Question for JC only

[Nikixos]

TBH tobacco sucks ass. It's expensive and most of the time it won't lower any madness level. I'm up for another way to get rid of madness at early game

well either that, or make the tool destroying episodes only available at very high madness levels, they can destroy tools very expensive for newbies like the pickaxe.
I think they are the only reason new players will find madness game breaking.

[JohnCarver]

Interesting feedback as this topic always seems to generate.

The simple facts are as follows.

#1: It is working as intended. Prior to this mechanic there was an unacceptable level of players simply staying online for the sake of staying online and therefore breaking fundamental mechanics revolving around crime and punishment. This has almost all but been eliminated.

#2: Dual boxing, AFKing in town, Alt blocking, bots & all other forms of play that I do not encourage have gone down dramatically. Typically people are logged into Salem when they wish to play Salem, and not logged into Salem when they do not. Sure that hurts our population by not letting players leave dozens of characters online constantly, but I would rather have an active playerbase playing the game than an army of AFK players simply bolstering population.


As for "it doesn't add anything". Neither does inspiration. I could eliminate it and simply let you click the + sign next to your numbers to advance. Gluttony is pointless too. I could just let you click the forks and everytime you do you gain levels. One can argue that every 'hurdle' is unnecessary and that everything would be more enjoyable with the removal of a hurdle. Unfortunately, I do not subscribe to this. Insanity adds a tremendous amount to the game because the pure 'existence' in this harsh world now comes at some core cost. Every player that logs into the game is in a perpetual state of 'dying', and you are forced to address this issue with approx 6 minutes out of every 5 hours of playtime. Surely there is an argument that "I don't want to do what you want me to do for 6 minutes out of every 5 hours". And that is what the teddybear is for. Sleeping in a bed with a teddybear allows for nearly 8 hours of play time without ever truly 'dealing' with the mechanic. Now if you get yourself an affluence set you can push that from 8 hours of uninterrupted play to 12 hours of uninterrupted play.

For those who say "But I want to play in LONGER than 12 hour play sessions and still 100% completely ignore this core mechanic of gameplay". Too bad. However, luckily for me there is absolutely nobody who falls into this category. Instead there are players who don't understand what is stated above, are too lazy to plan 6 minutes of playtime every ~5 hours, or quite simply lack the planning, fortitude, or attention to detail that being a successful Salem player demands. I am also fine with this.

In conclusion, it adds another dynamic to just about everything in the game. There is now an immediate 'frustration' when a blood moon is summoned because simply being online adds madness levels from it. There is a penalty for the mass wringing of necks of small helpless creatures, forcing you to diversify your current focus when the actions of of questionable sound mind. The mass murder of players now requires attention to insanity. Taking drugs requires attention to insanity. The mechanic was woven into many corners of the game and anybody who thinks that it serves some 'sole purpose' really hasn't paid very much attention. If what I considered a reasonable % of educated playerbase were unable to cope with the mechanic then I would certainly address it. However, so long as it plagues the bottom 5% it does nothing but bring me joy .

I will concede that perhaps Tobacco could be re-worked tho to be more of a go-to way to counter it.

[pietin1]

all I can say is I do play a lot but I can't wait for Heflen to start. I'm handicap and this is about my live the only thing I can do. Sorry u don't seem to understand or care where I'm coming from

[lachlaan]

I haven't yet found it hard to counter the insanity gains and / or any occasional madness gain. While I do agree (and I think everyone comprehends) that all this stuff is an extra chore, JC hit the nail on the head in questioning all of the arbitrary effort that needs to be put into the game. Eliminate all the tasks and all you get is a game where you start it and it loads up to "Congratulations, you won the game, game over."

The chores are there because there has to be some sort of effort put in to get the rewards you seek, and one of the things it requires of you is to do a random set of tasks to keep insanity down. The mechanic in itself is not an issue, and at best you could suggest other activities that would reduce insanity so as to not punish certain types of players, but rather allow everyone legitimately playing to effortlessly stay mostly sane. It'd take some work but I think if you (JC) manage to tweak values of gain/reduction of insanity to more harshly target afk-ing, and all the behaviours you mentioned you'd like to get rid of, it'd seem like less of a chore for the players and would hopefully still work as intended.

[JohnCarver]

It'd take some work but I think if you (JC) manage to tweak values of gain/reduction of insanity to more harshly target afk-ing, and all the behaviours you mentioned you'd like to get rid of, it'd seem like less of a chore for the players and would hopefully still work as intended.

This is an excellent point. If you can think of more things that 'should' be making your character less insane in the new world I would happily consider it.

[Otis]

It'd take some work but I think if you (JC) manage to tweak values of gain/reduction of insanity to more harshly target afk-ing, and all the behaviours you mentioned you'd like to get rid of, it'd seem like less of a chore for the players and would hopefully still work as intended.

This is an excellent point. If you can think of more things that 'should' be making your character less insane in the new world I would happily consider it.

