Insanity!

[NeiroShop]

I am finding no issues with controlling insanity since the patch. I believe the people who do are just plain lazy. There are so many functions that will lower the insanity/madness levels it is quite easy. As stated in the patch notes, the hooka can lower your level of madness by 1 level. Yet when I went into the den no one was there. How many of you have started growing tobacco? Tobacco is the easiest way to lower madness but I bet most of you haven't even started growing it. It is time for you to stop crying and help yourselves. News flash - this game is suppose to be hard.

Its funny how all the people who think just cuz the way they play the game is being embraced they think its awesome & point fingers laughing at the people complaining.

For all i care he could make it so that you permadie at madness level 3. As long as i have something to go by with the insanity i wont ever gain a madness level so even with the bloodmoon i wouldnt die.

And yes tobacco & hookah are things to fix it once youve already failed at the guesstimates with insanity.

[er-queent8r]

Why do some games force you stay 'warm', force you to not die of thirst? For you to not die of hunger? etc. etc. etc. This mechanic is no different and has blazed no trail in this regard. Some people enjoy the struggle and that is really ALL this mechanic adds, yet another struggle in a world that is intentionally suppose to be difficult. Players not looking for struggles and challenges and instead focusing on content and positive progression will leave from this patch empty handed. I understood that when we decided to do that and I am just as happy now as I was then about it.

I parsed the server stats. 4.2% of the players appear to be having a hard time understanding the mechanic in general. There is also about 10-15 positive PM's I get about thanking me for 'fixing' salem back to the hardcore game it was meant to be for every 1-2 PM's demanding a restore because they itched themselves to death during a blood moon. These are HIGHLY acceptable losses considering I feel strongly it was a large and positive step towards "Survival", a concept that prior to this patch didn't exist.

As stated earlier, prior to this patch you would afk for 100+ hours and/or live in a mine drinking tea and mining for 100 hours straight ignoring any aspect of 'survival'. It was just quite frankly not a survival game and as you pointed out if you chose not to go fight permadeath monsters and build a few braziers behind a few walls you could 'nullify' permadeath entirely. It was unacceptable and I now consider it largely fix'd.

Players who don't build beds, don't buy tobacco, don't make conscience efforts to lower their insanity and don't spend any time educating themselves on how A and possibly THE core mechanic of Salem works will find that they basically have 50 hours of play time on a Free2Play MMO. They can think of it like a 'Trial Account' that expires in 50 hours and can be renewed as soon as they pass a Salem Exit Exam and prove that they have the required minimum intelligence level that is combating madness.

I respect that it feels, and quite frankly IS, a tax to play the game. Why do some games only give me (3) lives? Why does Zelda limit my number of hearts? Why does XYZ spaceship game only give me so much fuel before I have to find a refueling station? Players could pretend that a game should NOT create artificial restrictions for the sake of artificial restrictions, but in reality we prioritize the measurements in our game based on two simple things. The investment it demands from you, and the emotions it provokes. We feel that this patch increases both of those things and quite frankly have read VERY little in these last 100 pages to change our minds.

Yet again i would embrace all theese with a BIIIG smile on my face if we had a meter for the insanity. Put in a meter or a insane-sane-insane meter that goes back and forth depending on what you do for all i care. I hate having to time my gameplay just to counter a mechanic i fully understand how to counter. Not understanding & not enjoying are two different things.

All i want is a meter to show me that its time to stop mining,building or otherwise playing the game i normally would and have to do a mundane chore to fix my insanity. At the moment i have no idea of how long it takes to get one madness level and no clear idea what counts as "whittling".

So yes keep the mechanic BUT adjust it a bit. Even if youd just send the darn data to the client without having a meter the custom clients will surely fix up a meter quick enough.

It is very clear you do not understand the mechanic. I suggest you go re-read the patch notes again.

[Necrobane]

insanity and madness episodes easy to avoid when you learnt at your mistakes, and salem is game about learning, sooo...

[JohnCarver]

Yet again i would embrace all theese with a BIIIG smile on my face if we had a meter for the insanity. Put in a meter or a insane-sane-insane meter that goes back and forth depending on what you do for all i care. I hate having to time my gameplay just to counter a mechanic i fully understand how to counter. Not understanding & not enjoying are two different things.

