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#1 2019-09-04 08:36:46

Twisted
Member
Registered: 2018-10-12
Posts: 663

Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

Hungry work is great. It does a great job of stopping a lone griefer from cutting all the trees on their own, but still makes it possible to easily chop trees if you cooperate and build up your town.

It works great with other game mechanics. Chopping down a tree costs ten pips, and you need to have at least five pips remaining after the chop as a buffer. This puts old people at a disadvantage as their hunger bar is smaller... but that disadvantage is greatly reduced if you have a high gene score! These two mechanics go together really well, but they're just a small part of what makes Hungry Work so great.

The real synergy is with the YUM chain mechanic.

In real life you need a balanced diet to stay healthy and strong, and sometimes you have a craving for a specific food. In OHOL all foods have the same exact function - to fill up your hunger bar. There is no reason to make different foods. You just find the most efficient food that gives you the most pips for the least effort, and you eat that. To combat this problem, we were given the YUM mechanic. But there is still a big problem - you don't need to eat that often. In fact, if you keep a yum chain going from birth to death, you only need to eat ~17 times. This means that each town only makes about 20 of the best food items, and the other ones are mostly ignored. There's no reason to fish or make salsa when there's no time to eat those foods. There are currently 49 food items in the game, and most of them are a waste of time. New foods will inevitably be added, and they will either be a waste or time, or they'll make some of the current meta foods to be a waste of time.

But with Hungry Work, they are not a waste of time. Hungry Work depletes both your food bar and your YUM bar. It makes it so you have to eat more than ~17 times per life. With Hungry Work, food is more valuable than before, and even better, yumming is more valuable than before. If we had more actions that were hungry work, having a variety of foods would become so much better. Not everything has to cost 10 food - smithing an item could cost 1, while slaughtering a sheep could cost 5. Just little things to encourage more food variety. To me, this makes sense - as the village grows, they have more food, and they can do things more easily.

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#2 2019-09-04 08:43:48

sigmen4020
Member
Registered: 2019-01-05
Posts: 850

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

Now all we need is have shooting moufflon as well as killing sheep be hungry work or something similar. I played yesterday and moufflon and sheep are pretty much the go-to-things to grief now.


For the time being, I think we have enough content.

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#3 2019-09-04 09:17:46

Coniculls13
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2018-03-10
Posts: 42
Website

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

sigmen4020 wrote:

Now all we need is have shooting moufflon as well as killing sheep be hungry work or something similar. I played yesterday and moufflon and sheep are pretty much the go-to-things to grief now.

See that sounds great but a griefer is always going to go for the easiest method. This will only create a never-ending loop of things that are grief, you can probably already see this happening.


Maintainer of Two Hours One Life - a curated OHOL server. Discord https://discord.gg/atEgxm7

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#4 2019-09-04 10:35:21

sigmen4020
Member
Registered: 2019-01-05
Posts: 850

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

Coniculls13 wrote:
sigmen4020 wrote:

Now all we need is have shooting moufflon as well as killing sheep be hungry work or something similar. I played yesterday and moufflon and sheep are pretty much the go-to-things to grief now.

See that sounds great but a griefer is always going to go for the easiest method. This will only create a never-ending loop of things that are grief, you can probably already see this happening.

Regardless we still need a fix to the constant moufflon/sheep slaughter, because trying to get sheep back to a town is frustrating when all you ever see are hundreds of dead moufflon.

This neverending grief cycle is one of the main issues with the rift that isn't easily solvable, because there will always be something finite that griefers can grief.

Last edited by sigmen4020 (2019-09-04 10:35:44)


For the time being, I think we have enough content.

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#5 2019-09-04 11:43:29

DiscardedSlinky
DubiousSlinker
From: Discord
Registered: 2019-05-06
Posts: 687

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

I agree and I also disagree strongly.

Making a fence for your town is a NIGHTMARE. You ever wonder why so many fences are so janky and ugly it's because some poor grandson of Eve just wanted to protect his Mom without devouring every piece of food inside the rift to do it.

