Why can't kids survive?

fragilityh14 · 2018-05-27 16:14:47

I don't understand how all of my kids are always dying. Based on the bottlenecking family trees, this is clearly a problem for everyone.

No matter how many kids I raise, most of them drop dead of starvation, often right next to food. Even the ones who appear to know what they're doing. One game, I gave the only surviving female of the family line a backpack and instructed her to always keep food in it. She seemed competent. Somehow, she dropped dead next to a berry bush near camp with an empty backpack.

Another game, I felt bad because I kind of got my daughter killed, because I was changing out carrots in a basket and my picking up and setting down stopped her from getting one, but we were like one screen away from other food, why did she run there desperately, from that direction!

I don't care much for city life, so i've been doing a lot of running off with a bowl and starting new camps especially because I'm interested in the idea of sustainable family lines (that is to say, it seems to me if people move out and colonize there is no reason family lines should die.

If I do this at a young age, I definitely have a carrot farm etc going by the time of the first kid, and plenty of food around.

But I find them dropped dead all over, almost always near food, no matter what instructions I give.

I suppose these are the same people In the city who stand around eating carrots until food collapses

But another time I was a male and did everything, noob eve grandma and relatively noob eve mom I believe, from basically nothing and no help but a bit of milkweed gathering I got fire, rabbits, farming going extremely fast (males are INCREDIBLY useful if they are skilled and work) and kept telling the women to stay in camp and just mom so the family survived, and they STILL dropped dead next to carrots (I think this was the game I made the surviving female a backpack.)

When i play my average lifespan is like 35 if I live past infancy. Once I had a full life the first time the basic shit was pretty easy.

I mean, I'm not saying I'm the greatest player, and i'm WAY more of a first/second gen (I don't actually know how to smith, do carpentry, etc) player so I get that I'm better at the initial survival aspect, but clearly this is a problem for everyone all the time, based on the family lines you see. I don't get how so many people who say they know what they are doing can die standing in camp next to food (though, obviously, we all barely don't make it sometimes, this especially happens to me when I'm elderly.)

It's started to discourage me a great deal, as I am always trying to start a long line, and they usually die out ludicrously early far before any sort of resource collapse (which once again, that shouldn't actually starve out a family line, people should go settle a new area.)

the problem is, I don't know what to do about this. I try to ask kids if they're new and teach people when they have questions. I think a lot of babies will worried I won't keep them if they admit they don't know how to play. Or maybe what they mean by yes is that they know how to point and click.

I get the impression this happens to everyone who is good at the game, at least that's what all my adult children say when I complain about the situation.

I get that low survival rates are historically accurate, but these are extinction rates. The problem is, I don't want the game to become easier, I would have hoped this would get better with time, but it hasn't At least it hopefully means there are still new players.

Is there any better way we can teach new/casual players basic survival? I always tell my children to always carry food, and that doesn't seem to help

Aurora Aurora · 2018-05-27 16:28:04

New players who have no idea what they're doing do that. Also players who experience severe lag. The skilled players usually suicide in new settlements in hope of getting to a city where they can really help in areas they're good at (Baking, building, smithing etc). And some people are just unlucky and die infront of food they werent fast enough to grab. The only thing you can really do is wait and hope a survivor gets born.

fragilityh14 · 2018-05-27 16:36:14

yeah the suicides are frustrating and i figure that is part of it. Experienced players can also help starting a solid settlement.

Portager · 2018-05-27 17:26:29

Thanks to the lineage ban, suicide babies are much less common, although they still happen on occasion.

I still haven't come up with a great strategy myself in combating this issue, it is really a matter of luck at the moment. The best thing that we can do when we setup camp as an eve or a runaway girl is to choose a place with extremely high levels of food, even if the other resources aren't as great. Sometimes you might find a nice spot with plenty of water, on the edge of multiple biomes, but if food is scarce...I move on. Food is key to survival. When you get to your chosen campsite, grab a sharp stones and run across the area cutting any burdock you can find out of the ground...you will not regret doing this later.

One other thing I try to do is quickly build a kiln, I find that when babies spawn, they are less likely to suicide at a camp with a kiln. It makes the place feel like it has some permanence, even though it is still very fragile.

At the end of the day, not every kid will survive no matter how much your provide them with. I'm ashamed to admit that even I die fairly often as a second generation kid, it comes with the territory imo. As you run around setting up, it is very easy to neglect the health bar. Its sad, but true.

Lily · 2018-05-27 17:28:53

I usually tell children where the food is, even if they say they are pros. Just in case. A lot of time it is just newer people underestimated how fast you run out of food. The best thing to do, is to give them all clothing, that way it takes longer to starve. If they wait until the starvation warning triggers, they also still have more time to find food if they are fully clothed.