All i want is a meter to show me that its time to stop mining,building or otherwise playing the game i normally would and have to do a mundane chore to fix my insanity. At the moment i have no idea of how long it takes to get one madness level and no clear idea what counts as "whittling".

So yes keep the mechanic BUT adjust it a bit. Even if youd just send the darn data to the client without having a meter the custom clients will surely fix up a meter quick enough.

This completely eliminates the trial and error, exploration, and general feel of the mechanic though. Why don't you just NOT do insane things for awhile, then do non-insane things every 2 hours or so, and see after 6 hours if you gain a level? If it 'works' then you have yourself already created a system that 100% negates the insanity effects. If you don't like exploring, testing, or figuring things out like that I'm sure there are plenty of people who would be willing to find a 'rotation' of tasks that eat 5 minutes out of your 5 hour play time to keep your madness at 0 100% of the time.

If you don't want to take a 5 minute break while mining for 5 hours, well then, smoke tobacco. If you don't want to test and measure the how often and how much effects of insanity then hire a mad scientist(see what I did there) to do it for you.

[NeiroShop]

Yet again i would embrace all theese with a BIIIG smile on my face if we had a meter for the insanity. Put in a meter or a insane-sane-insane meter that goes back and forth depending on what you do for all i care. I hate having to time my gameplay just to counter a mechanic i fully understand how to counter. Not understanding & not enjoying are two different things.

All i want is a meter to show me that its time to stop mining,building or otherwise playing the game i normally would and have to do a mundane chore to fix my insanity. At the moment i have no idea of how long it takes to get one madness level and no clear idea what counts as "whittling".

So yes keep the mechanic BUT adjust it a bit. Even if youd just send the darn data to the client without having a meter the custom clients will surely fix up a meter quick enough.

This completely eliminates the trial and error, exploration, and general feel of the mechanic though. Why don't you just NOT do insane things for awhile, then do non-insane things every 2 hours or so, and see after 6 hours if you gain a level? If it 'works' then you have yourself already created a system that 100% negates the insanity effects. If you don't like exploring, testing, or figuring things out like that I'm sure there are plenty of people who would be willing to find a 'rotation' of tasks that eat 5 minutes out of your 5 hour play time to keep your madness at 0 100% of the time.

If you don't want to take a 5 minute break while mining for 5 hours, well then, smoke tobacco. If you don't want to test and measure the how often and how much effects of insanity then hire a mad scientist(see what I did there) to do it for you.

ARE YOU SAYING IT TAKES 5 HOURS TO PASSIVELY GAIN A MADNESS LEVEL!? (huge breakthrough if true) xD

I gain passively insanity by doing non-insane things. Then i have to do "Calming" things that remarkably resemble the non-insane things. The issue with the testing is...Theres no real reliable way of testing without knowing anything. Why not have a So-So meter that shows + & - even if it was an item created ingame?

Or even easier system to implement. Just give a small notice when you do something calming. (im sure the different recipes for whittling etc have different numbers etc so something to show a value of how much calmer would be great as well.)

Could even make a silly NPC in providence charging 100s for checking your insanity level to add to the above system to make it complete.

With that the "exploring, testing & figuring things out" would still be intact without making it a gruesome timer on my normal gametime to maybe fix it by whittling a mind-numbing amount of minutes of my time played.

[er-queent8r]

Yet again i would embrace all theese with a BIIIG smile on my face if we had a meter for the insanity. Put in a meter or a insane-sane-insane meter that goes back and forth depending on what you do for all i care. I hate having to time my gameplay just to counter a mechanic i fully understand how to counter. Not understanding & not enjoying are two different things.

All i want is a meter to show me that its time to stop mining,building or otherwise playing the game i normally would and have to do a mundane chore to fix my insanity. At the moment i have no idea of how long it takes to get one madness level and no clear idea what counts as "whittling".

So yes keep the mechanic BUT adjust it a bit. Even if youd just send the darn data to the client without having a meter the custom clients will surely fix up a meter quick enough.

