the madening madnes

[NordErdTod]

Playing since the server start and only ever got 1 madness lvlv - but during the events on Popham, cause I've been standing for hours and watching, and not doing anything.

While I'm playing - I never got any madness so far.

[Dallane]

I don't think it is. If you want something to change in this game then you need to give examples of why and how it should be changed. Else John will more than likely think that you don't understand how madness works and are just complaining.

ok seriously i think you are just trolling now, did you read what i wrote at all in my first post? its not that long im sure you can manage

I read what you wrote. It was 100% crying. I don't think you understand how madness works.

[ShadowTani]

Maybe you don't sleep in bed (it reduces insanity)

This got patched unfortunately and is no longer true. Beds only boost inspiration, and reduce madness in combination with a teddy. They do nothing for insanity now, even with a teddy.

[wowofbob]

Maybe you don't sleep in bed (it reduces insanity)

This got patched unfortunately and is no longer true. Beds only boost inspiration, and reduce madness in combination with a teddy. They do nothing for insanity now, even with a teddy.

Oh, it's sad

[Cheena]

I've been on the new server for 3 weeks aswell, since it was started. I have NOT gained a SINGLE level of madness.

Now why would you lick boards, carelessly dissect alive frogs and wring turkeys necks, or standing all day glaring at nothing (or worse, at darkness creatures) ? Hmm ? Second question : is it that hard to ask on help or even tradewind forums for someone to give you a hand on this ? We're on a MMO, we need each other's help and there's plenty of carebear players ready to do it.

Pro tip : whining doesn't help.

I'm far from being a good veteran player. I'm even completly noob when it comes to certain aspects of the game. Although I've carefully read the madness patch to know what I could do or not, and logging off on a bed (even if it doesn't decrease insanity, it's still a good thing to do especially if I'm going afk), studying stuff (which most of the time requires whistling anyway), cooking (to glutton each time the timer is ready) and avoiding murdering/hurting creatures (frogs, salamanders, turkeys) is very, very easy to do. In my entire time playing I've gain only 1 level on madness, on my main, just cause I killed too much turkeys at a time. Not hard to avoid doing that mistake again.

[Shrapnel]

Its been said before, but ill say it again.

Madness is working as intended, and unless a mass of players says something is wrong, its most likely not going to change. Knowing JC, he might even make it harder to manage because the majority aren't having any issues with it. The 'It isnt explained enough' is a bs excuse, the announcement thread explains everything you need to know about it, gaining and losing insanity, and if you look in the comments, JC explains some of the aspects in more detail.

Sure, as a new player it can be extremely frustrating to learn how to manage it, the in-game tips aren't very helpful with most things, and that's why browsing the forums is really important. You claim you searched the forums for everything about it, but clearly haven't tried them all.

There are a few players now selling Teddybear materials, it should be a LOT easier to get them now, you just farm some silver and buy the mats, craft the teddybear.

Also as said earlier in this thread, chip stones to get some Geodes, slot them into some clothing, you need a minimum of 200 Affluence to enter the Den. You can puff the Hooka once per day, and is a guaranteed reduction in 1 madness level. (Just make sure not to pass out while using it, usually puff for 5 seconds and then stop.)

This is the around the 5th thread created complaining about the Madness mechanic since Popham was launched, and in that time ive gained only gained 2 madness levels.. the first was because i AFKd for a couple hours on day 1, spent some silver and got the teddybear, madness gone. The second one was a few days ago, i was mining all day without a break, no studying or anything to reduce madness. teddybear again and now im all good.

[Astarisk]

This will be a fairly long read and opinion on the system as a returning 3~ week old player.

Having started up a few weeks ago again, I'll give my opinion on the madness system. I believe it is an extremely worthless and unnecessary burden / barrier of entry for new players into the game. I just don't see the merit at all towards it, the mechanics are pretty non-intuitive, and just adds an extra level of un-needed frustration. Having to rely on 3rd party sites and endless searching of the forums to figure out what is going on takes away from interactive game play. When I first started, even the wiki wasn't too clear on how to handle what was going on, and then the idea that insanity and madness are actually two different systems that interact with each other isn't helping that out either. Most I've read spent the time talking about how to reduce insanity. Hookah den? Didn't learn about that until after I had a teddy bear, tobacco? Expensive and sucks compared to the alternatives.

