Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

Lily · 2019-10-29 23:23:59

The problem I have with this is that a brand new person to the game, will go through the tutorial(where you start as an Eve so no tool limit), then join a game and suddenly be limited and not know what is going on. Also a limit of 8 tools seems a bit brutal for a brand new person, because they are very likely to waste a bunch of tool slots just picking up and playing with random objects and then they will get stuck unable to do anything.

Also more experienced players who know what they are doing get more slots but they don't actually need those extra slots, since they know what they are doing. It is like the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The more capable you are of planning ahead the less restrictions you have, and the worse you are at the game the more in punishes for making mistakes. I understand the reasoning, you want to reward those who do well, but it just doesn't feel right in this case. Perhaps because the gap is so large. Does the pro person really need 16 slots while a newbie is punished with only 8? A newbie is definitely going to feel the limit and constantly worry of it, but a pro person can probably entirely ignore the new mechanic because it wont effect them as they will never hit the limit.

If you really want tools limited, I feel like an 8-12 range might be a bit better. It still rewards people but doesn't make the limit irrelevant at the max level. I just feel like if you make the gap too large between newbies and pros, rather than having people rely on each other, it kind of sends the message to the pros to just carry everyone on their backs and do it all themselves.

miskas · 2019-10-30 05:48:43

from Discord https://discord.gg/bwagUs

Boiling the frog: 5-10 tool slots (was 6-12).
https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLife/ … 4a709f7968

Everyone needs help. Not many people have more than 8 tools.

TheSamWish · 2019-10-30 07:19:18

Legs wrote:

This constant trend of reducing what the player can do and constraining their world and experience is poor game design.

I feel this so hard. The rift was bad enough, now this. We need content not constraints.

breezeknight · 2019-10-31 12:37:24

ok ... now introduce the JOBS TABLE to the village, so every player present can know what is needed for the settlement not only to barely survive but to develop

a JOBS TABLE working like this :
a jobs table has to be crafted
it's a wall, board, panel to pin job openings on it
it should be placed middle in the village, where every job seeking player/citizen can look up what jobs are open
those who can work a tool & are skilled enough (level) to actually do something useful with that tool know best if there are still people needed in the profession, like making compost or baking pies
those can post open jobs at that table
by taking up a job opening, the note disappears from the table

would improve the communication, responsibility & cooperation
& that's what's badly missing
& nobody can kill anybody with that table
that's an additional plus

btw
that tool learning sounds similar to the professions i suggested over a year ago ... so ... maybe the game moves in the right direction

but i'm still far from being convinced to come back
i moved even further away from the game
there is still not enough good life in it to waste my RL with
the potential vanished by now & made space for chore & punishment of those who dare to play it

- - -

Jwillc · 2019-10-31 16:31:08

I like the idea of a jobs bulletin board but if we're going to do a job there should be a reward. Jason mentioned something about icons that will associate players with the tools that they've unlocked. But I don't think everyone should have an icon over their heads, that would be annoying.

Instead how about badges, and when you mouse over a player you can see their badges. So lets say you want to be the baker, you bake five pies and you get the baker badge. Now players can know you're a baker, and they can ask you to do baker things, and they'll know there's already a baker in town. Chop 5 trees and you get the lumberjack badge, etc.. for all the professions.

I feel like this would be a really rewarding system and it could serve the purpose of letting us know who's doing what around town and what's lacking.

Kaveh · 2019-10-31 18:30:03

I don't like the idea of taking up a specific task/job for my entire life. More often than not I'll be like "This life I'll be a baker" and then notice there is like no compost so focus on that instead (since more people seem to know how to bake than how to make compost). This can definitely happen halfway through a life as well. If I would've taken that initial baker job, the opening would be gone but there'd still be no baker.
The tool slots make sure you think about what you want to do, but also allow for a bit more diversity in your life.

Plus, what if griefers just constantly take all the job openings but don't ever do anything? It'd mean putting effort into the jobs place and then nothing happens.

I've seen job slot boxes before, with pieces of paper w/ jobs on them. Half the jobs are already done (as the paper was made 3 generations ago), the other half are things barely anyone wants to do. Oh and there's usually one piece of paper about Korean men too. Nyeh.

Spoonwood · 2019-11-04 17:17:43

jasonrohrer wrote:

To enrich player interaction, communication, and cooperation, and short-circuit the tendency to "just do it all yourself" instead of coordinating your efforts with others.

