Warfare Speculation

draequine · 2018-06-29 06:32:19

tl;dr: If Jason eventually decides to go further into the minor PvP aspect of this game, do you suppose he will keep it impractical like the current murder system, perhaps use some kind of PvP flag mechanic, or something else? I personally feel that he will nerf the current killing tools to create space for higher tiers and/or more complex systems.

Murder/combat/fighting is one of the game-play challenges of OHOL, whether it's dealing with the hunting of animals, or the dangers of grievers trying to either ruin your village or cut short your life.

The hunting aspect of the game is clear cut and simple for Jason to develop; give new uses (taming or skinning) for current animals, maybe add new ones. In my opinion, the most dramatic thing he could do with the animal side of things is devoting an entire update to creating some kind of food chain system, which, at worst, would turn out like the worms update (which was a bit of a false start).

(A bit off topic, but another crazy direction Jason could go from the current system would some kind of apex predator system where the more people an individual dangerous animal kills the more dangerous it gets (harder to kill, bigger, faster). Which would definitely be apposed to the current idea of the game, but, hey, that's what modders are for right?
Looking at you UncleGus)

It's the player combat that's tricky to work around. Murder is always going to be a part of the game, no question about that. Not just because the practical way to deal with a troll is to kill them, but because of the stories this mechanic helps create. The main draw of this game is the connections and stories you make in game with other players, and murder takes place in a sizable portion of the more exciting story threads of this forum in my opinion.

Anyway, as it is now, large scale combat (between families/villages) is unfeasible.

First, there's the murder stun which makes any serious kind of war an ambling headless goose orgy as everyone tries to get their hit in, avoid the others during the stun, and repeat until dead.

Then you've got the problem of navigating your 'army' to the enemy. The massive undertaking of communicating with large groups and directing them to the any location is just not worth the effort, especially when the nearest worthwhile enemy is what, 80 screens away?

Now, navigation and communication are no doubt going to be addressed in big updates down the line, which means any kind of warfare update would be even further down the line. The only reason I'm posting about it now is that the emergency medicine update implications have been on my mind all week. It has lessened the threat of murderous trolls in competent, established villages, and has obvious room for further advancement.

Kinda like the farming update fed into the cooking update, it's easy to connect the medical update to some kind of upcoming dangerous addition in the works. Warfare could possibly be that, but it would be too soon in my opinion.

Moving on to my actual point; The murder stun inhibits any kind of player combat. Well yeah, duuhh, I am aware that's the point so that we have any kind of practical way of dealing with murder trolls, and in villages versus individual or small groups of psychos it is vital. However, it's bound to get in the way of inevitable wars once navigation and communication connects distant villages together.

We need some kind of troll defense, obviously, and in my opinion many of the alternative solutions that others have suggested; Stunning tools, armor, or advanced injury systems; wouldn't cut it. The current murder system is a serviceable mechanic since it doesn't outright prevent killings, which trolls could exploit for themselves. The best preventative system we have is vigilance after all.

Sure the medicine update has enabled us to lessen the impact of a stabbing spree, but it hasn't enabled Glorious battle between two tribes now, has it?

So, the way I see it, a possible warfare update could take a couple of paths.

The easiest would be to keep the system, and just add weapons and war toys, which would make straight wars awkward and tedious but give us a viable group raiding meta to work with.

A possible step up would be to have some kind of PvP flag system. If you and your opponent wear a certain outfit the stun is removed or shortened, but if you attack someone not wearing armor you suffer the regular penalty.

And further beyond that, perhaps have this separated PvP flagging work into a new warfare specific mechanic, where only specific armors work against specific weapons?

I can't really get much further with this, but I would appreciate your thoughts.

Knife and bow nerf idea: feel free to skip

On a semi-relevant note, the bow and knife are still far too dangerous to be as low as they are on the tech tree, and any actual fighting weapons that may be added will be kinda impractical when you can just kill with a knife or bow. So, while we can't nerf the knife like the bows range, nor remove both of their ability to kill (How else will you prevent grievers from ruining your village?) we can make it much easier to deal with in the case of rampaging trolls.

My idea is that if you are holding a bow or a knife in the murder stun state, any unharmed adult can disarm you with just their hands. The killing weapon would still be unusable for the stun duration to prevent counter killings by troll teams.

Uncle Gus · 2018-06-29 08:06:11

Having an animal get stronger etc. could be achieved within the current game functionality with just objects and transitions, no code change required. Content isn't my strong point; I can't draw for crap. But I guess this would just be different versions of the same animals, so they'd all look the same.

Secondly, I'm working on combat stuff for 2HOL and should have a test/demo ready soon. The functionality is done, I'm just setting up the content. Functionality includes degrading armour and weapons, armour that blocks certain weapons only, combat sounds (not tied to transitions).

Uncle Gus · 2018-06-29 08:08:22

Oh and I have a system for spawning people in certain areas/to certain other players based on membership, so you can continue to fight for the same team/nation etc. and not be born to the enemy in your next life.

I don't think all this is right for the base game, but it's fun to tinker with.

Tarr · 2018-06-29 11:51:45

I don't think we'll ever actually get to a real point of tribal wars. In my 400+ hours of gameplay I've seen exactly two wars and not just trolls killing people for no reason. Both events took place before the lineage ban. One was in Ovenpost between my family and another after we killed a begger coming through and the other was in Ducks. Any sort of large fighting now would just lead to having a bunch of eves in the middle of nowhere vs babies being recycled through the war machine.

The closest thing you're going to get to any sort of battle is probably just people defending themselves against griefers which is a real shame.

Potjeh · 2018-06-29 14:21:26

This game has the worst possible format for warfare. Just go play an actual PvP game.

Kinrany · 2018-06-29 15:39:58

Cryo bombs for tribe battles:
- Clicking a tile throws the bomb
- The thrown bomb turns into an exploding bomb after two seconds
- The exploding bomb lowers the temperature in the surrounding tiles, so much that adults die of starvation virtually instantly
- After one seconds turns into an empty shell

I think this should be even possible in the current code base?

Is superior to bows and arrows because of AoE.
No stun, combat is way faster.
Favors the side that is better prepared.
Wearing extra warm clothes burns food, but gives a chance to survive.

Uncle Gus · 2018-06-29 20:18:32

You can't lower the temperature below 0, so I don't think it would kill instantly.

Kinrany · 2018-06-30 16:04:27

What about super high temperatures?

Uncle Gus · 2018-06-30 19:36:41

The player's temperature can only be between 0 and 1, so you could make the biome as hot as the sun and the players' temperature would still only be 1.

TheRedBug · 2018-06-30 19:48:56

Uncle gus, can you make a sun biome plz?

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-06-29 06:32:19

Warfare Speculation

Knife and bow nerf idea: feel free to skip

#2 2018-06-29 08:06:11

Re: Warfare Speculation

#3 2018-06-29 08:08:22

Re: Warfare Speculation

#4 2018-06-29 11:51:45

Re: Warfare Speculation

#5 2018-06-29 14:21:26

Re: Warfare Speculation

#6 2018-06-29 15:39:58

Re: Warfare Speculation

#7 2018-06-29 20:18:32

Re: Warfare Speculation

#8 2018-06-30 16:04:27

Re: Warfare Speculation

#9 2018-06-30 19:36:41

Re: Warfare Speculation

#10 2018-06-30 19:48:56

Re: Warfare Speculation

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