WHY THE FUCK ARE SWAMP TREES HUNGRY WORK????

They're absolutely WORTHLESS. They actually do nothing. At least pine trees have SOME purpose.

Just make it so all the good trees and hungry work and the useless shit trees aren't and it's FINE. I'm just tired of starving out my village to CUT 3 TREES DOWN


I'm Slinky and I hate it here.
I also /blush.

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#6 2019-09-04 14:01:00

DestinyCall
Member
Registered: 2018-12-08
Posts: 4,563

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

Hungry work is a great anti-griefing mechanic, but as DiscardedSlinky pointed out, it needs to be applied carefully to be effective.   If hungry work applies to the wrong things, it creates new problems instead of solving them.   And hungry work doesn't make sense as a solution to EVERY griefable resource - like milkweed or geese.   For those resources, adding alternative options (feathers from domestic geese) is a better work-around.    Hungry work to allow wall removal would be a good option, but hungry work for EVERYTHING would just be a nightmare.   We would all starve.

Hungry work (as an anti-griefing mechanic) needs to be hard enough to deter people from spamming the same action over and over.   If it is too easy, it will not actually deter people.   But at the same time, it needs to be balanced to allow for necessary work.   The current application of hungry work to ALL trees is too broad.  Various trees that provide no beneficial resources require hungry work to remove.   That is a bad application of hungry work, since these trees NEED to be removed in large quantities to clear land and extend property fences.   They do not provide any benefit beyond logs and firewood, so making their removal equally costly to removing valuable trees doesn't make sense.

I wouldn't mind seeing hungry work applied to other useful but potentially griefable actions - removing permanent man-made structures and blocking natural objects is a great application for hungry work.

Last edited by DestinyCall (2019-09-04 15:00:40)

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#7 2019-09-04 19:58:51

Jk Howling
Member
From: Washington State
Registered: 2018-06-16
Posts: 468

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

DiscardedSlinky wrote:

I agree and I also disagree strongly.

Making a fence for your town is a NIGHTMARE. You ever wonder why so many fences are so janky and ugly it's because some poor grandson of Eve just wanted to protect his Mom without devouring every piece of food inside the rift to do it.

WHY THE FUCK ARE SWAMP TREES HUNGRY WORK????

They're absolutely WORTHLESS. They actually do nothing. At least pine trees have SOME purpose.

Just make it so all the good trees and hungry work and the useless shit trees aren't and it's FINE. I'm just tired of starving out my village to CUT 3 TREES DOWN

Tarr actually made a github report about this about a week ago.
Jason closed it and said he might revisit it someday. Long story short, that's a no from him dawg.

https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLifeData7/issues/426


I made a new complaint about it claiming it's inconsistent. Go support it if you can. Maybe he'll 'revisit' it sooner.
https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLifeData7/issues/431


-Has ascended to better games-

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#8 2019-09-04 21:38:14

Villas
Member
Registered: 2019-03-16
Posts: 233

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

I also loved it.
In my case, I really like farming trees and it's a job that almost no one does, but it was impossible before since griefers always chopped them down immediately, mainly when I farm them in beautiful shapes, making it possible to have a cow pen made of trees and whatnot. But now, the trees last longer, generate 20-30 branches per hour for 2, 3 days and I really enjoy it. I played about 5 hours this week and farmed more than 100 trees, today I logged in and almost all of them are intact, some are chopped but not due to griefing, but due to butt logs and it's okay.
Also, that new area ban system is amazing, every time I see someone griefing (chopping good trees, locking doors, killing the family and whatsoever) I simply curse them and they get banned for 48 hours, so everything is lasting longer and longer.

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#9 2019-09-04 22:12:21

BladeWoods
Member
Registered: 2018-08-11
Posts: 476

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

Something reasonable I think people could do is create one or multiple back-up sheep. Just make a 1x1 enclosed place out of fences with a sheep inside and no gate or way to get in. Or even just intentionally releasing a couple sheep to wander outside town. That's not as secure but easier to do.