Some might avoid planted carrots, as they don't want to pick the seeds. So having carrots in a basket or something near by is useful. Very new people might not know what is food at a glance, especially if the food is in a cart or something. So might be worth telling them, "Hey there is pies over here" or whatever. If they are looking for pies, they will notice them. Fruit isn't that common either, so it is worth saying there is a basket of fruit if you put it down for them.

Lastly, kids are at very high risk when they first are able to pick up objects. It is worth having them stay around their mother or a fire until they are older. I think you can breast feed children until their eight or something, so if you really want to be safe wait a few more years before letting them wander off.

I wonder if people need to put more interesting stuff around fires, so new children have stuff to play with while waiting to grow older. That way they don't run off randomly. Having kids in a kitchen area might be a good place to raise children. They can learn about skinning rabbits and making pies, even starting fires and stuff. They would also learn about where food is, and how to make more.

YAHG · 2018-05-27 19:01:17

I think Jason said that the game is growing. Maybe they are new?

Teleri · 2018-05-27 19:13:48

YAHG wrote:

I think Jason said that the game is growing. Maybe they are new?

Personally, I think it is simply the concept of something new to the game.
People who left the game are coming in hopes to try the new grave update and will quickly be killed down and then leave.
The update is drawing in these people because it is new and shiny, thus creating more players who are going to die quickly (hence your children not surviving.)

Give it about a week or two and the numbers will crash again when they realize the graves do not add much to the game and that the game is now even more hard because of the milkweed update.

fragilityh14 · 2018-05-27 19:28:24

it's always been like that. In my last game there were a ton of gooseberries, and same thing.

happynova · 2018-05-27 21:45:24

This is why I usually try to keep as many kids as I reasonably can (or at least a large part of the reason). The attrition rare is huge, and you never know which one is going to make it.

As for why this happens... I think it's good to keep an eye out for signs of newness: running around a lot as a baby, trying to pick things up before they're able, not knowing to go to a spot where the temperature is right, etc. I try to ask kids who look like they might be inexperienced if they're new (and sometimes do it even if they don't show the signs). I've been starting to ask them how new if they say yes, once they're old enough to type a few letters, or tell them it's okay to let me know are if they say no. I have yet to determine how much that actually helps, though. Sometimes you have time to teach 'em, sometimes you don't. But at least if you know they're really inexperienced, you can remind them about small baby stomachs and instruct them to stay near food, or on warm spots. I have seen pretty inexperienced players stay alive long enough to continue the family line, with a little encouragement, at least in towns.

(When they're super new, you might even have to teach them to say F for food, and I, uh, often seem to forget that and don't realize when they're hungry. Oops.)

But even people who are reasonably experienced can get distracted, not pay attention to the food bar, and panic when the starvation sound happens. I've had that happen. I starved to death on one particularly ignominious occasion because I didn't want to walk out in the middle of a conversation in which adults were telling kid me things about what they wanted from me, and I waited too long to run to the food. It can also happen that you think you remember where the food is and turn out to be wrong, or when you get there it's gone, and you run out of time to go somewhere else. That happens a lot with berry bushes. Kid knows where berry bushes are, feels confident about getting food there, arrives to find them empty because family members have picked all the berries, and dies. It's also sadly easy to venture out too far without food and misjudge how many hunger bars you need to make it back. That can be a real problem early on when you're a child of an Eve and might not even have so much as a basket of your own to carry food with you.

I've also died of being sure I put food in my backpack and suddenly realizing I didn't. Which was also embarrassing.

And then there's lag, yeah. I've died to that once or twice.

Oh, and then there's the problem of holding something and not having a free square to put it down on. Mostly a problem with berries, or if the food is in a basket in a box or a cart, but I've nearly starved sometimes taking more time than I should have just looking for somewhere to put a thing. And then there are the times when people stand directly in front of the food you're trying to pick up...

And, of course, if there's a famine in town, there can be lots of berries and cactus around, and people won't necessarily think to go and look for them, or they don't know where to go and leave it too late to find stuff. If there's a nice area of berry bushes outside of town, it can be a very good idea to let your kids know where it is, so they can run out there if they need to.

