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a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building

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#1 2020-01-14 16:18:46

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

Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

I read people complaining that the game is a bit lonely, and it is, I often see towns dying due to lack of people. I also read that the game has sold about 80.000~ (and I’m very happy because of that, I thought it had sold like 10.000 copies or so), also as far as I’m concerned the all-time peak of player was 590 (when the game launched, nowadays it’s more like 120). I assume new players stop playing within one week, so the peak never go higher, while the 80-120 out of the curve keep playing.

My theory is that they give up because they can’t do anything useful, watering bushes doesn’t work (you need take compost with basket, then take soil with bowl and put on a languishing bush in order to water it), they can’t bake, they can’t smith, can’t hunt...
The most intuitive thing is killing, they don’t know how to do that, but they know they have to get a knife or bow, they try left/right click and drop the weapon on the floor until someone quickly and solemnly whispers “shift right click”.

I think the game is lonely because it’s hard and complex, it is not hard to survive nor complex, but it’s complex to craft/do things and hard to learn the steps. If you search on google “how to make a map ohol”, you won’t find anything (I think), I had to explore the one tech in order to learn how to do this, but the majority of 80.000~ players won’t do that, they want something more accessible. I love the fact this game is complex, it’s much more rewarding making a tool or bottle following several and realistic-ish steps than simply instantaneous crafting it with the raw materials.

Imho we need a very strong tutorial, tutorial scenarios for everything. Farming tutorial, engine tutorial, family specialization tutorial, smithing tutorial, paper, bottles and whatnot.
The community can create the tutorial areas, I’ve seen very creative people in this game making tutorial videos on YouTube, Jason can pick some of them to help him creating it. So if we can’t teach something to a new player, we can say “check the smithing tutorial” or “check the oil tutorial” and they will probably check and the next life they will be more productive and happy because they are doing something useful.

Very few players carry the heavy burden of doing everything complex, they end up being very rude to people because they know the time is short and no one will do what they are doing, but them. Frustrates the veteran and the person who received the rudeness, and then that person might get pissed and grief the town or try to kill the veterans, or steal all the four kerosene/bottles the 58 years old veteran spent his life making, what frustrates even more both of them. Having tutorial scenarios would convert a bunch of griefers into useful civilians, what would decrease the amount of players quitting due to griefing.

I’m not any game designer, so I don’t know if it would solve the problem. Just giving my opinions and experien that I had playing the game for one year.

I don’t know if new players use the forums, but if you are or if you gave up playing, why did you do that? And would you like tutorials teaching you every profession of this game?

Resume: The game is too hard to learn and new players give up within 1 week because of that, I think we should have tutorials for every profession, since farmers to engine makers, to builders and whatnot.

Last edited by Villas (2020-01-14 16:25:21)

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#2 2020-01-14 16:28:54

Gogo
Banned
Registered: 2019-10-11
Posts: 589

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

Very good points. But I think many people are just too lazy. Why I know onetech, why I have zoom mod and my gameplay is far easier and better, because I wanted to play, I wanted to learn. Onetech is a big helper, players should know about it from game itself.

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#3 2020-01-14 16:47:58

Dodge
Member
Registered: 2018-08-27
Posts: 2,467

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

Yes, unintuitiviness is one of the main reasons imo new players dont stick, but having a tutorial for everything is just BAD.

Bottleneck is the crafting system, it should be way easier to learn to craft stuff, to the point where a noob could right away start smithing or even doing newcommen stuff.

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#4 2020-01-14 16:49:41

JonySky
Member
From: Catalunya
Registered: 2018-05-13
Posts: 686
Website

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

Do you think it's fun to water berries? or plant carrots?
Do you think it's fun to hunt rabbits?

those are the first tasks that a newcomer normally does ... they are not fun tasks .... they are boring and repetitive ... perhaps that is the most likely cause of the disappearance of so many players (in general)

Complex games don't scare away new players ... only boring games do

Last edited by JonySky (2020-01-14 16:53:47)

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#5 2020-01-14 17:08:39

Cantface
Member
Registered: 2019-04-14
Posts: 304

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

It doesn't help that Jason said that mothers teaching children is like THE DONE THING in game when in fact it takes a majority of your life to teach even basic things especially if your kids are slow learners(One of my sons called me a bad mom because I was too busy to teach lol). I don't think we need the extra pressure right now because in a post biome locked and race restricted world there is too much to do in too little time. Teaching used to be FUN before we had to constantly worry about water and oil but now I just tell new players to go on onetech because everything you can learn is there.