I'm unsure how much hungry work for killing sheep would help, there's thousands of trees spread across the map. Cutting them all is a great challenge with hungry work. There's only several or so sheep in any town. And you're right next to a bakery with pies or other food. So you kill a couple of sheep take a bite, repeat, probably only need to grab one pie to kill all the sheep, and can still kill the sheep pretty fast. Hungry sheep killing might hurt all the people legitimately killing sheep which is a common activity more than help stop griefs.

Maybe the knife could become bloody like when you kill people, and just make you wait some time between sheep killing. Idk.

Last edited by BladeWoods (2019-09-04 22:24:25)

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#10 2019-09-05 12:01:21

Psykout
Member
Registered: 2018-11-14
Posts: 353

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

BladeWoods wrote:

Hungry sheep killing might hurt all the people legitimately killing sheep which is a common activity more than help stop griefs.

Maybe the knife could become bloody like when you kill people, and just make you wait some time between sheep killing. Idk.

All of the changes hurt normal productive players. Not debating the effectiveness, because it has indeed helped, but the psychological effect of that anything abused by people on one side of the fence, will make it harder for those on the side. It's demoralizing to see more and more restrictions to mechanics, and it has pushed away those that were great players but don't like putting up with those with cruel intentions.

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#11 2019-09-06 19:07:45

jasonrohrer
Administrator
Registered: 2017-02-13
Posts: 4,803

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

Yes, it might be interesting to add hungry work to other jobs, not to prevent griefing, but for thematic texture and to enhance the importance of a varied diet.  For example, splitting big rocks, stacking blocks, building walls, etc.

Pine trees are the only non-hungry trees because they are softwood.  This is not inconsistent, if you've ever chopped wood.  Willow and cypress are not softwood.  It's not about whether the trees are "useless" or not.  It's about how hard they are to chop (cypress is technically softwood, as a conifer, but the wood is actually hard).  Juniper is also a "hard" softwood.

The idea here is that for bulk lumber, you will seek out pine (which is what people do in real life for lumber).  You will also, perhaps, farm pine for this purpose.

The only inconsistency is that you will mostly burn pine, which is NOT what people do in real life, due to its fast-burning nature, low energy content, and high soot level.

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#12 2019-09-06 19:11:51

Angel Carrillo
Member
Registered: 2018-04-10
Posts: 242

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

Well, Jason, maybe you can add a special kind of firewood and kindling that comes from pine trees.

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#13 2019-09-06 20:42:33

Psykout
Member
Registered: 2018-11-14
Posts: 353

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

jasonrohrer wrote:

The idea here is that for bulk lumber, you will seek out pine (which is what people do in real life for lumber).  You will also, perhaps, farm pine for this purpose.

The only inconsistency is that you will mostly burn pine, which is NOT what people do in real life, due to its fast-burning nature, low energy content, and high soot level.

I think this is why people have wondered about having a tree that gives 2 butt logs and no firewood. Sure you could still burn it, but it would be rarer to see since the logs can be used for something else, and firewood has one use.

Pine trees growing faster than other trees, and giving more construction materials than other trees would make them be used more like they are naturally in real life.

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#14 2019-09-06 22:47:12

BlueDiamondAvatar
Member
Registered: 2018-11-19
Posts: 322

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

I like to play as a carpenter or lumberjack, collecting wood for town, etc.

I agree that the hungry work element has made wood working more interesting and challenging - I'm a lot less likely to find random piles of firewood willy nilly around the town, and I have to think a lot more before deciding how many trees to cut down.

There was at least one town I was in, that seemed to be dying just because it had become really hard to get firewood anyplace nearby.

But I don't think it's really promoting yum.  For me it's the opposite. If I want to go lumberjack a copse of cypress, I pack three mutton pies so I can quickly refill after chopping each tree down. I'm not going to take yum foods (which tend to be rare) away from the moms by the fire, and chopping down trees tends to happen far from the bowl-based yum food sources of a town.

