One Hour One Life Forums

Zwilnik

Member

Registered: 2018-03-03

Posts: 45

Food growth is unsustainably slow

One thing I've noticed while having a fun and interesting time dying a lot (although did manage to die of old age last night when there were very few people nearby and I lived as a nomad/gatherer) is that the food items seem to grow unsustainably slow.

For instance, the gooseberries, wild carrots etc. don't appear to regrow berries in a lifetime and don't self seed so if there's more than one person in an area, you'll denude it of food within minutes (a few game years). I can see the game logic (in real life, the bush itself wouldn't last that long, a person couldn't sustain themselves off 1 berry for a year, so it represents the use of the bush rather than a single berry etc.) but the feel for the player is of punishment level difficulty. Especially if new players are joining and you're bombarded with unwanted babies (which does make the game represent the real world in a lot of ways).

It would certainly feel less like a suicide mission if the wild plants regrew and self seeded at least a little bit so a small community could survive as gatherers long enough to learn and evolve to farming.

Twinsen

Member

Registered: 2018-03-03

Posts: 116

Re: Food growth is unsustainably slow

Those wild things aren't sustainable at all. Right now, the game is more towards about growing carrots until you can grow wheat.

Server side should increase those "wild" production rate when the server gets more popular.

However, people got to be smart when you need to be brave to leave the settlement when too many babies are born.

Zwilnik

Member

Registered: 2018-03-03

Posts: 45

Re: Food growth is unsustainably slow

Reading Jason's news post about everything running out (https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=63) , I can now see more of the design philosophy behind it, so it makes sense in a mature game where the players are all good at the game and playing well. At the moment though, I suspect we need a training wheels version (ie more of a garden of eden) to encourage players.

Doctor Flintrock

Member

Registered: 2018-03-03

Posts: 34

Re: Food growth is unsustainably slow

Reading Jason's news post about everything running out (https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=63) , I can now see more of the design philosophy behind it, so it makes sense in a mature game where the players are all good at the game and playing well. At the moment though, I suspect we need a training wheels version (ie more of a garden of eden) to encourage players.

All of the game's intentions hit the mark when you and other players are more or less experienced. But it took me hours to get to a very basic competence level. So it's pretty unforgiving.

You really need at least two highly coordinated players to teach another what and how to do things if they're new.

ukuko

Member

Registered: 2017-08-11

Posts: 5

Re: Food growth is unsustainably slow

I'm all for natural sources of food running out, and I think the rate at which they currently
expire is working, but there seems to be vast expanses of land with absolutely no natural
food sources at all. Many times I've spawned as Eve and walked until I died without seeing
a single natural food item.

If we're running with the whole Eve thing then it would make sense to spawn Eve in an area
with an abundance of wild food. The fun part of starting out is managing your natural
resources whilst trying to climb up the tech tree. Wandering endless wastelands again and
again is really not fun.

Uncle Gus

Moderator

Registered: 2018-02-28

Posts: 567

Re: Food growth is unsustainably slow

Just like the real history of humanity, this is about statistics. The world is HUGE. Some Eves will spawn near the boundary of the explored world and some of them will head the right direction into new, resourced land, and some of them will survive and some of them will leave children. There are going to be a LOT of attempts to achieve those somes.

Doctor Flintrock

Member

Registered: 2018-03-03

Posts: 34

Re: Food growth is unsustainably slow

Just like the real history of humanity, this is about statistics. The world is HUGE. Some Eves will spawn near the boundary of the explored world and some of them will head the right direction into new, resourced land, and some of them will survive and some of them will leave children. There are going to be a LOT of attempts to achieve those somes.

Aye, that's the wonderful thing about it. More often than not, especially for a beginner, you will be the tribe that was never capable of progressing past foraging. Or you were the baby that died from wolves (and now bears), or by starvation. All of terrible things are part of a larger story about humanities' perseverance.

But the learning curve is utterly brutal. The backbone of the experience, once certain tweaks are made to controls and maybe UI, is going to be experienced survivors coming together to whip the young into shape.

The in-game recipe book is just a formality; it is otherwise useless as you'll know everything by heart eventually since all progress is so hard fought.

(Fun fact: I have played for more than 12 hours and the only thing I command is farming carrots and berries.That and hunting rabbits. I recently learned to make clothing from rabbit furs. That is all I'm confident doing. I still haven't gotten the chance to make ovens or kilns, or work with clay. And so much more.)

I will wait and see if future updates end up acquiescing to new-player hardships or if this is going to remain survival hell.

Uncle Gus

Moderator

Registered: 2018-02-28

Posts: 567

Re: Food growth is unsustainably slow

Interesting that you achieved fur working before clay craft. I am the opposite. I understand the concepts of making clothes but I haven't had the opportunity to practice it.