Breasticles

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#6 2020-01-14 17:09:04

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

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

JonySky wrote:

Do you think it's fun to water berries? or plant carrots?
Do you think it's fun to hunt rabbits?

those are the first tasks that a newcomer normally does ... they are not fun tasks .... they are boring and repetitive ... perhaps that is the most likely cause of the disappearance of so many players (in general)

Complex games don't scare away new players ... only boring games do


To be fair, I did think it was quite fun and satisfying to learn how to tend berries and hunt rabbits when I was new to the game.   It only becomes super boring and repetitive when you have done it too many times already and you want another challenge.     I'd say the problem right now is that there's a pretty big jump from basic survival tasks up to some of the more complex jobs that are more important in established villages - like making loom clothing or steel tools.    It is relatively easy to teach someone how to bake a pie in-game.  But teaching them how to smith is much more challenging.   If you are trying to learn everything inside the game, you eventually hit a wall where it is very hard to find anyone who is willing to teach you more than the basics.

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#7 2020-01-14 17:17:24

Spoonwood
Member
Registered: 2019-02-06
Posts: 4,369

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

Villas wrote:

I read people complaining that the game is a bit lonely

How many people?  I made a comment in that thread, but I wasn't complaining that loneliness is a problem.

Was perhaps, before humans delegated much of the development of children to teachers and nurseries, it was the responsibility of parents to tutor their children?  In the future on some alien planet without humanity having much technology around, would it be the responsibility of parents once again to teach their children what they can?


Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

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#8 2020-01-14 17:19:43

Spoonwood
Member
Registered: 2019-02-06
Posts: 4,369

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

Gogo wrote:

Very good points. But I think many people are just too lazy. Why I know onetech, why I have zoom mod and my gameplay is far easier and better, because I wanted to play, I wanted to learn. Onetech is a big helper, players should know about it from game itself.

Sounds like having a sign which said 'OneTech' on it might be worth it.


Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

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#9 2020-01-14 17:54:00

JonySky
Member
From: Catalunya
Registered: 2018-05-13
Posts: 686
Website

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

DestinyCall wrote:
JonySky wrote:

Do you think it's fun to water berries? or plant carrots?
Do you think it's fun to hunt rabbits?

those are the first tasks that a newcomer normally does ... they are not fun tasks .... they are boring and repetitive ... perhaps that is the most likely cause of the disappearance of so many players (in general)

Complex games don't scare away new players ... only boring games do


To be fair, I did think it was quite fun and satisfying to learn how to tend berries and hunt rabbits when I was new to the game.

when you only do 1 or 2 it can be ... but when you're 60 minutes watering berries ... it doesn't seem so fun

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#10 2020-01-14 18:03:13

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

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

Agreed.    Uni-tasking is rarely fun and the most common "survival" tasks become tedious with constant repetition, life after life after life.   

It is one of the reasons why I used to look forward to being born into an advanced town.   It meant I could spend a life doing something different from the same old grind.   I could make fancy clothes.   I could paint walls.   I could go fishing.   I could milk a cow.   I could organize all the clothing by color and function.   I could make rubber tires.    I could make pork tacos, salsa, and ketchup.  I could make paper and put together a library.  I could raise beagles.    I could plant rose bushes.   I could play with the radio.   I could build a yum shrine.    I could plant mango trees.   I could make build a horse ranch.    I could drive a car around town.   I could mess around with oil tech.   I could start a snowball fight.    I could take a photo of my mother.    I could build a graveyard.     I could plant a relaxation garden.   I could tend a bonsai.    I could start a goose cult.   