The psychotic episodes that come with it are even worse in explaining themselves. During my initial first week or two, I've had to resort to searching for forum posts to explain some of these things, such as the "itchy britches" episode, It took for me to literally search for forum posts to explain that I needed to right click my avatar, and in the process of this I ended up losing some clothing items on the ground and walking away. I also ended up losing a metal axe to questionably effective (had that been a pickaxe I might had just stopped playing there). Didn't know that could happened and was caught by surprise (after all the research I had put in!). At that point I had about 4 madness (this was after a friend had given me some tobacco to reduce it by a whole 2 levels *rolls eyes*), and finally managed to get hold of a teddy bear. So I ended up spending a few days sleeping with it in order to reduce madness enough so that I could mine. (You implemented a system that encourages me to stay off the game? Why would you want to do that is beyond me). My friend randomly started to lose hammer and nails levels and had no clue what was going on there, that wasn't very clear or naturally figured out either. The termite episode though, that one I consider to be pretty alright and humorous.

As soon as you figure out the system, it seems to become absolutely worthless. Which is why the older players seem to ridicule the newer ones over it. It's this entry barrier that separates them, a mechanic that overwhelmingly effects new players (much like disease, oh boy disease) and in the end seems absolutely pointless to an established player (after extensive research and understanding). I don't get the system at all, I honestly don't see the point to it. Being a MMO with social aspects, I would think you would want to encourage people to be on a bit more, I like sitting in my base and talking to friends all day while I whittle away at programming in the background. However, most of the time I just log off so my insanity won't rise, and do my programming in silence. Madness doesn't effect me anymore, but the system greatly didn't agree with how I played the game starting. Now, I can just mostly ignore the entire system (though if I'm having a restless night of sleep, and am trying to reduce madness (such as now) I am extremely reluctant to even log in to the game).


tl;dr : In my opinion the madness system provides an absolutely high barrier of entry towards new players, and absolutely nothing towards veterans. It is an imbalanced system that seems pointless. I don't understand why its in the game. It's an un-natural feeling system, thus not fairly easily understood at the start.

[Claeyt]

tl;dr : In my opinion the madness system provides an absolutely high barrier of entry towards new players, and absolutely nothing towards veterans. It is an imbalanced system that seems pointless. I don't understand why its in the game. It's an un-natural feeling system, thus not fairly easily understood at the start.

See this is where you're wrong. It's actually much, much harder for veteran players than for new players. New players are constantly doing things to alleviate madness while veteran players need to watch it more. I agree that IF a new player gets madness that they're basically screwed and that there needs to be a way for madness levels to go down without killing a bear or mining geodes or buying tons of tobacco, but overall it's a pretty unique system. The only real change to my play style is that when I skin frogs, kill turkeys or squirrels is that I kill maybe 5 of them, then study some and then kill 5 more and then so on.

Madness needs to be more fluid at lower levels and easier to fix for new players who do get caught in it without foreknowledge.

[Astarisk]

See this is where you're wrong. It's actually much, much harder for veteran players than for new players. New players are constantly doing things to alleviate madness while veteran players need to watch it more.

You see, logically speaking if that was true then these types of threads wouldn't exist at all. Veterans and new players alike both have the equal amount of potential to do things to alleviate insanity/madness. The difference being that the veteran player knows about the system in detail, and has easier means to combat it if they screw around with it.

[Forungi]

As a new player, and having read the topic about Madness, I can say that there is NOTHING wrong with the system, at all

On my first character, I gained a few madness levels from seeing darkness creatures, and doing bad things to creatures that were alive. A teddybear fixed that over night.
However, on my new character, which I have been playing for atleast 6 hours per day, I have not gained a single madness level. It's as simple as just studying a few items per hour and it will not rise even a bit.

I just assume the system was put in place to combat botters and longtime AFKers.