Also, how did I miss that Tarr is back??!?  Yay!  smile


--Blue Diamond

I aim to leave behind a world that is easier for people to live in that it was before I got there.

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#15 2019-09-07 01:23:16

wio
Member
Registered: 2018-11-30
Posts: 51

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

It didn't get much interest when I initially brought it up. I was a bit surprised when I saw that it actually was added to the game.
https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6298

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#16 2019-09-07 02:16:50

BladeWoods
Member
Registered: 2018-08-11
Posts: 476

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

Psykout wrote:
BladeWoods wrote:

Hungry sheep killing might hurt all the people legitimately killing sheep which is a common activity more than help stop griefs.

Maybe the knife could become bloody like when you kill people, and just make you wait some time between sheep killing. Idk.

All of the changes hurt normal productive players. Not debating the effectiveness, because it has indeed helped, but the psychological effect of that anything abused by people on one side of the fence, will make it harder for those on the side. It's demoralizing to see more and more restrictions to mechanics, and it has pushed away those that were great players but don't like putting up with those with cruel intentions.

I agree, I'm just not sure if something is done what could be done about sheep griefing, to people that run through the pen and kill every sheep in 5 seconds.

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#17 2019-09-07 02:23:02

Lava
Member
Registered: 2019-07-20
Posts: 339

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

I like twisted's idea in his most recent video that we should be able to make higher tech crafting stations so no hungry work is taken and things like flat stones when you forge on them costs hungry work. This could also work with the adobe oven. Great idea!!

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#18 2019-09-07 02:32:53

RodneyC86
Member
Registered: 2019-05-11
Posts: 467

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

BladeWoods wrote:
Psykout wrote:
BladeWoods wrote:

Hungry sheep killing might hurt all the people legitimately killing sheep which is a common activity more than help stop griefs.

Maybe the knife could become bloody like when you kill people, and just make you wait some time between sheep killing. Idk.

All of the changes hurt normal productive players. Not debating the effectiveness, because it has indeed helped, but the psychological effect of that anything abused by people on one side of the fence, will make it harder for those on the side. It's demoralizing to see more and more restrictions to mechanics, and it has pushed away those that were great players but don't like putting up with those with cruel intentions.

I agree, I'm just not sure if something is done what could be done about sheep griefing, to people that run through the pen and kill every sheep in 5 seconds.

Two words: Armoured sheep

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#19 2019-09-07 02:39:40

DestinyCall
Member
Registered: 2018-12-08
Posts: 4,563

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

RodneyC86 wrote:

Two words: Armoured sheep

And if that fails ... Armed Sheep.

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#20 2019-09-07 03:10:17

Tempted
Member
Registered: 2019-08-04
Posts: 79

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

jasonrohrer wrote:

Yes, it might be interesting to add hungry work to other jobs, not to prevent griefing, but for thematic texture and to enhance the importance of a varied diet.  For example, splitting big rocks, stacking blocks, building walls, etc.

Pine trees are the only non-hungry trees because they are softwood.  This is not inconsistent, if you've ever chopped wood.  Willow and cypress are not softwood.  It's not about whether the trees are "useless" or not.  It's about how hard they are to chop (cypress is technically softwood, as a conifer, but the wood is actually hard).  Juniper is also a "hard" softwood.

The idea here is that for bulk lumber, you will seek out pine (which is what people do in real life for lumber).  You will also, perhaps, farm pine for this purpose.

The only inconsistency is that you will mostly burn pine, which is NOT what people do in real life, due to its fast-burning nature, low energy content, and high soot level.

The realism seems arbitrary at times though. Maybe you're working on these things, I admit I have no idea.
Cows have been a source of meat and leather since prehistory. Not having those, or at least meat is odd. Storing 3 berries in basket, 6 berries in bowl, and then 3 bowls in basket is odd. Not being able to carry a baby in slings is odd.