The options were endless in an advanced town.

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#11 2020-01-14 20:52:43

Cantface
Member
Registered: 2019-04-14
Posts: 304

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

DestinyCall wrote:

I could raise beagles...


Still waiting for dogs to have a purpose or just get removed honestly. I never usually play or watch anything with dogs getting hurt or dying I even use the website doesthedogdie just to avoid it. OHOL is the exception believe it or not. I have a beagle myself and if someone breeds one in any town I'm born into I'll slash die outta there so fast. I can't be the only overly sensitive dog person here right?!

Sorry for the tangent I just heard beagle and my nerves started up.


Breasticles

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#12 2020-01-14 22:25:26

testo
Member
Registered: 2019-05-12
Posts: 698

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

DestinyCall wrote:
JonySky wrote:

Do you think it's fun to water berries? or plant carrots?
Do you think it's fun to hunt rabbits?

those are the first tasks that a newcomer normally does ... they are not fun tasks .... they are boring and repetitive ... perhaps that is the most likely cause of the disappearance of so many players (in general)

Complex games don't scare away new players ... only boring games do


To be fair, I did think it was quite fun and satisfying to learn how to tend berries and hunt rabbits when I was new to the game.   It only becomes super boring and repetitive when you have done it too many times already and you want another challenge.     I'd say the problem right now is that there's a pretty big jump from basic survival tasks up to some of the more complex jobs that are more important in established villages - like making loom clothing or steel tools.    It is relatively easy to teach someone how to bake a pie in-game.  But teaching them how to smith is much more challenging.   If you are trying to learn everything inside the game, you eventually hit a wall where it is very hard to find anyone who is willing to teach you more than the basics.

It is fun and rewarding to learn the basic tasks (it was for me and I have never had an issue while teaching something, in fact most new people are very willing to follow orders to learn to do something).

For me the premise of the game is lost too fast, parenting is pretty much dead everywhere and civilization building was heavily damaged after the "specialization" disaster. Even then, civilization building is damaged because of the lack of variety (and what we got for variety was just an axe instead of diversification).

New players get bored because there is no real goal (you can hate on Spoon all you want but he has a solid point: Not even family survival is a goal in this game). They give up because several advanced crafts have no reason to reach and because the enjoyment/effort is way too low. Not only you have to play the game, learn each complicated craft, deal with not having all the tools and asking others for help, but when you finally manage to say make stew or make a car there is not really that much to it.


- I believe the term "Berrymuncher" is derogatory and therefore I shall use the term "Berrier" instead.

- Jack Ass

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#13 2020-01-14 22:40:27

Amon
Member
From: Under your bed
Registered: 2019-02-17
Posts: 781

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

Occasionally hopping back in to play.
The experience isn't satisfactory.

Most of the time I've been born to a mother on the run to a Belltown,
and likewise had given birth to more children (which stayed, including brand new players) just to be on the run to this mythical place.
It's not a good environment for a new player.
Running running, not much doing, not much interacting and most likely getting lost and starving to death.

Some reminder.
The advancement of technology is something that does not concern new players, only old players. New players get excited about making soup and some bizarre situations that occur, they're still learning and a complex recipe is out of their reach for QUITE a few play sessions.

Last edited by Amon (2020-01-14 22:45:39)


My favourite all time lives are Unity Dawn, who was married to Sachin Gedeon.
Art!!

PIES 2.0 <- Pie diversification mod

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#14 2020-01-15 12:54:23

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

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

I do agree that to be realistic, we should learn everything in game, elder teaching the young. I really like teaching people, but it consumes a whole lot of time, it's hard to teach and work, and from my point of view there are more people that don't know how to do things than there are to do. A lot of people quit the game without being taught anything, they didn't have the opportunity.
Having tutorials wouldn't kill the in-game teaching, since the one tech also doesn't kill it, but would help that people that weren't taught or the most curious ones that want to make an oil well (forgot the name). Of course some players can easily do anything just by looking at the one tech, I remember when the airplane came to the game, people made it within hours, but some others don't have that facility, not because they aren't smart, just because they aren't used to do such a thing, so they need a little bit more of explanation.

