Update: Lead and Follow

jasonrohrer · 2019-12-14 04:34:23

This week, we have an experiment in voluntary hierarchical leadership.

Each player can optionally pick one other player as their direct leader, by saying I FOLLOW SALLY SMITH, to follow them by name, or I FOLLOW YOU when standing near them. You can switch leaders at any time, and you can go back to having no leader by saying I FOLLOW MYSELF.

Following someone has absolutely no direct impact on gameplay, and is simply a source of information. People who have the same leader are marked as allies, and they wear the same color badges on their clothing. Leaders can follow other leaders, resulting in a dynamic hierarchy. Higher-order leaders have more elaborate badges and tiles, including Lord, Baron, Count, Duke, King, and several levels of Emperor. Your badge color is determined by the leader at the top of your tree.

Everyone can also exile other players at will by saying I EXILE SALLY SMITH, to exile them by name, or I EXILE YOU. This allows you to keep track of players that are causing trouble, and you will see a black X mark on their chests. I REDEEM SALLY SMITH, or I REDEEM YOU, allows you to bring someone back from exile.

The people exiled by leaders are seen as exiled by all of their followers further down in the hierarchy. Thus, information about troublemakers can be shared easily and efficiently. When a high-order leader exiles someone, a large group of people will all know about this person's status. Leaders can also be exiled, and any remaining followers are marked as dubious. An exiled person can appeal over the head of the person who exiled them, and higher-ups can override and redeem the exiles made by leaders beneath them.

When you're born, you inherit your mother's leader. You can change leaders when you are old enough to speak the necessary command.

When a leader dies, their followers are passed up to the leader above them, if any, and their list of exiles is passed downward to each of their immediate followers. In other words, the tree does the right thing automatically, behind the scenes, to preserve valuable information.

The inner workings of this system are a little complex, but on the ground, as one cog in the machine, you just need to make a single, very simple decision: who to follow, if anyone? And if you find yourself in a leadership position, you can also make decisions about who to exile. The tree will take care of the rest.

This system was inspired by forum-user Kinrany's post here:

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=8644

More details and discussion about this system can be seen in this very lively thread here:

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=8695

In other news, the Bell directional arrow has been moved down from the top of the screen to a more visually pleasing location. Thanks to Twisted for pointing out that it was visually jarring up there.

UPDATE:

I just added an order system, where order messages get passed down through the leadership tree to followers. To issue an order, say something like ORDER, EVERYONE COME TO THE TOWN CENTER

Please note the comma in there. No comma, no order.

Your immediate followers will pick up the message whenever they get within 10 tiles of you, and their followers will get them message when they are in close proximity, and so on, until everyone in your tree has the message. As an example, you might be away at an outpost and then return to town. When you return, you will be automatically told the leader's most recent standing order. When you get an order message, it's accompanied by an explanation of which leader issued that order.

Exiled people do not see the message themselves, but do pass the message on to their non-exiled followers.

Also, in the original post, I forgot to mention the new verbal kill trigger feature. If you're holding a weapon and say I WILL KILL SAM JONES, you will enter the murder-mouth state against Sam Jones (or I WILL KILL YOU for the nearest person). There are a bunch of variations on this wording that work, too. The point is to allow you to start kill-chasing someone who is hard to click (maybe they just raced by on a horse), or to allow you resume a kill chase after dropping your weapon to eat. As another nice side effect: this kill state trigger is visible to everyone around you, so new players can learn how to do it (where shift-right-click is harder to learn).

Grim_Arbiter · 2019-12-14 07:55:29

Take that todd.

See you at the ball dukes and duchesses.

MapleSugar · 2019-12-14 09:46:36

Hey Jason,you forget writting about "I WILL KILL YOU"

Kinrany · 2019-12-14 11:37:16

If orders make it into the game sometime in the future, they could even replace the mechanic for exiling people.
When there are too many exiles running around, it doesn't matter too much that they're easily visible. When there's only one exile from time to time, it should be easy enough to remember their name.

antking:]# · 2019-12-14 16:53:39

Can't wait to see the Drama! Oh and next update lets have more table recipe, I sure want to have a royal banquit

Spoonwood · 2019-12-14 18:51:05

Saw a Twitch streamer taking buckets and trying to hid them behind trees (seemed like he more often put the buckets next to the trees). Gray berry bushes all over the place. Dead berry bushes. The griefer lived to 60.