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#21 2019-09-07 03:49:23

Jk Howling
Member
From: Washington State
Registered: 2018-06-16
Posts: 468

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

jasonrohrer wrote:

Yes, it might be interesting to add hungry work to other jobs, not to prevent griefing, but for thematic texture and to enhance the importance of a varied diet.  For example, splitting big rocks, stacking blocks, building walls, etc.

Pine trees are the only non-hungry trees because they are softwood.  This is not inconsistent, if you've ever chopped wood.  Willow and cypress are not softwood.  It's not about whether the trees are "useless" or not.  It's about how hard they are to chop (cypress is technically softwood, as a conifer, but the wood is actually hard).  Juniper is also a "hard" softwood.

The idea here is that for bulk lumber, you will seek out pine (which is what people do in real life for lumber).  You will also, perhaps, farm pine for this purpose.

The only inconsistency is that you will mostly burn pine, which is NOT what people do in real life, due to its fast-burning nature, low energy content, and high soot level.

Ah yes, the selectively chosen "realism" excuse. The same reason why my newborn children dash off moments after birth, unable to be held through any means that aren't my arms. And why I'm surrounded by an impassible dark rift that not even airplanes can pass. And why I can only see a couple of feet vertically and a couple more feet horizontally. Everything makes total sense now! /s

Would love a better reason than "muh biased pick-and-choose realism says so" when the entire purpose of hungry work was to dispel the grief-attacks that were causing the rift to become unplayable too quickly. Why even have swamp/desert trees in the game if players are fucking flat-out punished for using them for their intended use???


-Has ascended to better games-

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#22 2019-09-07 05:26:55

DestinyCall
Member
Registered: 2018-12-08
Posts: 4,563

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

There needs to be a careful balance between "realistic game-play" and "fun & functional game-play" in gaming.   Most games do not simulate EVERY bodily function, even in a survival game, because many things just don't make for good game-play.   Consider how many games involve eating food ... yet how FEW games simulate waste elimination.   I'm not saying that it wouldn't be possible to make a fun pooping simulator, but most games choose to ignore that aspect of the human condition in favor of focusing on other things.   And that tends to be the right choice.

In OHOL, I'm not worried about the logic behind how chopping certain trees requires hungry work, while chopping other trees is not hungry work.  I've never chopped down a willow or a cypress in real life and I really don't care if the game properly captures the challenges of taking on those trees in the real world.  I'd just like to be able to interact with them in a logical way within the game world.    If the softwood/hardwood distinction is important, why not add a hardwood that provides tinder as a replacement for the "softwood" juniper?    Or replace the all of the useless hardwood trees with equivalent softwood species?   Then you can keep the "softwood is easy to chop" real world logic and it will line up with the "these trees are useless for anything but firewood" in-game logic.   Everybody wins.

Or just add hungry work when and where it is NEEDED to prevent annoying behaviors and as an alternative to certain things being completely unremovable.   Adding hungry work in the wrong places for thematic reasons could end up being quite detrimental to functional game-play.   We are already seeing the impact that limited firewood has on construction projects.   It is much harder to make flooring, because logs are scarce and more time-consuming to gather.   Additional useful jobs that require hungry work will mean that useful work gets harder to do.   Less people will be willing or able to do those jobs. 

Hungry work is a great anti-griefing mechanic.  But it can also be a horrible anti-player mechanic.    Please apply it carefully.

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#23 2019-09-07 06:14:38

Anhigen
Member
Registered: 2019-09-03
Posts: 92

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

What is the problem with making some trees more valuable in game than others? I liked figuring out that Pine trees were great to cultivate because they didn't require hungry work. I like that maples are valued for their straight branches, despite taking up a lot of visual real estate and being hungry work to chop. It's interesting that Junipers are essential in early fire building--or whenever your camp slacks on fire duty--but isn't beneficial to harvest with an axe.