Having a tutorial for each profession might be a little bit exaggerated, but we need at least a good farming, smithing and baking tutorial.

JonySky wrote:

Do you think it's fun to water berries? or plant carrots?
Do you think it's fun to hunt rabbits?

I don't like watering berries neither hunting rabbits, but it was quite a fun experience when I started playing. I still water berries every life when I'm a kid, but only do that after 13 if no one is doing. I like farming other crops though, even after 1 year playing, of course not every life, I usually play one life as a farmer, other as a builder, other as a baker, sometimes a loot dead towns... I like to vary in stable towns, in unstable towns I have to be multi-task and I don't enjoy that, being forced to stop doing what I am liking doing because no one is making compost, healing, taking the carrots, smithing... But when I was a beginner, every task was complex and exciting. I remember when I learned making fire when I was an Eve, i though "WTF this is impossible, I took life 15 minutes to make the tools to make fire" but I was very happy when I finally made it, nowadays I make it in one minute if there are enough resources around me and it isn't that rewarding, but I think it still is for beginners.

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#15 2020-01-15 13:36:57

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

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

ju8WZOX.jpg

I spent this life teaching people how to make paper, maps and cards at Villas and Mels Paper Factory, we made loads of them, people used for bottles, translation, maps, currency and whatnot. But it was only this, I spent my life as a teacher, people can't do it every life.

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#16 2020-01-15 14:34:49

JonySky
Member
From: Catalunya
Registered: 2018-05-13
Posts: 686
Website

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

Villas wrote:
JonySky wrote:

Do you think it's fun to water berries? or plant carrots?
Do you think it's fun to hunt rabbits?

I don't like watering berries neither hunting rabbits, but it was quite a fun experience when I started playing. I still water berries every life when I'm a kid, but only do that after 13 if no one is doing. I like farming other crops though, even after 1 year playing, of course not every life, I usually play one life as a farmer, other as a builder, other as a baker, sometimes a loot dead towns... I like to vary in stable towns, in unstable towns I have to be multi-task and I don't enjoy that, being forced to stop doing what I am liking doing because no one is making compost, healing, taking the carrots, smithing... But when I was a beginner, every task was complex and exciting. I remember when I learned making fire when I was an Eve, i though "WTF this is impossible, I took life 15 minutes to make the tools to make fire" but I was very happy when I finally made it, nowadays I make it in one minute if there are enough resources around me and it isn't that rewarding, but I think it still is for beginners.


obviously I don't talk about the players that are in the game several times a week, nor about the players that we write in this forum because we try to help OHOL to improve
(I sincerely believe that we are a bit masochistic)


I'm trying to explain where are those 10,000 players who have bought the game and disappeared
why haven't they continued playing?
my point of view is simple, the game is repetitive and without incentives ... doing the same thing over and over again is boring and nobody plays any game to get bored

and I repeat that it does not matter if the game is very difficult, this does not scare away new players

all games have their difficulty ...
I have played League of Legends for years and I remember my first months !!! heck it was hell !! I didn't know anything about the game! I had to learn to use letters from my keyboard that I had never used in my usual games ... but I never stopped playing

Even this also explains why there are so many griefers in OHOL ... because they are players who are bored of playing again and again the same life doing the same ...

Last edited by JonySky (2020-01-15 14:38:36)

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#17 2020-01-15 21:00:07

AmberA
Member
Registered: 2019-07-02
Posts: 168

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

Cantface wrote:

It doesn't help that Jason said that mothers teaching children is like THE DONE THING in game when in fact it takes a majority of your life to teach even basic things especially if your kids are slow learners(One of my sons called me a bad mom because I was too busy to teach lol). I don't think we need the extra pressure right now because in a post biome locked and race restricted world there is too much to do in too little time. Teaching used to be FUN before we had to constantly worry about water and oil but now I just tell new players to go on onetech because everything you can learn is there.