As Whatever has pointed out, cooperation at the bakery with pie making, and cooperation at the smithy both were common before the skill system existed in the game. I remember Pein in particular mentioning to get help when making an engine also or rolling out rods for an oil well.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2019-11-04 17:18:32)

mensrea · 2019-11-04 17:38:02

Griefers ensure one of my tool slots every life is used by a weapon. And sometimes I use however many slots I need to make a knife.

It is funny though when I forget and have no weapons. I stand around and giggle as I watch someone slaying the town, people needing wounds healed, etc. Not my problem, I think. It's nice to not have to be responsible.

Last edited by mensrea (2019-11-04 17:40:13)

JonySky · 2019-11-04 18:01:08

yes! ... the game has become more repetitive and boring now ...
if you want to change homework or just kill a griefer and you don't have any more skill slots ... forget!
Also the cities are full of noobs eating berries and if you are an expert player you must do everything .... without any help ... something impossible right now with this new system
OHOL fun has been limited again

Last edited by JonySky (2019-11-04 18:01:28)

DestinyCall · 2019-11-04 18:15:19

My current preferred playstyle is to see how long I can go without using any tool slots.

Not surprisingly, it is very easy to accomplish this goal if you do almost nothing to help your village. It is significantly more challenging to work around the limited tool slots to try to accomplish something worthwhile. And it is nearly impossible to accomplish certain things without using a tool slot, like complex smithing jobs and oil collection, since it is very hard to locate who already knows a tool in your village without any in-game indicators of other players' skills/professions. Walking around and asking people if they know how to make a loom doesn't get many positive responses.

I also intentionally avoided studying the list of tools in detail, so I could have the fun of discovering what objects used up tool-slots, just like a new player experiencing OHOL for the first time. I was rather amused to discover that a DRY WELL is considered a "tool". That made me laugh really hard. And also "hot coals" as a tool. Really? In what universe does a hot coal make sense as a "tool"? And I made the mistake of putting a bow saw into a box and "learned" bow saw. But I used stakes to build a long road without learning "stakes". Weird.

Coconut Fruit · 2019-11-04 18:27:04

I wonder if I am the only one who has much less willing to teach new players after this update. I know I wouldn't need to learn any new tools in that process but this update makes some psychological feeling of being limited to do things.

Coconut Fruit · 2019-11-04 18:31:18

I bet some beople don't even fill up their all skill slots and then die of old age without filling all just because they feel like they may need a skill slot later on. "Should I do this? Better not waste my skill slot for this, maybe that? nah, let's not waste my skill for that either xD"

mensrea · 2019-11-04 21:33:52

Like real life you are limited in the skills you obtain. In fact, you are limited to those skills society deems useful. Some people can be happy in this environment and other's can't.

Saolin · 2019-11-04 22:24:19

Coconut Fruit wrote:

I bet some beople don't even fill up their all skill slots and then die of old age without filling all just because they feel like they may need a skill slot later on. "Should I do this? Better not waste my skill slot for this, maybe that? nah, let's not waste my skill for that either xD"

Yeah, that's been me. My first few lives I filled them up, but since then I'm always preserving tool slots just in case I need it more for something else. I feel way less productive, lol. Before I tended to play a "jack of all trades" role most of the time. It's been a huge distraction having to think about whether a tool slot is worth learning.

Last edited by Saolin (2019-11-04 22:26:10)

pein · 2019-11-05 00:46:21

could we have a chosen weapon separately from tools? either bow or knife, just in case of griefers, you don't need it until you do
this would allow some goose, cow or wolf or bear hunting just in case

maybe here would go the pads too, like a flexi role to chose from this 3

also possibly, if you don't use a tool for 30 minutes (maybe 40?), could give back the slot, or maybe limit some slots to later age, I find myself running out of slot all the time as I need to do important jobs, and hard to talk it out when you need that rubber right away and 150 tiles to get it, or need a pencil to recycle all the scrap etc etc

fug · 2019-11-05 07:51:54

DestinyCall wrote:

My current preferred playstyle is to see how long I can go without using any tool slots.
Not surprisingly, it is very easy to accomplish this goal if you do almost nothing to help your village. It is significantly more challenging to work around the limited tool slots to try to accomplish something worthwhile. And it is nearly impossible to accomplish certain things without using a tool slot, like complex smithing jobs and oil collection, since it is very hard to locate who already knows a tool in your village without any in-game indicators of other players' skills/professions. Walking around and asking people if they know how to make a loom doesn't get many positive responses.
I also intentionally avoided studying the list of tools in detail, so I could have the fun of discovering what objects used up tool-slots, just like a new player experiencing OHOL for the first time. I was rather amused to discover that a DRY WELL is considered a "tool". That made me laugh really hard. And also "hot coals" as a tool. Really? In what universe does a hot coal make sense as a "tool"? And I made the mistake of putting a bow saw into a box and "learned" bow saw. But I used stakes to build a long road without learning "stakes". Weird.