Like, I can buy in that Pine was chosen for this because of it's real life narrative, but let's not get lost in the sauce here, we're just creating value among the plant species in game. It could have been any tree that got picked to be a good choice to cultivate but it's just that Pine had a neat real life story behind it for it be chosen. Having some plants be poor choices for cultivation leads us to have good choices for cultivation. And we have that, in pine trees, so there isn't a gap that need to be filled with a species. I think the gap, presently, is in emulating older play styles with current mechanics.

Isn't the solution to just plant some trees?


Everyone talks about how great milk is, no one talks about how many bb cows you must let die...

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#24 2019-09-07 08:35:40

DestinyCall
Member
Registered: 2018-12-08
Posts: 4,563

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

Anhigen wrote:

What is the problem with making some trees more valuable in game than others?

To be clear, I don't have any problem with making some trees more valuable or allowing different species to shine over other ones.    Pine has been an underappreciated tree for a long time, because although it is technically a plantable resource-producing tree, no one EVER makes wood panels.   It was the go-to "firewood tree" even before hungry work, because you could plant a bunch of pine trees and any experienced players would know that it was perfectly okay to chop them all down after they grew, since they are otherwise useless. 

The problem is NOT that pine is now valuable.  The problem is that there are various trees that are now arbitrarily harder to chop for no reason at all.  Jason originally plan was to add hungry work to hardwood trees only.  But when the "softwood" junipers were heavily griefed, he had to break from that idea to protect the only source of tinder in the game.  Rather than ONLY extending hungry work to the juniper tree (or providing some other source for tinder), Jason over-shot the mark by making ALL trees hungry work.   This left no options available for non-hungry wood gathering which had some really troublesome side effects on normal village life.  Removing hungry work from ONLY pine trees is a partial fix.  But it doesn't address the whole problem, because there are still a number of trees that really shouldn't be hungry work either.   The swamp trees are probably the biggest issue, since most villages are built adjacent to swamps, so clearing away swamp trees is a major chore, yet a necessary part of mid-game village expansion.   These trees could be an early source of firewood and logs, before the village is advanced enough for making tree farms. 

Swamp trees are "bald cypress tree" (the big tall ones) and "willow tree" (the short droopy one).   The cypress is a softwood, but tends to be categorized with hardwoods due to its growing habit.  Cypress is unusual among softwood trees, since it is a deciduous conifer.  The willow is classified as a hardwood, but is very soft and wet compared to woods like oak and maple.   

Regarding hardwood and softwood:

"Did you know that the terms hardwood and softwood actually refer to the type of tree? Hardwood, is the wood from angiosperm trees. The term softwood is used to describe wood from trees that are known as gymnosperms. Conifers are an example. It may also be used to describe trees which tend to be evergreen, notable exceptions being bald cypress and the larches. In both groups there is an enormous variation in actual wood hardness, with the range in density in hardwoods completely including that of softwoods; some hardwoods (e.g. balsa) are softer than most softwoods, while the hardest hardwoods are much harder than any softwood. The woods of longleaf pine, douglas fir, and yew are much harder in the mechanical sense than several hardwoods."

Long story short ... despite the name, the hardness of the wood has little to do with whether or not it is called "hardwood" or "softwood".    It does not add to the realism of the game to arbitrarily assign hungry work based on these categories.    If you want to get super technical, you could always check the Janka Hardness scale and compare types of wood.   For example, live oak has a Janka Harness score of 3200, juniper has a score of 1160 and sugar maple has a score of 1450.  Willow only scores 568, while poplar is even lower at 432.   Both of these hardwoods are softer than pine, which scores 870.  Balsa wood has a Janka hardness score of 100, but it is technically classified as a hardwood, since it is a deciduous angiosperm. 

https://ejmas.com/tin/2009tin/tinart_go … _0904.html

Beyond swamp trees, the dead trees found in deserts could be a source for logs/firewood.  These trees are not clearly identified by species, but they have been dead for a long time.   Surely by now they are quite dry and would make excellent firewood.   Why make them cost hungry work to chop?