This completely eliminates the trial and error, exploration, and general feel of the mechanic though. Why don't you just NOT do insane things for awhile, then do non-insane things every 2 hours or so, and see after 6 hours if you gain a level? If it 'works' then you have yourself already created a system that 100% negates the insanity effects. If you don't like exploring, testing, or figuring things out like that I'm sure there are plenty of people who would be willing to find a 'rotation' of tasks that eat 5 minutes out of your 5 hour play time to keep your madness at 0 100% of the time.

If you don't want to take a 5 minute break while mining for 5 hours, well then, smoke tobacco. If you don't want to test and measure the how often and how much effects of insanity then hire a mad scientist(see what I did there) to do it for you.

ARE YOU SAYING IT TAKES 5 HOURS TO PASSIVELY GAIN A MADNESS LEVEL!? (huge breakthrough if true) xD

I gain passively insanity by doing non-insane things. Then i have to do "Calming" things that remarkably resemble the non-insane things. The issue with the testing is...Theres no real reliable way of testing without knowing anything. Why not have a So-So meter that shows + & - even if it was an item created ingame?

Or even easier system to implement. Just give a small notice when you do something calming. (im sure the different recipes for whittling etc have different numbers etc so something to show a value of how much calmer would be great as well.)

Could even make a silly NPC in providence charging 100s for checking your insanity level to add to the above system to make it complete.

With that the "exploring, testing & figuring things out" would still be intact without making it a gruesome timer on my normal gametime to maybe fix it by whittling a mind-numbing amount of minutes of my time played.

I have come to the conclusion that you are just dumb. Even with a timer you would still fail.

[NeiroShop]

I have come to the conclusion that you are just dumb. Even with a timer you would still fail.

No arguments. Resort to Insults. Check.

[JohnCarver]

Theres no real reliable way of testing without knowing anything.

This is simply not true. But if you lack the research skills to 'uncover' a general system for keeping insanity down then I would once again simply suggest you hire one of the countless players who have already found their 'groove' with the new system.

[er-queent8r]

I have come to the conclusion that you are just dumb. Even with a timer you would still fail.

No arguments.

Oh so you agree you are dumb. Now that we have that settled, I see why you have so many issues playing this game.

[Lallaith]

Yet again i would embrace all theese with a BIIIG smile on my face if we had a meter for the insanity. Put in a meter or a insane-sane-insane meter that goes back and forth depending on what you do for all i care. I hate having to time my gameplay just to counter a mechanic i fully understand how to counter. Not understanding & not enjoying are two different things.

All i want is a meter to show me that its time to stop mining,building or otherwise playing the game i normally would and have to do a mundane chore to fix my insanity. At the moment i have no idea of how long it takes to get one madness level and no clear idea what counts as "whittling".

So yes keep the mechanic BUT adjust it a bit. Even if youd just send the darn data to the client without having a meter the custom clients will surely fix up a meter quick enough.

This completely eliminates the trial and error, exploration, and general feel of the mechanic though. Why don't you just NOT do insane things for awhile, then do non-insane things every 2 hours or so, and see after 6 hours if you gain a level? If it 'works' then you have yourself already created a system that 100% negates the insanity effects. If you don't like exploring, testing, or figuring things out like that I'm sure there are plenty of people who would be willing to find a 'rotation' of tasks that eat 5 minutes out of your 5 hour play time to keep your madness at 0 100% of the time.

If you don't want to take a 5 minute break while mining for 5 hours, well then, smoke tobacco. If you don't want to test and measure the how often and how much effects of insanity then hire a mad scientist(see what I did there) to do it for you.

As a person with an almost always online crime alt, I gotta say this is a little annoying to adjust to. There is much useful knowledge I still lack and will take some time to figure out, like the mentioned 'just what counts as whittling' etc. The thing I really don't like is that before going to bed or whatever, i'm wanting to make sure that the crime alt has no insanity at all, so i'm doing things like blasting my trumpet a lot of times, but I don't know when it is enough and I don't need to do it anymore. Did I just waste a ton of inspiration? Did I just waste ten minutes playing with this butterfly? These questions could drive me insane lol.

If we had something to tell us when we had no insanity at least, it would solve that as well as help greatly with learning the effects of different activities. Each of us needs to find the way to counter insanity that suits us best individually, I don't see any harm in making it easier.