List is currently all sorts of mucked up and 100% needs revisited.

-Froe isn't a tool but something like hot coals, tongs, or covering a kiln is ???
-Chiseling a big stone and making cut stones isn't a skill but cutting a block from part of a rock is ???
-Healing people is supposed to be something that uses the pads/sterilized knife/thread skills but you only need to specifically know the knife skill to treat wounds unless it's a snake bite (and those are almost always fatal anyways.)

Plus all the other bugs that can be found on the github. Tools really either need to be scrapped as it's likely to be a 2 month project of updating things in a slow painful way or going to always be a bunch of nonsense. I understand why people thought this was a good idea but it's not remotely implemented correctly and honestly is it worth doing what we're doing the same slow updates to fix the tool skills like we've done with oil?

I think not.

Coconut Fruit · 2019-11-05 10:31:28

Hot coals is a tool beacause you can cook and do things on it, idk why people are surprised it's a tool. Only putting kindling to hot coals shouldn't be considered as a tool, but it is for some reason.

DestinyCall · 2019-11-05 10:37:26

Coconut Fruit wrote:

Hot coals is a tool beacause you can cook and do things on it, idk why people are surprised it's a tool. Only putting kindling to hot coals shouldn't be considered as a tool, but it is for some reason.

It's not a tool. It's a cooking surface.

Coconut Fruit · 2019-11-05 11:09:07

Call it whatever you like.

DestinyCall · 2019-11-05 11:12:18

Definition of tool:
"a handheld device that aids in accomplishing a task"

Coconut Fruit · 2019-11-05 11:21:59

Yet it's a tool in the game. Same as adobe. I only explained why it costs a skill slot. Idc how it's called.

PeebleCreek · 2019-11-05 14:09:49

One thing that is kind of frustrating is when I use a tool and it immediately breaks without accomplishing anything but still counts as "learning" it. It's kind of fun, though, to imagine someone shattering a tool into the ground and being like "Ah yes, of course. I understand now."

In a more advanced town with multiples of most tools, it's not really that big of a deal, but when you break a shovel on a lump of poop and there are no smiths or spare shovels around, you're just kinda fucked. Especially if you already committed a chunk of your tool slots to farming or baking, so you can't even smith your own replacement shovel.

breezeknight · 2019-11-12 09:06:15

JonySky wrote:

yes! ... the game has become more repetitive and boring now ...
if you want to change homework or just kill a griefer and you don't have any more skill slots ... forget!
Also the cities are full of noobs eating berries and if you are an expert player you must do everything .... without any help ... something impossible right now with this new system
OHOL fun has been limited again

it's not the problem of the jobs, it's the problem of the unpopularity of the game
but Holy Jason Rohrer has already stated, repeadedly, the game has no population of players problems, so ...
there are no problems with this game, like ... at all

- - -

DestinyCall wrote:

... And I made the mistake of putting a bow saw into a box and "learned" bow saw. But I used stakes to build a long road without learning "stakes". Weird.

sounds like the system has room for improvement if just doing something with a tool occupies already a tool slot

as i suggested in my suggestion about the professions, a profession can be learned only if the basics how to make the tool needed for the profession are mastered
simply fondling with a tool shouldn't add to a profession

& yeah, tool learning is a long process, so the game needs also the idea implemented how to combine
A) character learning per in game life
with
B) player ability within the game
without
locking experienced players into total ability & new players into total disability
which means, the game needs also
C) talent, a random ability a character is born with, without learning a tool
&
D) decay of skills learned by the player, decay simply over time, so the skills are not just accumulated the longer a player plays the game

those are my ideas atm about that issue, i'm sure there is plenty of tweaking room left

- - -

Coconut Fruit wrote:

I wonder if I am the only one who has much less willing to teach new players after this update. I know I wouldn't need to learn any new tools in that process but this update makes some psychological feeling of being limited to do things.