Agreed. I don't have a problem teaching my kids the beginner tasks, but often the problem is that just as I get started teaching I have another baby and have to give up teaching the first one. Or the town doesn't have the supplies to teach the beginner tasks such as compost. Compost is pretty complicated for a new player so if we don't have soil readily available then I probably won't bother teaching.

I do however with that men & old people choose to take a more active roll in teaching the town's children. Or if there were more items in town to allow for the creation of a school.  Maybe like baker or smith, the towns should try better to have a teacher.

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#18 2020-01-16 08:09:26

testo
Member
Registered: 2019-05-12
Posts: 698

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

AmberA wrote:
Cantface wrote:

It doesn't help that Jason said that mothers teaching children is like THE DONE THING in game when in fact it takes a majority of your life to teach even basic things especially if your kids are slow learners(One of my sons called me a bad mom because I was too busy to teach lol). I don't think we need the extra pressure right now because in a post biome locked and race restricted world there is too much to do in too little time. Teaching used to be FUN before we had to constantly worry about water and oil but now I just tell new players to go on onetech because everything you can learn is there.

Agreed. I don't have a problem teaching my kids the beginner tasks, but often the problem is that just as I get started teaching I have another baby and have to give up teaching the first one. Or the town doesn't have the supplies to teach the beginner tasks such as compost. Compost is pretty complicated for a new player so if we don't have soil readily available then I probably won't bother teaching.

I do however with that men & old people choose to take a more active roll in teaching the town's children. Or if there were more items in town to allow for the creation of a school.  Maybe like baker or smith, the towns should try better to have a teacher.

Unfortunately mass learning is not a thing in the game. The main reason being the need for everyone to perform the tasks related to the craft they are learning. I managed once to teach two people how to make stew at the same time. Three people at the same time? Impossible. With everyone just running around and picking up the stuff needed, trying to set directions for more than one person is pretty hard.


- I believe the term "Berrymuncher" is derogatory and therefore I shall use the term "Berrier" instead.

- Jack Ass

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#19 2020-01-16 14:14:15

Cantface
Member
Registered: 2019-04-14
Posts: 304

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

AmberA wrote:

Agreed. I don't have a problem teaching my kids the beginner tasks, but often the problem is that just as I get started teaching I have another baby and have to give up teaching the first one. Or the town doesn't have the supplies to teach the beginner tasks such as compost. Compost is pretty complicated for a new player so if we don't have soil readily available then I probably won't bother teaching.

I do however with that men & old people choose to take a more active roll in teaching the town's children. Or if there were more items in town to allow for the creation of a school.  Maybe like baker or smith, the towns should try better to have a teacher.

I used to enjoy teaching back in the golden days where water was easy enough to get and resources weren't locked behind colour. I used to enjoy teaching before there was an influx of new players via steam that made it so if you started teaching ONE person who asked then a bunch of newbs would try to watch you (fair enough not a bad strat) OR they would dog pile on the area messing shit up or even just follow you around after the fact and keep asking you to teach them while you're trying to get back to work to the point where you snap at them and get called X amount of names for just trying to get back to town upkeep lol.

testo wrote:

Unfortunately mass learning is not a thing in the game. The main reason being the need for everyone to perform the tasks related to the craft they are learning. I managed once to teach two people how to make stew at the same time. Three people at the same time? Impossible. With everyone just running around and picking up the stuff needed, trying to set directions for more than one person is pretty hard.

Indeed, teaching wasn't like this before the changes and steam sale. It used to be so rewarding to teach a brand new player almost everything you could in one life but now we can't waste all of our time doing it because there are just too many newbies to teach and not enough patient vets to help keep everything else running.


Breasticles

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#20 2020-01-16 15:44:02

Mekkie
Member
Registered: 2019-12-17
Posts: 122

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

I still consider myself new to this game.  I can share my experience, though I've done enough whining on this forum I imagine you might already know it.

