Is 63 hours long enough for you?

Amon · 2019-09-27 21:59:51

Almost three days. Sounds about right imo. If you played one game erry day your situation odesen't change much.
Complaining about sameness seems ironic by this point.
The game has been a long time in this point. The rift duration doesen't have much to do with it either...always been the same and going through the same routine since the start of the game, you'll go through eve camp to small town to big town to city over and over and over again. The only differance through the rift duration is how quickly the cycle resets.

The longer it'll last the more horrid towns will get, the faster the arc resets the quicker we'll go through the loop of eve-camp-town eve-camp-town and it'll all feel just so more fleeting. There is no satisfaction in either extreme and hitting the golden middle... good luck with that.
Ideally a shorter rift is better for change of situation but misses out on permanence, a longer rift accumulates more mistakes and added up carelessness from players.

I wouldn't try balance oil just now either.
I think building onto the tech tree with more oil consuimg structures, that'll get us closer to exhaustion, plus give some new goal for people to strive for, while also reducing the sameness of the game lately, if only just for a short while. (Ovens, central heating, nails, anvils, oxen, chainsaws, cupboards, shelves,?? There's so much that can be done to help clutter/tech/aesthetics and an improvement in any of these will appease almost everybody...I think)
Plus perhaps a good grand update may entice new players to try out the game, improving the family survival rate if the player average raises even just so slightly.
But ideally, the rift lenght should be flexible for low populations too.
If it goes on for too long, well... We can devise our own doom.

Last edited by Amon (2019-09-27 22:02:22)

Twisted · 2019-09-27 22:29:46

CatX wrote:

The best part about the Rift is that it intensifies the problems that were already present so that they are easier to find and deal with. For example, the problem with bears resetting in their caves producing too many of them was discovered because of the Rift.

I agree with this. The best thing about the Rift is that we got so many great changes as a result of it. The new biome generation is great, hungry work is a really nice mechanic, we can finally remove property fences, we can upgrade iron mines, and most permanent tile-blocking items became deconstructable. I don't think we'd have any of those changes without the Rift, and for that I'm very thankful. But I really want to see the game with those changes and without the Rift - I think it would be the best version of OHOL yet.

BlueDiamondAvatar · 2019-09-27 22:40:41

jasonrohrer wrote:

1. Permanence of families.
2. Permanent reachability of player-built areas.
3. Lots of variability in terms of which "tech era" you are born into in each life.
4. Towns close enough together to allow interaction.

The game has never had (1), but maybe that's possible if I keep working on BB distribution.
The game launched in Feb 2018 with (2) and (4), but not (3).
Then we had an Eve Walk to get (3) and (4), but we sacrificed (2).
Then we switched to an Eve Spiral, which made (2) better, kept (3), and sacrificed (4).
Then we switched to a resetting Eve Spriral with center cull, which sacrificed (2), kept (3), and allowed (4).

All along, players have MOSTLY complained about lack of (2).

The rift solves (2) and (4) handily, and recent BB distribution changes have brought us closes to (1) for the first time, but (3) is sacrificed.

I strongly disagree with the idea that the rift is doing a better job at 2) permanence of player built areas, than the resetting eve spiral. San-Cal existed during the resetting Eve spiral. It made exploring the wilderness interesting... maybe you'll be the first to find old San-Cal? Or maybe you are wasting your time and it got wiped? Who knows?

I wish you would go back to tweaking the resetting Eve Sprial to maximize 4) rather than tweaking the rift model.

The resetting Eve Spiral maximized variable tech level for the town you are born to much more than the rift does.

Also... we don't care about permanence of families. Hope Tree didn't care about her family's permanence. She wanted to go back to a PLACE she liked - so she got on a horse and went there. You are only getting us to act like we care about family continuity because you've tied it to the continuity of player built areas.

jasonrohrer · 2019-09-27 22:43:44

You haven't heard people complaining about the short duration of family lines in recent times, before the rift?

DestinyCall · 2019-09-27 23:31:16

Before the Rift, we cared that our lineage died because when the line died out, we lost access to that village, probably forever. A long line gave more chances to see the same village in future lives.

It is the village I care about ... not the family name.

distillerz · 2019-09-27 23:35:48

jasonrohrer wrote:

Still two fams left:
https://i.imgur.com/S2WodVi.png
I'm guessing that we're nowhere close to oil scarcity, though.

I would love to have those charts live.

Dodge · 2019-09-27 23:43:55

jasonrohrer wrote:

You simply cannot have all these things exist simultaneously:
1. Permanence of families.
2. Permanent reachability of player-built areas.
3. Lots of variability in terms of which "tech era" you are born into in each life.
4. Towns close enough together to allow interaction.

I think it's possible

But requires some changes in how crafting works and requires incentives for groups to separate and create new towns instead of staying in the most advanced place.

Think different countries/civilizations that have access to different ressources and have different specializations but would globally require to interact with each other to progress/maintain survival.

BlueDiamondAvatar · 2019-09-27 23:44:00

Ummm. No. I have not.

But I don't claim to read everything in the forums, and wasn't online much the month or two before the rift.

I do know that I like places, and that I see a lot of reporting about places in discord and on the forums.

It's not that I absolutely hate maintaining families... it's just that I'm generally more attached to places than my family name. So I don't like how much of 2) we've traded off for 1) in the comparison between the rift and the resetting Eve Spiral.

To put it in numbers... getting to the point where a couple families live 2-4 days on a regular basis is not nearly as cool as having a couple of towns lasting 2-4 months.

CatX · 2019-09-27 23:47:47

DestinyCall wrote:

Before the Rift, we cared that our lineage died because when the line died out, we lost access to that village, probably forever. A long line gave more chances to see the same village in future lives.
It is the village I care about ... not the family name.