Edit: Looks like he got born to a breakaway mom/outpost mom. He heard a bell and went to it.

Some conversation in the discord:

"So has anyone figured out if following someone actually does anything useful whatsoever? IS there any social benefit at all?"

"It does nothing
It's just rp fluff"

"it just boosts the ego of the little fucker your "following" and causes mass griefing"

"Give it time."

"About the only time it has even remotely helped was when I needed a shovel made. Went to some kingpin and just told him to have his lackeys make me a shovel. That was alright."

Last edited by Spoonwood (2019-12-14 19:22:51)

Spoonwood · 2019-12-14 20:09:38

Also, all from one user in the following:

"LOL WE KILLED THE KING"

https://media.discordapp.net/attachment … height=244

"everyone is gonna starve lol"

"OMG I MIGHT BECOME PRESIDENT"

"LOL PEOPLE ARE VOTING FOR ME
DIANNAH"

"YES
I BECAME PRESIDENT"

"but nobody listened to me"

Someone else responding:

"I think I saw someone say that in game earlier
Musta been you lol"

"Something about democracy
Didn't stop to follow"

"I was busy doing useful things"

"rpers using president which doesn't exist"

Kinrany · 2019-12-14 20:27:08

Are the leaders being drowned out by the noise, or is it just that their followers are roleplaying and don't actually listen?

Lava · 2019-12-14 21:23:03

Kinrany wrote:

Are the leaders being drowned out by the noise, or is it just that their followers are roleplaying and don't actually listen?

The update is RP, trust me that's all it is. I even tried to use it all my lifes its quite literally RP. The leaders RP aswell.

Last edited by Lava (2019-12-14 21:23:26)

jasonrohrer · 2019-12-14 23:33:40

Please note the UPDATE to the original post.

Dodge · 2019-12-15 10:03:08

Just face it, it's a roleplaying game now

I was born in a big town and dialogues where along the lines of:

"FOLLOW ME"

"WHY?"

"BECAUSE POWER"

(wasn't the actual dialogue but you get the idea)

Next update should give you a background story before each life with objectives, completing the objectives gives you points, so we can go full circle with the roleplaying thing.

Jokes aside it's a pretty good update in terms of functionning and how it COULD possibly be used but right not it just feels out of place.

I just hope that Jason isn't being delusionnal about it and knows that currently it doesn't make sense to have this in the game, all these talks about BARONS, QUEENS hierarchy and what not in the other topic made it seem like he was convinced that it made total sense in the current game and that for some reason having a "KING" would somehow enhance current gameplay.

A question for you: how?

how does having a KING/BARON/WATHEVER makes any sense in the current game?

why would i need or want a king or wathever title to give orders if you dont need any form of hierarchy in order to survive or even thrive?

when someone gives me an order in game on a scale of 1/10 guess how seriously i listen to him.

Anyway looking forward for the next updates, maybe the pieces of the puzzle will slowly connect together and start to make sense.

Kinrany · 2019-12-15 14:35:19

Dodge wrote:

A question for you: how?
how does having a KING/BARON/WATHEVER makes any sense in the current game?

The idea was that it would help people coordinate.

I kinda want to agree with Wuatduhf: we need more time for the novelty to wear off and for the meta to adapt.

But assuming it won't get better, here's why:
1. Maybe keeping towns alive is not a problem for expert players at all. Towns die when there are no expert players there. 80% don't do anything.
2. Maybe a single expert player is not always enough. But even then training people is harder than doing it yourself.

Dodge · 2019-12-15 15:36:29

Kinrany wrote:

But assuming it won't get better, here's why:
1. Maybe keeping towns alive is not a problem for expert players at all. Towns die when there are no expert players there. 80% don't do anything.

Yes that's a very good point, keeping towns alive is not an issue at all for expert players. but at the same time too hard for beginners.

Assuming that a town only has beginner players = town dies

A town only has expert players = boring because too easy

A mix of both = some players do everything while others idle and probably ge bored and quit the game.

There is no leveling field where experts and beginners can have the same difficulty and actually need to work with each other.

Tool update attempted this by restricting the abilities of expert players in order for them to actually need others and it's a step in the right direction but there is still something missing to connect the dots.

Right now survival is both too hard and too easy and that's a real issue since it prevents any room to do anything.

