Game Development: 1UP

[Mereni]

I think where most of the frustration with this update lies is that yet another new system was added that hints at things to come, but the part that was implemented is fairly useless at this time. Traits like poison can be transferred to the next recipe. I can see where that will be useful when that system is complete... but for now it kinda sucks. I think the poison was a poor choice. The testing for this system should have been begun with something nice instead of something detrimental. Because even if the poison really is no big deal, it still is very frustrating to the player base because we've had so many nerfs lately with very little good new stuff.

The last patch notes mentioned animal husbandry, lumberwoods creatures, and priesthood as the things to expect next. So, why didn't we get one of those? You could have put off adding the alchemy skill in favor of adding the hide behind, or something, if there was just too much programming to get done in time. Or add a couple inspirationals to help soften the blow. Everyone loves those.

Even better though... finish something. The previous couple patches added alchemy equipment that doesn't really work. It needs balancing. And we were promised more work on that part of the game. Why not make the new alchemy less grinding, shortening the length of the test tube tick, making the instability increase a little more slowly, so that the stuff you have made is actually useful. Why not add more of the alchemy tools that are surely needed? Is the poison mushroom thing meant to be a lead in to that, maybe? Why not tell us so so that it looks like you're doing something meaningful, not simply ***** us all over?

OR best yet, let's hear the big picture. Almost everyone commenting in favor of this update has done so because they are hoping for a big magical patch that adds a bunch of the content we are clearly missing. IF there is such a patch in the works, please share! Or if there isn't and we'll continue to get tiny patches, please give us an outline so we can have some hope that things will get better and the game will get fun again! Maybe a crucial few things are being added in a week or two weeks that will make people want to play again. It would certainly encourage me now to have a hope for the near future.

Maybe this game will be great some day. It certainly has potential, but so much has gotten out of whack. Humors were never intended to get so high as they did? Well, then why did they? Many patches were done adding things like the awful waste claim, the brazier extras, the hp buffs for everything which are still hurting base owners to this day, when all along, all that was needed was to just add the purity updates that are being added NOW, at this late date. Added now, when it hurts everyone instead of helping like it would have when it was timely. And all that extra stuff will have to be removed, extra work all around. I'm very discouraged that there is no big plan and no one knows what the hell is going on or where this game is going to end up.

[darnokpl]

Have you even tried playing with it?

Yea some of us do... what was with that pistol in livestream?

I shall not say that the user numbers do not concern me, because obviously they do -- they always do -- but do not confuse cause and effect. Our primary aim is to try to build a good game, and to do our jobs as best as we know how. Our hope is that the user numbers follow from that. The user numbers are not -- and can not be -- our first concern. You may bring them up and laugh at us all you want, but do not do so in the belief that doing so will somehow cause us to suddenly realize that mushrooms should not be poisonous.

Then you do understand that people MUST like the game, so why you don't ask them about what they like and what not right now?
But not on forums do it in game or redirect them from game to forums.

More grind? Well, what are you looking for? A game is fundamentally about overcoming challenges, and building a game is to build challenges. If we do not make thistles thorny then there is no need to wear shoes, and thus no need to even make them. Granted, not all challenges are fun and meaningful, but perhaps some more precision in the argument wouldn't be too much to ask for?

Great, but problem is that most people expects larger reward for their work. I know you are at stage when you balance things to give us challenges for months of game play, but imho you made purity too slow or maybe it is only feeling because of braziers... to raid anything we need 400 biles alts.

I like strong defences, but brazier fire should scale in some way, maybe they should make % dmg (+critical from time to time). It should allow to raid with "normal" biles too and if someone would get (bug, exploit or not important how) biles higher that others then only advantage for him would be how far he can run and make dmg during fight, but not how fast he can rape bases.

EDIT: imho idea of keeping biles with same values is bad, most of people at start does have food for every bile, so they are increasing mostly YB first and then it is problem to rise other biles :/ With braziers critical hits we don't need to afraid of bashers with 100 blood & yb and 300 phlegm & bb.

[Procne]

FFS. It is not possible -- nor was it ever -- to gluttony up from modified values. Please be adult enough to assume that everything written in public threads on the forums are filthy lies.

So, darnok, you were lying? I know there are plenty of trolls scamming in announcement threads, but I did not expect this from you.

[darnokpl]

FFS. It is not possible -- nor was it ever -- to gluttony up from modified values. Please be adult enough to assume that everything written in public threads on the forums are filthy lies.