I found OHOL by watching an old playlist of a youtuber that I had just found.  I like to go through backlogs when I find youtubers I like, and this one had a playlist for "one-offs".. that is.. games he played once and then never again.   In his OHOL video, he was born to a small village, and was taught how to tend the berry farm.  He did that for about 20 minutes all the while eating the berries he was tending.  In the end he got bored and went exploring, and starved on the road.  His end of video sum-up was "this was fun, but hard.. i imagine if I had more time to learn id have more fun".   In the end, he never came back to it.   I however thought it was a cute game, and went on to look for more youtube videos of it, and inevitably found Twisted.

I didn't have money to buy the game at the time, so it sat on my steam wishlist while I went on a marathon binge watch of Twisted's entire OHOL collection.  My trouble here is though that i started from the beginning.. and the more videos i watched, the more I wanted to play.  I knew a lot of the basic recipes thanks to just watching so I figure I already had a head start on your average noob.

By time i finally bought the game, and logged in though.. it was much different.  I figured I would do the berry thing as a baby, then make some pies since thats all I really knew i could do comfortably from watching twisted play.   Our village didn't have a wheat farm, so i decided id go do that... i grew some wheat and was going to make some pies.. some berry, some carrot, some rabbit... cause watching twisted taught me to make variety for yum chains.  Before i had a chance to though, i had an old man come in and yell at me for making crappy pies, and telling me to make mutton.  I told him i'm making them for yumyums (probably not the best wording, i admit), but he continued to yell and run away with my bowl so i couldn't make more.  So i thought.. well... ok.. maybe I'm wrong about the pies?  and went back to being a noob berry tender before i got bored and eventually let myself starve.    If this had been my sole experience, I may never have returned, but alas.. i am stubborn.  I hate giving up on a game before i get semi proficient at it.  I did however take a break and make my way through more of Twisted's playlist.   

I finally got the drive to try again, and was born as a baby boy into a small village.  No one fed me, because they wanted girls and kept telling me to type slash die.  This put a sour taste in my mouth, as I had been in the mood to try again, and that chance was taken from me.  I starved, and was born again, this time to a ginger town with a dry well.  I couldn't tend the berries because there was no water, and since i couldnt say more than a few letters i had trouble asking how to get water.  I tried to ask which direction, they just kept replying "need rubber" and i didnt know why on earth i needed rubber and figured they were talking to someone else.  After a while (i probably annoyed the hell out of my mom asking) I finally realized she actually meant we needed rubber to upgrade the well.  I asked here where i can go to get it, and she replied "need brown people".   I was confused and thought maybe she was trying to rp a racist or something so i just stopped talking to her and left.  I took a bowl in my backpack and a bucket in my hands and set out to look for ponds to get some water.  I pretty much spent my entire life doing this, and it was not very fun.  I was already grumpy from being abandoned as a boy, only to have that experience my next life.. i felt like I wanted to play a game that just didn't want me playing it.

Again, I took a few days off the game to watch some more twisted videos.

Now in his list I was not yet at the language barriers/racial restrictions/tool slots, so the next time i played and ran into them... well.. needless to say I was not pleased.  This time I got born to a wandering lady who had a daughter.  Again, she didn't want me because I was a boy... fuck her.  It was like my last playthrough all over again.  I was going to chase after them as long as I could.    Eventually my big sister took pity and fed me from a wild berry bush.  My sister fed me the entire time as my mom refused to pick me up.

We stumbled onto an abandoned town that still had some water, but looked as though it had been hit by griefers, since many of the plots that should have been berries were now trees, and there were corpses all over the center of town.  We decided to stay and revive it.  I revitalized the berry farm, chopped the griefer trees, built a fire for my sister's kids... i finally felt useful for once.  There was very little food in the town, so I made some pies to help keep us all alive.  We were all naked, and there was a sheep pen, so.. i fed some sheep and went to sheer some wool to make some clothes for the girls.. only, i couldn't.  Apparently because I knew how to make pies, fire, and berry bushes, my brain was too full to figure out how to work scissors.  My first run in with the tool slot cap.   