How about playing the game? Harvesting crops or pots, planting crops or pots, woodworking, cooking, basically any crafting?

If you are going to suggest inspiration and gluttony are on par with insanity/madness then I guess it is just 'insane' of me to argue (but I already knew this).

[JohnCarver]

How about playing the game? Harvesting crops or pots, planting crops or pots, woodworking, cooking, basically any crafting?

Planting, woodworking, and cooking already lower insanity.

[Atreties]

I was very recently a total noob, and have since learned a lot about the game. Let me give you my perspective on this.

When I started, I thought that insanity was an extremely punishing mechanic. My character was level 6 madness, I had to constantly deal with psychotic episodes which made gameplay annoying, etc. I kept getting deeper in the hole, and it kept grtting harder and harder to dig my way out.

Now, I have an affluence set, lots of tobacco, a teddy bear, and I dont pay the mechanic much mind at all.

So, here's what I think, after going from one end of the spectrum to the other:

Overall, it's an extremely good mechanic to have in the game. The griefing, exploiting, and complete bypassing of things now have a significant cost, and the game has been much improved by the introduction of this mechanic.

But, the mechanic does have extremely significant downsides, especially to the people you want to punish the least with the mechanic: new players that have much less ability to deal with it or recover from it.

For a completely new player, a 225 affluence set is incredibly hard to get and expensive. It takes hours of chipping stone or rubble, and the mechanics behind slotting are not super understood or easy.

Almost all of the issue around this is the total lack of communication to the player as to what's going on. A new player doesnt know what is increasing or decreasing insanity or by how much. A new player can hardly get a teddy bear or affluence set, and tobacco is a pipe dream. A new player also had much less ability to whittle, cook, garden, sift, and much less excess of inspiration or ability to make inspiration potions.

Almost all of these issues are solved by more communication to the player and by more transparency of this system. My suggestion is to implement an insanity meter/bar so a new player can easily understand when they need to act and what they are doing that is helping or hurting. Going into a months-back anouncment thread of on the forums of a game to find out specifics of the mechanic that will otherwise kill them is just a bad idea. Let them visually see and understand that picking flowers and cooking lowers this bar, and that killing squirrels makes it rise. Let them see that once it fills up, the faces change.

Hiding this information does almost nothing for anyone. All the experienced and savvy players can do experimentstion and testing to find exact values on how much insanity goes up and down by doing certain things anyway, so hiding the information only really hurts the noobs that need the information the most.

[lachlaan]

The feeling of safety a hunter gets once he has defeated his non-darkness prey, confidence etc etc, could equate to lowering insanity. As it stands hunters/butchers that don't actually cook what they hunt but leave it for the town cook would have to go from bearded mountain man wrestling a bear bare handed to "oooh flowers and butterflies, i feel so calm now" xD So while not the classic concept of sanity, killing animals (if not fighting them) and butchering should bring peace of mind that you're a badass and well fed.

Miners are also penalized for doing their job, and being a dedicated miner could perhaps use some love. Not sure how it'd play in with the paranoia one would feel when working in a mine though :\ Perhaps working in a somewhat lit mining area would at least mitigate insanity gain if not tick down insanity for every 5 minutes spent mining in the light or something of the sort.

Other than that, cooks are set, fishermen/foragers are mostly set (although the flower benefit could extend to most forageables, but just with lower values if possible), woodworkers are pretty set as well. Now that we have animals, could spice it up by making unlubricated suppositorization of your beasts scare the crap out of you when they freak out, and thus add some insanity, but curing them the proper way / harvesting their products could count as positive, safe work and reduce it instead.

Last but not least, there is building, and there is getting materials for building. Anyone making a stone hedge around their first base will be too absorbed by it to really have time to go get flowers or whittle or whatever. There needs to be some leniency for hard working base builders Think that'd cover most of everything.

[theangryfatman]

I would like to start by saying that I am not 100% against the madness/insanity mechanic. I do, however, feel it needs a lot of work. To begin with, it would be nice if there were someway to see what your insanity level is. Not knowing what your insanity level is, is on par with not being able to know what your humours are. If I'm mining, I know that when my phlegm gets to a certain point, I need to eat to avoid being KO'ed. If I can't see what my humours are, I can only guess at this. Sure, I could still play this way, but it adds an unnecessary level of difficulty to the game. Maybe this particular food item didn't give me as much as I expected or perhaps I ate more than needed so I have wasted food.
Secondly, I would still like to know how I can log off in my bed with teddy bear in hand and wake up 10 hours later having gained a level of madness. This has happened to me numerous times. Any complaints I have read about this on the forums have always been answered with "you are probably logging off improperly." So, here are the steps I take to log off: I go into my house. I take my teddy bear out of it's crate. I place the teddy bear in my hand. I right-click on my bed. From the flower menu I select sleep. My character walks to the bed and I am presented with the login screen. If any of these steps are incorrect, please let me know the correct procedure for logging off so I can correct my mistake.