Swamp trees and dead trees in the desert cannot be farmed like pine trees.   They don't compete for that niche.   However, they would provide a useful alternative source for "wild" firewood, which would allow early villages to build and gather from their surroundings, before the need to farm trees became pressing.  When the nearby wild "easy chop" trees are running low, that would be the point when planting pine trees would start to make sense.   People could still harvest the tougher trees, in a pinch, but it would be smarter to plan ahead instead.   We are already seeing a lot more tree farming in-game, both as an anti-griefing tactic and as a quality of life improvement in older towns.   But it takes a while before a town becomes established enough to start systematic tree-farming.   And traveling all the way to the badlands to gather firewood before you even have a cart is just not worth it.    A few more options are needed to fill the gap.

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#25 2019-09-07 15:18:46

Anhigen
Member
Registered: 2019-09-03
Posts: 92

Re: Hungry Work is one of the best things ever added to the game

DestinyCall wrote:

The problem is that there are various trees that are now arbitrarily harder to chop for no reason at all.

[...]

Swamp trees and dead trees in the desert cannot be farmed like pine trees. They don't compete for that niche. However, they would provide a useful alternative source for "wild" firewood, which would allow early villages to build and gather from their surroundings, before the need to farm trees became pressing. When the nearby wild "easy chop" trees are running low, that would be the point when planting pine trees would start to make sense. People could still harvest the tougher trees, in a pinch, but it would be smarter to plan ahead instead.

We are already seeing a lot more tree farming in-game, both as an anti-griefing tactic and as a quality of life improvement in older towns.

But it takes a while before a town becomes established enough to start systematic tree-farming. And traveling all the way to the badlands to gather firewood before you even have a cart is just not worth it. A few more options are needed to fill the gap.

Swamp trees aren't the best source to grab wood for fire; Swamp trees don't have branches they have valuable real estate and they're hungry work. It is to the benefit of the game that people can't simply find the most primo spots for a village, off the rip, and plant roots right away. And
be building a huge stockpile of wood that doesn't depreciate over time while they're at it. That system is doubly rewarding and maybe shouldn't have been in the game in the first place.

In the time that it takes a community to go from gathering branches to make tinder for purposeful but fleeting fires, to managing some sort of tree farming, what happens that prevents these communities from growing or advancing? I don't see the issue because we still have villages.

What I do notice, like you pointed out, is that there is more tree farming--awesome--and there are more trees in and around a camp. I'm not being spawned into mid game villages that have trees wiped out for miles but have a vast array of half built projects left dead by all the random players who spawned before me that will never be completed because they simply logged on to play around in the sandbox before they fucked off. Like op says, HW is the best thing ever because it's brought chopping trees into our cooperative group play--you'll need a good source of food, like a dedicated baker--and out of our individual play, which, is what most if not all parts of the game should be guarded from. That's where griefers can thrive. Things that affect large change and can be done immediately by one person should be limited.

This is all moot anyway. It's likely we're going to see more tech come out in the future that addresses your issues in a novel and fun way. For instance, a two man saw that requires half the amount of food. You'll have a partner and have to work in a team. It might take several seconds to use and thus be partnered with another person whose job it is to collect the wood that you and another player are cutting down. Like, that stuff IS COMING, as more content is being added to the game, but there isn't really an issue--that's breaking or preventing the game from functioning--with us having to build a couple more fires in the early game, since we're using tinder not firewood, than we would have had to in previous versions. Like maybe firewood would have been restricted outside of this greifer problem anyway, but it was left easy because the game had other problems at the time and it was to benefit of "the game" that players just have an easy source of wood. As the game develops, all the stages of each arc are going to gain nuance and reward different play styles. I think this is something Jason has mentioned before, in terms of removing a steady state, so I can see why these changes are a benefit, overall.


Everyone talks about how great milk is, no one talks about how many bb cows you must let die...

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