By this time, my mom was dead and my sister was pinned in the kitchen with a litter of children.. I was essentially the only worker in the town.  I had capped my tool slots reviving the town, and now could do nothing but sit around and watch the babies grow up so they could do the rest for me.  That feeling of finally being useful, immediately turned into being useless again.  I spent the rest of that life just making pies, since I literally couldn't do anything else.

After that, I found 2HOL, and spent a lot of time there.  I grabbed the awbz server and put up my own single player version there, tuned some things like decay to be a more solo player friendly game.  I spent weeks hopping between the two, mostly just playing my single player server though.    After about a month I once again decided to attempt official. 

I was born yet again into a ginger town with a dry well.  This time, however, I knew what i needed to save it.  So as soon as i was old enough to walk, i filled a bowl with berries and hit the road.  I was already beyond baby age when i finally found the town.  Thanks to the language barrier, i couldnt tell them what i needed.   I had a bowl of sulfur that I had looted from a dead town on the way, and kept picking it up and dropping it trying to get someones attention.  By time someone finally figured out that i was there to beg for rubber, I was already grey.  He ran up to me and handed me a pair of tires, and did a /love at me.  I /loved back and immediately started booking it home.  It had taken me so long to get there though, that I didn't make it.  I died of old age on the way.  That was the last time I played official.

I spend the rest of my time playing my private server usually alone, sometimes with friends.. and when i get lonely i jump onto 2HOL.  I lurk these forums in hopes that Jason will undo the racial and tool restrictions.. but as for now, I don't forsee myself ever playing official again until the restrictions are removed.   I feel like I already gave it more chances than it deserved, and that every time I log in hoping for something better to happen I just end up wasting my time.

So there's the life story of just one OHOL noob.

Last edited by Mekkie (2020-01-16 17:17:15)

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#21 2020-01-16 17:08:41

Ilka
Member
Registered: 2018-07-25
Posts: 212

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

Mekkie wrote:

I still consider myself new to this game.  I can share my experience, though I've done enough whining on this forum I imagine you might already know it.

...

So there's the life story of just one OHOL noob.

A great summary.

Hell, the game should give you satisfaction, no boredom and no frustration.

It's so simple after all, and additionally - if the creator has already given something to players, then he should not take it away.

If something is difficult, overcoming it should be rewarded. Such simple rules.

I think that the level of grifieng also scares off new players.

"I don't know what to do, I don't know how to do something, and still someone is killing me for no reason"

Annoying and not fun.

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#22 2020-01-16 17:18:25

Cantface
Member
Registered: 2019-04-14
Posts: 304

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

I have encountered the mutton pie supremacists pay them no mind. It's their 'only make good filling foods' playstyle clashing with the yummers and it happens every now and then. As someone who spent a lot of their new hours playing as a yum baker I have a few stories of similar people filling all the pie crusts I made with mutton meat, mashing all of the rabbits before anyone can add a carrot, verbally aggro-ing you if you try to get them to stop. In their own way they think they're helping lol.

I know that if I make the jump to 2hol I probably won't come back and I'm not ready to give up yet. I don't blame players new and old for playing a different version with less restrictive mechanics and different features though. Some of them sound kinda nice.


Breasticles

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#23 2020-01-16 17:26:14

testo
Member
Registered: 2019-05-12
Posts: 698

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

Mekkie wrote:

I still consider myself new to this game.  I can share my experience, though I've done enough whining on this forum I imagine you might already know it.
.

I am sorry about your bad experiences. I believe you made a crucial mistake though, that is: watching all those Twisted videos. First, because by trying to set yourself to know the game better beforehand you cut out several game enjoyable parts like learning how to make some of the crafting. Also, twisted videos are edited, so you didn´t get a chance to deal with all the crap from other players by watching, when it became a reality I guess it was a big turnback. Last but not least twisted´s playstyle is not really everyones favorite, so taking him as a rolemodel to play is a double edge sword.