Coconut Fruit wrote:

I bet some beople don't even fill up their all skill slots and then die of old age without filling all just because they feel like they may need a skill slot later on. "Should I do this? Better not waste my skill slot for this, maybe that? nah, let's not waste my skill for that either xD"

interesting

there is a kids book about those matters, it's Penny Candy by Edward B. Fenton, illustrated by Edward Gorey
it's about if you specialize in life & take upon one main ability/talent or if you rather spread out your interests wide
in this book the pros & cons are depicted
& i think, the best way to deal with this dilemma in OHOL is to give the player choice

the game has to deal with the discrepancy between a player & a character (avatar of a player per session)
because those two are constantly present
& a game like OHOL has to offer room to a player for both ways to play it - specialize & scatter
it gives room if both decisions are rewarded, because this encourages to experiment

since lives repeat, so the decision has to be made per life - either or ? - will you now, for this one life specialize or will you scatter ?

& i think the game should reward players who climb the specialization latter in some way, though i am against any kind of leaderboards, leaderboards breed only the competitive kind of players & OHOL should be about cooperation
the main occupation in OHOL is how to build something, not how to win over every other player

- - -

mensrea wrote:

Like real life you are limited in the skills you obtain. In fact, you are limited to those skills society deems useful. Some people can be happy in this environment and other's can't.

it depends where you live

in more traditional societies you are bound to fulfill the needs of the society & the group you are born to
but in more free & advanced societies you are as free, as nobody is asking anything of you to do, so you actually don't even know what you should become & it's up to you what you do or don't

& since we live meantime in a globalized world, so you have at least the choice to get out of traditions & become free
more problematic is the reversed course, to choose to be bound to a tradition of a group or society, but if you are determined, i'm pretty sure, not even that is impossible, it's not unprecedented

so i suppose you personally, either live in a country which is pretty traditional or you are limited by the group you were born to & think the world ends if you leave the requirements of the group

- - -

Last edited by breezeknight (2019-11-12 09:58:56)

Saolin · 2019-11-12 20:39:00

breezeknight wrote:

but Holy Jason Rohrer has already stated, repeadedly, the game has no population of players problems, so ...
there are no problems with this game, like ... at all

I don't think Jason has said anything like that, not recently anyway. His attitude for the past several months seems to be more along the line of "trying to figure out what the problems are so he can fix them and make this a better game".

breezeknight wrote:

i think the game should reward players who climb the specialization latter in some way, though i am against any kind of leaderboards, leaderboards breed only the competitive kind of players & OHOL should be about cooperation
the main occupation in OHOL is how to build something, not how to win over every other player

The thing is, with the current leaderboards if you are "competing" to be at the top, aside from your own survival which presumably everyone is already motivated to do, the other way you are doing that is by helping others survive. So you don't really have a point here even though in a vacuum your comment makes sense.

fug · 2019-11-13 20:01:28

Legit question because I ran into this problem specifically today and didn't want to make a thread about it:

Why are tongs a tool instead of kiln + forge just being different tools (you can use a forge with tongs but can't use a kiln with tongs unless you learn the kiln skill too.) Separating them out makes more since instead of having tongs be a semi-useless skill on its own. Basically instead of breaking up pottery and smithing via having to learn tongs (you need tongs for both) why not allow pottery be one tool (kiln) and just make blacksmithing it's own separate thing (forge.)

That has to be the most annoying tool thing I've ran into besides things not working as correctly.

One Hour One Life Forums

#76 2019-10-29 23:23:59

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#77 2019-10-30 05:48:43

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#78 2019-10-30 07:19:18

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#79 2019-10-31 12:37:24

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#80 2019-10-31 16:31:08

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#81 2019-10-31 18:30:03

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#82 2019-11-04 17:17:43

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#83 2019-11-04 17:38:02

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#84 2019-11-04 18:01:08

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#85 2019-11-04 18:15:19

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#86 2019-11-04 18:27:04

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#87 2019-11-04 18:31:18

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#88 2019-11-04 21:33:52

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#89 2019-11-04 22:24:19

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#90 2019-11-05 00:46:21

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#91 2019-11-05 07:51:54

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#92 2019-11-05 10:31:28

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#93 2019-11-05 10:37:26

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#94 2019-11-05 11:09:07

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#95 2019-11-05 11:12:18

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#96 2019-11-05 11:21:59

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#97 2019-11-05 14:09:49

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#98 2019-11-12 09:06:15

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#99 2019-11-12 20:39:00

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

#100 2019-11-13 20:01:28

Re: Coming soon: Character skills (tools)

Board footer