Angel Carrillo · 2018-05-27 23:00:32

Lily wrote:

I usually tell children where the food is, even if they say they are pros. Just in case. A lot of time it is just newer people underestimated how fast you run out of food. The best thing to do, is to give them all clothing, that way it takes longer to starve. If they wait until the starvation warning triggers, they also still have more time to find food if they are fully clothed.
Some might avoid planted carrots, as they don't want to pick the seeds. So having carrots in a basket or something near by is useful. Very new people might not know what is food at a glance, especially if the food is in a cart or something. So might be worth telling them, "Hey there is pies over here" or whatever. If they are looking for pies, they will notice them. Fruit isn't that common either, so it is worth saying there is a basket of fruit if you put it down for them.
Lastly, kids are at very high risk when they first are able to pick up objects. It is worth having them stay around their mother or a fire until they are older. I think you can breast feed children until their eight or something, so if you really want to be safe wait a few more years before letting them wander off.
I wonder if people need to put more interesting stuff around fires, so new children have stuff to play with while waiting to grow older. That way they don't run off randomly. Having kids in a kitchen area might be a good place to raise children. They can learn about skinning rabbits and making pies, even starting fires and stuff. They would also learn about where food is, and how to make more.

Tested it out, and you can only breastfeed children until age 5.

Eclipciz · 2018-05-27 23:07:01

Communication is bad in this game and fov is too low

Lily · 2018-05-27 23:09:02

Angel Carrillo wrote:

Tested it out, and you can only breastfeed children until age 5.

Unless they changed it in this last update, that doesn't sound right. Though even if it was, it is definitely worth breast feeding them for those extra two minutes(until they turn six).

YAHG · 2018-05-27 23:09:59

We did tests and you can continue breast feeding as long as you don't put them down. They grow up while in your arms

pein · 2018-05-28 01:10:55

YAHG wrote:

We did tests and you can continue breast feeding as long as you don't put them down. They grow up while in your arms

yes and its so funny, once i breastfeed one until age 9? wonder how long could i hold somebody xD

part of the reason is some people newer did eve runs, they dont even know what it takes to build a settlement and take food for granted. once i moved a farm from green biome to desert, as surely the eves intention was that, but people didnt even find the farm cause was 30 tiles away, i mean really? cities are connected garbage on floor, people dont go outside of it. new players seem to panic outside the garbage pile. lot of kids dont grab food while walking, even if they say they are not new
most cases they just fuck up everything cause they need something to do, even if there is food, they try to go for water runs or get milkweed, etc. had kids i told what to do and they survived longer, while aimless kids just starved next to farm

so first is to have some food, store it in baskets and distribute, connect things with roads or something, have other farms too, have some tedious task for each kid, so they feel accomplished

YAHG · 2018-05-28 01:39:06

You need someone to hand feed the Mom as once you put the "kid"
down you can't pick em up again. We were coordinating on discord.
I doubt you can get people to do that with you in normal play..

pein · 2018-05-28 05:12:23

thing is some kid look small even at age 9, the blonde guy, so if he doesnt move and u do show stuff gets distracted

would be funny to put down at age 14

the hunger bar doesnt update if you dont put him down, needs a few seconds even if you put down

Last edited by pein (2018-05-28 05:12:41)

YAHG · 2018-05-28 08:36:04

pein wrote:

the hunger bar doesnt update if you dont put him down, needs a few seconds even if you put down

I would have assumed it would only chance when it updates as your age changes.

Anshin · 2018-05-28 13:48:52

Eclipciz wrote:

Communication is bad in this game and fov is too low

Yes. Joriom's 1.5x zoomed out mod should be standard.
https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=1467

The field of view is much more realistic, and makes a huge survival difference.

How to make zoom mod yourself: https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=1422

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-05-27 16:14:47

Why can't kids survive?

#2 2018-05-27 16:28:04

Re: Why can't kids survive?

#3 2018-05-27 16:36:14

Re: Why can't kids survive?

#4 2018-05-27 17:26:29

Re: Why can't kids survive?

#5 2018-05-27 17:28:53

Re: Why can't kids survive?

#6 2018-05-27 19:01:17

Re: Why can't kids survive?

#7 2018-05-27 19:13:48

Re: Why can't kids survive?

#8 2018-05-27 19:28:24

Re: Why can't kids survive?

#9 2018-05-27 21:45:24

Re: Why can't kids survive?

#10 2018-05-27 23:00:32

Re: Why can't kids survive?

#11 2018-05-27 23:07:01

Re: Why can't kids survive?

#12 2018-05-27 23:09:02

Re: Why can't kids survive?

#13 2018-05-27 23:09:59

Re: Why can't kids survive?

#14 2018-05-28 01:10:55

Re: Why can't kids survive?

#15 2018-05-28 01:39:06

Re: Why can't kids survive?

#16 2018-05-28 05:12:23

Re: Why can't kids survive?

#17 2018-05-28 08:36:04

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#18 2018-05-28 13:48:52

Re: Why can't kids survive?

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