Yes. The thing is, regardless of which family occupies a town, they're played by the same players. What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet...

I have a fond memory of a pre-Rift life where our family was dying out, and a young woman with a child happened to stroll into town. She fled her birth town for some reason when she was a child and had been searching her entire life for another place to live. Everyone were so happy! It meant that our hard work was not in vain, the town would go on.

BlueDiamondAvatar · 2019-09-28 00:07:26

Just had an interesting idea... open the eve window back up every morning, as the population starts increasing. That's when adding in new family names would have the least impact on the survivability of existing families. Or just anytime server population is growing faster than the average rate.

Spoonwood · 2019-09-28 09:54:50

jasonrohrer wrote:

You haven't heard people complaining about the short duration of family lines in recent times, before the rift?

I don't recall that, no. Also, I think average family line length was higher after the bigserver change. The aforementioned San-Cal happened before that change.

pein · 2019-09-28 20:21:32

let us escape the rift into another rift which wont reset

DestinyCall · 2019-09-28 21:32:24

BlueDiamondAvatar wrote:

Just had an interesting idea... open the eve window back up every morning, as the population starts increasing. That's when adding in new family names would have the least impact on the survivability of existing families. Or just anytime server population is growing faster than the average rate.

I like this idea. It would help to balance out nocturnal die-off and add greater family diversity for the rest of the day.

HimitsuGato · 2019-09-29 02:43:20

I just lived a life after not playing for a month. In my life I learned language, was gifted a milk farm (property fence), which I gave to my children, and traded a shoe for a yummy food (thanks to fence boxes), and declared peace with my dying words. I couldn't believe the depth and quality of interactions, so (4) is already there.

Maybe people dislike 'having time to RP because everything necessary is done' as being part of the tech tree?

Could there be a way to 'reset' the rift while also not wiping tech, but also spiraling eves out to fresh land far enough away for bell towers/radios/planes to matter when meeting new people. Fixing (3) (1) and (2[by twisted's definition]) by not forcing a family to die while expanding out onto the map, which should still be finite. Like a spiraling rift?

Saolin · 2019-09-29 03:55:29

This is a good discussion. I think extending the tech tree would help arcs last longer. Since the current run of arcs, it has seemed fairly typical that once the eve window is closed and the late-game state has been reached, there are players going around in game rallying for a reset. The tech tree could be extended at any stage, just make it take longer to get to the top. Just implement a diesel engine for milkweed. Seriously though, even just extending the lifespan of each stage of water well would help. Give players more time to construct things like buildings rather than needing to be focused on processing the next level of water tech which will be needed by the time its ready. Experienced players recognize that each stage of well dries up pretty much instantly up until diesel; if this wasn't the case they might get up to more creative endeavors. Additionally make rushing to iron less of a priority by implementing prehistoric tools such as bone shovel, stone/bone axe, and flint adze. Could make iron more of a late game resource instead of an early game priority, which again, reduces the pressure on players to push up the tech tree as quickly as possible, freeing them up to pursue more creative projects. In turn, iron could become rarer or harder to work with, while steel potentially lasted longer. I think extending the time it takes to progress through the tech tree would increase arc length because it's more time before players get bored. Personally, I can enjoy and always find something to keep me busy in a late game town, but it seems like a lot of players prefer the build-up to that point, and i agree with that - the more i feel like i'm making a significant contribution to the town the more rewarding it feels. Extending this process will keep players invested and extend the arc.

DestinyCall · 2019-09-29 05:53:51

I agree with you, Saolin.

The rapid climb to the top of the available tech tree is strongly driven by the need to advance water tech and reach oil. Without that hard push, villages could safely linger in the lower tech levels longer and actually take some time to build structures, organize supplies, and make more unique layouts. Right now, you are in a mad dash to to end-stage water tech, because the deep well stage doesn't last that long and the newcomen pump is essentially useless. I've had the pump bust after the FIRST USE. It has a very high failure rate, so the well gets exhausted way too quickly and then you need an engine before your town even has access to oil. Unless you are willing to move all your farms to a nearby well or haul water to cisterns manually, then you are stuck aiming for the top of the tech tree after just a handful of hours.

When the arcs were lasting less than 24 hours, all the established towns had exhausted wells or diesel engines. No one was still using lower tech, no matter how carefully they conserved water usage, because those stages last only a few hours at best ... a few minutes at worst.

Last edited by DestinyCall (2019-09-29 05:55:28)

One Hour One Life Forums

#51 2019-09-27 21:59:51

Re: Is 63 hours long enough for you?

#52 2019-09-27 22:29:46

Re: Is 63 hours long enough for you?

#53 2019-09-27 22:40:41

Re: Is 63 hours long enough for you?

#54 2019-09-27 22:43:44

Re: Is 63 hours long enough for you?

#55 2019-09-27 23:31:16

Re: Is 63 hours long enough for you?

#56 2019-09-27 23:35:48

Re: Is 63 hours long enough for you?

#57 2019-09-27 23:43:55

Re: Is 63 hours long enough for you?

#58 2019-09-27 23:44:00

Re: Is 63 hours long enough for you?

#59 2019-09-27 23:47:47

Re: Is 63 hours long enough for you?

#60 2019-09-28 00:07:26

Re: Is 63 hours long enough for you?

#61 2019-09-28 09:54:50

Re: Is 63 hours long enough for you?

#62 2019-09-28 20:21:32

Re: Is 63 hours long enough for you?

#63 2019-09-28 21:32:24

Re: Is 63 hours long enough for you?

#64 2019-09-29 02:43:20

Re: Is 63 hours long enough for you?

#65 2019-09-29 03:55:29

Re: Is 63 hours long enough for you?

#66 2019-09-29 05:53:51

Re: Is 63 hours long enough for you?

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