So, darnok, you were lying? I know there are plenty of trolls scamming in announcement threads, but I did not expect this from you.

No, I was testing it morning and it was rising my biles

[dageir]

Ok, to sum this up. People are roaring because of a minor change in game mechanics. People seem to expect mircles happening every update. Has it happened yet?
No? Ok, then it will be in the best case scenario very rare. I expect the devs to have a long term plan, and the impression that they wing everything on the go (even though it seems so at times) is made stronger by the devs themselves by trolling in streams. What we see now is the outlines of things to come, and I like it.

I havent tried the shroom-cooking yet, is there some leftovers after you remove the shrooms? Like a poisonous liquid?

[crunkhead5]

what happened to the alembic?

[Pjotr84]

I havent tried the shroom-cooking yet, is there some leftovers after you remove the shrooms? Like a poisonous liquid?

No, no residue. Also, there's no indication mushrooms were succesfully boiled, either by change of name or change of texture. Best thing is to not leave them unattended for too long, since then you can't know for sure if it's safe to use them or not.

[lachlaan]

The Alembic requires the cauldron making skill to craft now, probably as well as alchemy.

[MaoZeDong]

I can concede that poison in the waxing toadstools themselves is perhaps a bit unnecessarily repetitive given the volumes of them you want to work through, but there's a trend here of making this out to be a *far* bigger deal than it actually is.

Are you under the impression that everyone is mad only because of poisonous mushrooms? That isn't the case, I'd say the largest reason is that, in a game about survival, raiding, crafting, and character growth there are extremely powerful characters from the previous purity system still in-game and used to control their respective servers with their relatively massive character attributes.

You even recognized these characters were broken in your stream, just remove them. The only people that will miss them are the players that used them which is a small minority of people who are even without these characters loaded to bare with more goods and infrastructure than the rest of the server's population.

More grind? Well, what are you looking for? A game is fundamentally about overcoming challenges, and building a game is to build challenges. If we do not make thistles thorny then there is no need to wear shoes, and thus no need to even make them. Granted, not all challenges are fun and meaningful, but perhaps some more precision in the argument wouldn't be too much to ask for?

I don't mind a game with loads of challenge and it isn't unreasonable for one to assume that the vast majority of posters here don't either but when something is dependent on nothing more than chance, it isn't fun for the player to keep dealing with it in this case. That isn't to say chance can't be fun or necessary but imagine if in Haven there was a chance anything you can possibly use to restore stamina to have no effect, would it be fun, interesting or entertaining for the player to have to deal with that?

For example, the problem with lighting a fire is congruous with almost all of the problems I have with Salem in general

* Lighting a fire-place is dependent on nothing other than chance. // Whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhy
* Lighting a fire-place with tinder-drills on the first try almost never happens. // The chance to light a fire is biased against the player, why?
* When you fail to light a fire-place with a tinder-drill it breaks and you need to make a new one. // This only hurts beginning players
* When the drill breaks all of the humors you invested into lighting the fire are wasted. // Again, this only hurts beginning players
* You need to take a time-out and wait for your humors to restore so you can try again. /** This makes literally no sense, if you want people to play your game why would you impose mandatory time-outs, do you want your players to play less? Things like this aren't even in Haven, any stamina recovery method is reflected immediately in your stats in Haven, why not here? **/

[Claeyt]

Okay after using this for a day now, I like it even more. Basically what this update did to mushrooms was add a new poisonous mushroom and made witch's caps high end stay at home food, not traveling foraged food. It outlined their ideas about what their plans are for poisons and Alchemy. It somewhat fixed the follow xploit, which was huge. It gave the Cauldron something to do. It added uses for copper. It added an Alchemy skill and an Alchemy pack to the store.

People are missing the point about the purity update that over 10% water or 10% foragables are not going to come soon. The are trying to control further huge stat gains and slow down the big guys. High % food may never again be available in mass which hurts all the mid level to new people to match those guys. But they have helped those people to skill up much, much faster and are now looking at how the high end guys use the foraged food to slow them down that way also. The purity patch put a giant stop sign in the middle of the road for everybody, so we can't catch the humour monsters but they also can't go any further. I get it. I still think that it hurts new players more, and there may be better way to control high end guys, but I get it. It's complicated but I get it.

High Purity farming is not going to happen soon if ever. You still have humour monsters out there, but I'm over it. I'm looking forward to domesticated animals.