobs. 

For tier 4 upgrade the latrines to sinks and lavatories for another +1. Get a jukebox for +2 (high power cost). Spread decoration around. Maybe switch to bristle/gristle berries. That opens up all the necessary jobs to be functional. 

From there decorate the hell out of everything and get higher quality food to push your morale for the top end jobs. If you can swing quality 5 food you can do pretty much anything without sweating morale since it gives 16 morale on its own topping the 20 needed with the great hall's +6.

[WanderingKid]

It's not too bad, even relaxed play should be doable.  I made a huge thing on this post if it helps you any:

 

 

[Hellshound38]

It actually seems easier to keep stress low now end game.

No need to bother with all the work to make pepper bread or BBQ, Gristle berries + espresso +music + video games + high Decor= High Morale.

 

At least at cycle 720 with most jobs mastered they still seem quite happy.

 

 

[Enno]

Don't rush to give them any job and build a massage clinic, add some plants to the bedroom and clean the floor. 

I understand your frustration, I had super high stress and nothing helped, but I kept going and now I have 0 stress. I just give them fried mushbars and gristle berries (one dupe has access to omelets since I needed that job for automation). 

[Skrivener]

Look at their stress causes - listed under their skill tabs (those tabs totally need a reorganization or better the dupe status overlay I posted in suggestions). Odds are morale will be the big cause, so jump into the Vitals window and you'll see morale as one of the columns now. Find your dupe and hover over the numbers to see what the expectations vs reality are. Then look for ways to up morale - better food, better rooms, better décor, are the easiest to work with.

Like others have said - slow down on the promotions. Wait until you have the morale needs figured out or you really need that trait. Stagger shifts so you can spread around the rec room and bathroom love without having to build as much. Massage Clinic is your friend if stress is getting out of hand.

What else... Tile your floors even outside your base - it improves décor and run speed, and lets you stash wires and pipes away. If you have a fussy dupe give them a new schedule with extra rec and/or sleep time. Build with décor space in mind from the start so you can add it in when you are ready. It's pretty important to advance the tech tree a little more evenly now because you'll want to start putting in décor improvements earlier than before. Even the first tier décor is useful once again because just a potted plant is enough to make your Clinic activate, just like a water cooler is all you need for your Great Hall. Get fire poles fairly early on. You may not use the tier right  before it for a while but the speed improvement is worth it, both in your core base and outlying areas.

Mostly, just look before you leap. We charged ahead before EU, where now we need to plan and prepare first. 

[Craigjw]

In early game, keeping dupes in tier 1 jobs keeps stress down.  As soon as I start placing dupes in higher tier jobs, they go nuts very quickly.

Try to limit the higher tier jobs and stagger down time for them, so they get access to the massage table to de-stress.

I do think that the recipes available needs improving, the current menu is very limiting.  I'm personally in favour of adding a Gruel bar, made from dirt and Meal lice, having more nutrition than either the fried mush bar or the lice bar, but having lower quality.  Perhaps also a Gruel Stew, same as above, but with the addition of meat.

[ShadowOfALegend]

i'm not seeing any problems on my end when it comes to morale but of course this is a stepping stone for more things to come

[Lifegrow]

22 hours ago, Dan Thorpe said:

This update is ace imo.  I loaded my cycle 700 from CU and within a few cycles had sorted all the new room types to help with the morale.  There was an early stress rise but no one went over 50, now it barely goes over 15 and I’m almost 100 cycles later.  This was before the +20 upgrade bonus was available.  Can’t wait to start a new colony too.  Having to play smarter is great.  Sometimes I would just ignore certain things but now I need to diversify.  Well done devs tbh.  Keep the updates coming.  

Start a fresh colony and try to play at the same pace you did in CU and previous, then come back with your findings

Any of you that loaded saves from previous upgrades may have overlooked a fundamental basic here, the pace of the game has changed drastically.

No longer can you just venture out and strip mine the whole asteroid by cycle 200, dupes must be levelled up carefully and with consideration. Slimelung can be a genuine killer due to medbays requiring the same decor as buckingham palace. 

I'll be the first to admit, my first playthrough of this update almost met a grisly end due to rushing out and not slapping decor everywhere - since then i've restarted and changed my whole approach.

The game pace has been forced by Klei. Try and update your tenured scientist too soon, he'll end up working one day out of 7. Want that abyssalite mined pre cycle 20 - better get slapping down decor.

At first I was hostile to these changes as I found it to be stifling and linear, however after having changed my usual "progression goals" within a colony, i've actually begun to enjoy the experience. I still think the morale system is dumber than a box of frogs (it should be a multiplier effect to time-spent within the colony, not just by job role exclusively imo) however for a first iteration into a hopefully refined future mechanic, it's not bad.

 

[Carnis]

I dont love the new update, but its fairly easy to trivialize.

Tidy up your living space. Grow 2 drecko ranches for Reed fiber. Snazzy suit everybody. Stack each working shift in a tight barracks of 6 cots + optional central painting or 2 statues if you can afford 3 high rooms for your dupes =>.

Enjoy +3-6 decor morale for snazzy spam. Snazzy got stronger once again.

[Lifegrow]

1 minute ago, Carnis said:

I dont love the new update, but its fairly easy to trivialize.

Tidy up your living space. Grow 2 drecko ranches for Reed fiber. Snazzy suit everybody. Stack each working shift in a tight barracks of 6 cots + optional central painting or 2 statues if you can afford 3 high rooms for your dupes =>.

Enjoy +3-6 decor morale for snazzy spam. Snazzy got stronger once again.

But a tenured scientist still requires 20+ morale

It's all about the great hall rush and decor spamming imo. As much as it sickens me to have to slap decor items all over the place, it does really help early on.

Once you get decent food, morale becomes a non-point anyways. It's another reason why I think it should be something that increases over time depending on cycles survived (paired with job expectation) to allow people to still venture into the wilds and analyse their geysers without getting bent over  Kind of makes sense that a dupe who has spent 200 cycles "surviving" should want more from the colony than a freshly printed dupe...

[Carnis]

Yeah a tenured Will need 3 decor, 1 food, 6 great hall, 6 plopped buildings (dance, game, socialize, water cooler), 2 toilet, 1 barracks, 1 being a dude.

I feed bbq whenever critters die of old age. Biggest joke is the update killed easy-butchery.

[Lifegrow]

3 minutes ago, Carnis said:

Yeah a tenured Will need 3 decor, 1 food, 6 great hall, 6 plopped buildings (dance, game, socialize, water cooler), 2 toilet, 1 barracks, 1 being a dude.

I feed bbq whenever critters die of old age. Biggest joke is the update killed easy-butchery.

Jukebox and arcade are not early game bud, have you played a fresh colony yet?

[Carnis]

Just now, Lifegrow said:

Jukebox and arcade are not early game bud, have you played a fresh colony yet?

Nope, have not. But it would be easier to not train a tenured scientist.