Several players have separed from the pack nowdays because of familily nerf and play like you do in low population or alternative servers. Maybe you can find solace in the fact that you can still play that way.

Last edited by testo (2020-01-16 17:26:50)


- I believe the term "Berrymuncher" is derogatory and therefore I shall use the term "Berrier" instead.

- Jack Ass

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#24 2020-01-16 17:47:38

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

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

I've encountered similar behavior from yum supremacists, so this kind of behavior is unfortunately displayed by both sides of the epic culinary debate.   

In one life, I noticed that the bakery was empty of pies, so I went over and started making mutton pies.  We had an abundance of raw mutton in the bakery and more in the sheep pen.    I had made my first batch of four mutton pies and some crazy woman rushed over and started yelling at me to make more variety.    I was only five years old, so I lacked the vocabulary to explain that we needed quantity more than variety right now, since we literally had NO ready to eat food beyond berries.    I went back to making mutton pies, while she continued to chew me out for not making rabbit pies (we had no rabbit meat) and berry pies (waste of berries) and carrot pies (waste of carrots) and rabbit/berry/carrot pies (total waste).    I finished baking my pies and left the bakery, never to return in that life.   About fifteen minutes later, I was passing by two people and heard that same lady telling the guy next to her how she "had to teach the baker how to make pies" because she caught me making nothing but mutton pies like a noob.     If I was the stabbing sort, she might have ended up dead.

...

I don't support anyone being a jerk in game and I don't bother trying to argue with inefficient yumming inside OHOL, because it is too hard to explain the concept to a yum-believer without an entire spreadsheet of food data, but if you are wondering why people chew you out for making "bad" pies, there is a pretty significant difference in resource usage between mass-producing mutton pies and making "variety pies".   

I don't have a problem with someone making a short run of yum pies for personal use.   It won't kill the village if you waste some food on a couple of inefficient pies, especially if you are able to maintain a decent yum chain so the production waste is offset by yum bonus.  But if you are baking for other people, I'd strongly encourage focusing on meat pies as your primary product, so long as you have adequate wheat and mutton available.   Plain carrot and carrot/rabbit pies are also okay, but there are better uses for carrots. I don't recommend eating carrots in any form, since they should be used for feeding animals instead.   However, adding a full bowl of berries to a pie is quite wasteful and should be avoided.    Berry pies, berry/carrot pies, and berry/carrot/rabbit pies are unfortunately terrible in terms of raw resource cost.   They don't even make sense as yum food, because it would be better to keep the ingredients separate.  More people can gain yum bonus if you use the ingredients to make a loaf of bread, bowl of berries, raw carrot and cooked rabbit which provides multiple sources of yum, rather than turning those ingredients into a single expensive pie that will probably get eaten by a non-yummer.    The cost of the individual ingredients is higher than the food value of the finished berry pie, so it is a huge waste to bake any pies using berry filling. 

Again, it is really hard to explain this to a yummer.   They will just argue that yum bonus makes all food better and not understand the huge amount of production waste and opportunity costs associated with eating certain wasteful foods, like raw corn or ketchup.

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#25 2020-01-16 18:10:24

Cantface
Member
Registered: 2019-04-14
Posts: 304

Re: Do most of new players give up because they can’t do anything?

It's simple really. My playstyle is this; Early-ish town with smaller farms and sheep's that can be churned for mutton pie is good! You don't need all the variety pies when you don't have a big town. I can agree with you on that! It's wasteful too early on.

Now a mega town with everything? Make yum pies. All kinds. I usually make most pies mutton and rabbit then make a few rabbit/carrot, berry/rabbit, berry/rabbit/carrot and like only one or two of the bad pies. Berry pie, Carrot pie and berry/carrot pies should not be a thing in any early town or any place where farms are struggling for obvious reasons.

Now I can also agree that in most places nowadays water is the biggest struggle so it's not sustainable to make ALL the pies all the time. I get that.

Last edited by Cantface (2020-01-16 18:12:19)


Breasticles

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