Dodge · 2019-12-15 15:57:49

How about this:

Being in a shelter/home = ez game ez life, you burn food at a very slow rate so you have no risk of dying noob or expert player, plenty of time for organizing a hierarchy making plans etc BUT you stagnate and will eventually run out of food and the civilisation will collapse/town will die out.

Outside = Survival, food burns at an increasingly high rate as more time is passed outside, without a clear plan of what to do you will die, so noobs that go outside without asking for help will consistantly die and expert players that dont plan with others and try to solo everything will make the village die.

Every tech and societal structure that you make increases your survival against the elements (outside), so having clothes, having a working society with roles etc, having a working economy are all things that increases your chances of survival.

This levels the difficulty since has long as you are in a shelter you are good (no matter what your number of in game hours) BUT in order to progress and not slowly die you have to plan, make decisions and be clear on what each member of the group is going to do.

Kinrany · 2019-12-15 16:48:02

Dodge wrote:

Outside = Survival, food burns at an increasingly high rate as more time is passed outside, without a clear plan of what to do you will die, so noobs that go outside without asking for help will consistantly die and expert players that dont plan with others and try to solo everything will make the village die.

Yeah. We could have a starter biome that is easy to initially survive in, but unsuitable for farming. And all the other biomes would be hot, cold, or dangerous, so you'd try to stay inside all the time.
Clothes could be like spacesuits, lol. You need one to go outside without instantly turning into ice, but you also need to take it off inside to avoid overheating.

This would make people build a lot, and also spend a lot of time together.
Functionally this would be like turning all outside work into hungry work.

Well, no, not really. You'd still be able to waste food by wandering outside and burning pips for no reason. And it wouldn't make the 80% more productive, they we'd just waste less.

Last edited by Kinrany (2019-12-15 16:48:29)

WalrusesConquer · 2019-12-16 07:25:58

I gave out free hugs to be an empress. Look I don't see the problem with this update as it's more visual than a crown. Also why kill a monarchy? It's pretty easy to become a ruler yourself, just convince people to follow you.
One time our king exiled a baby kidnapper who would ask people to follow them. The moms didn't know and the kids were none the wiser, till they saw the cross.

Kinrany · 2019-12-16 14:37:33

Yeah, orders shouldn't be passed down to an exiled subtree.

Alice, a leader, could fake-follow Bob, another leader, to give her followers access to Bob's orders.
Bob would then have to exile each of her followers individually. Tracking them all down would be pretty much impossible.

Funny enough, the best he could do is to follow and then unfollow Alice. This will break Alice's follow.

Kinrany · 2019-12-21 03:28:08

One more reason for trees to be very flat: having a small number of powerful dukes makes it easy to turn the king into a peasant.

A single duke can just unfollow the king and become the king himself.
Two dukes can still easily cooperate and decide that one of them should rule.

Having less direct followers makes the tree more robust, but isn't actually beneficial to the leader.
Basically the system currently relies on each leader being conscientious about preserving the tree.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-12-14 04:34:23

Update: Lead and Follow

#2 2019-12-14 07:55:29

Re: Update: Lead and Follow

#3 2019-12-14 09:46:36

Re: Update: Lead and Follow

#4 2019-12-14 11:37:16

Re: Update: Lead and Follow

#5 2019-12-14 16:53:39

Re: Update: Lead and Follow

#6 2019-12-14 18:51:05

Re: Update: Lead and Follow

#7 2019-12-14 20:09:38

Re: Update: Lead and Follow

#8 2019-12-14 20:27:08

Re: Update: Lead and Follow

#9 2019-12-14 21:23:03

Re: Update: Lead and Follow

#10 2019-12-14 23:33:40

Re: Update: Lead and Follow

#11 2019-12-15 10:03:08

Re: Update: Lead and Follow

#12 2019-12-15 14:35:19

Re: Update: Lead and Follow

#13 2019-12-15 15:36:29

Re: Update: Lead and Follow

#14 2019-12-15 15:57:49

Re: Update: Lead and Follow

#15 2019-12-15 16:48:02

Re: Update: Lead and Follow

#16 2019-12-16 07:25:58

Re: Update: Lead and Follow

#17 2019-12-16 14:37:33

Re: Update: Lead and Follow

#18 2019-12-21 03:28:08

Re: Update: Lead and Follow

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