Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

Melea · 2020-02-25 22:05:51

This post reminded me of an issue with the current state of property fences - https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewt … 762#p89762

We have something you can place down in seconds, pre-fire, from a flint chip + branch (don't even need a rope anymore), and is ready to go in just 5 minutes...

...but that takes way more time and effort to remove. You need to be in a post-fire town that's progressed through making a smithing hammer, file, chisel, and blade blank to get the necessary knife (for wood shavings and charcoal pencil). Then you gotta make paper. Then you have to be or find a person minutes from old age death, plus another player (maybe even two strangers if your tool slots are full), and hope that both players understand what's needed* and are willing to help before they die naturally or surprise-starve from old age. And if you've managed to successfully mark the fence, there's now a 10 minute wait before it finally breaks.

* - The language barrier sucks here. If the helpers needed aren't your race and there's no (cooperative) white folk around then you have to use paper communication. Which is tedious when talking to a 55+ person. And especially so if there's no rubber in your village yet to make eraser balls.

-----

Yes, the ease and resource-free setup makes property fences make nice starter sheep pens for early Eve camps.

But that also makes property fences an easy way for some douchy players to trap and kill new, uninformed players. And to trap their own children if female. And to easily steal items from towns to stash in a nearby fenced-off location that's now practically non-accessible for the next 30-50+ minutes. Enforced posse-killing helps to cut down on random 1v1 murders. But it makes it more difficult to get a gate knocked down when other players don't understand the system. Even with a posse the gate-owner can spend quite awhile kiting around on a horse at a distance or obnoxiously sitting in the center of a dropsy biome so they can't be targeted. Or they can head off to go screw over another village somewhere else. Now they're gone and impossible to find/kill.

I think the mechanics or complete impassibility of property fences needs to be reworked. Why can't we use a knife to cut the gate hinges? Why can't a person who isn't carrying anything just...climb over? Something needs changed.

If property fences are meant to be easy starter delineator of areas or simple livestock barrier, then they should be nearly as easy to break, or fairly easy to bypass for us fancy tool-using be-thumbed primates. If they're supposed to be utterly impassable sturdy town walls or precious-resource guarding structures (such as palisades**) then they need to be more difficult to make or take much longer to set up.

**Log palisade vs twig/withy fence -

Last edited by Melea (2020-02-25 22:20:54)

Morti · 2020-02-26 01:29:20

Property fences don't make sense in this game, because, there are no social rules that would respect the way they function.

They are recognized as an attempt for Jason to force a mechanic upon us, rather than for a mechanic to emerge from player interaction.

There was nothing quite like that, before them. They were a spit in the face, of the system that HAD emerged from the community.

Jason crossed the line, into our territory, and broke the laws of our land, essentially.

fug · 2020-02-26 10:57:45

As Morti said fences are and have always been terrible for anything except free sheep pens. It makes zero sense for someone who is going to bounce around different lineages to basically horde items and be much MUCH less efficient than joining in with the rest of the town to create resources.

The amount of times I've seen someone put up a fence, take a hoe, and a full bucket of water is high enough and do you know what happens? They grow 4 milkweed or eight bushes, something so insignificant towards anything and everything its embarrassing honestly. It's better to just mass produce milkweed knowing on some level that some of its going to get wasted than to put up the effort to make a private farm that gets completely outproduced anyways.

Swords were literally created to force players to use fences and if you look back you can see the debate on how useless they were at actually defending people. Fences are/were dumb, swords were incredibly dumb, and honestly this weird Jason fever dream caused much more harm than good in my opinion.

Dodge · 2020-02-26 11:57:34

Fences dont make sense because there is no reason to have properties.

If there is a reason to have properties then fences to make them have sense.

That's all there is to it.

Since nobody uses them not sure what all the fuss is about...

mensrea · 2020-02-26 15:33:31

Are we talking about this because people started setting up fences in one of the major towns yesterday? One guy aggro'd the entire camp from his 2x2 box near the main building. After most of his lifetime was up he came out and got stabbed.

There were people trying to take down a corner of fence with removal notices. Knowledge of removal notices might be rare and the language barrier would make it even harder.

Well it was nice. Better than being in donkeytown, which is where I logoff these days. One thing going for donkeytown is when I quit and think about coming back; I'll be happy about no possibility of being in donkeytown, at least.

jasonrohrer · 2020-02-26 18:37:55

Fug, what is the reason that managed resources are so much less efficient than unmanaged resources?

I don't think that "bouncing between lineages" has anything to do with it. Throwing resources in a communal pile is something that you do now, in this life, and not across lives. You're not paving the way for yourself to wander in as an outsider and take from that pile in your next life.

I'm trying to come up with a thought experiment. Suppose you are baking pies, and half the people in the village are well-dressed, and the other half are naked. The naked people are burning through food much faster and wasting your pies, but does it matter to you? If they are your genetic relatives, you want to keep them alive regardless, so they don't hurt your score. And what are the chances that we actually run out of food, sometime soon? Probably pretty low chances.

I think there's a general feeling that the way we spend these resources doesn't matter. Efficiency and "wise use" doesn't matter.

In an early camp, you might be pretty livid if someone wasted a burdock on a half-full baby instead of saving it for the Eve who is nursing. That one misstep might actually doom the entire camp.

Later on, wasting resources might matter long-term in the abstract, but it really doesn't matter right now, in any tangible way.

Of course, managing resources takes time (and thus resources). If the benefit of management is perceived to be dwarfed by the cost of management, then people won't manage their resources.

I've never been satisfied with how food pressure felt in later-stage towns.

Spoonwood · 2020-02-26 19:38:11

jasonrohrer wrote:

Fug, what is the reason that managed resources are so much less efficient than unmanaged resources?

The assumption here that managed resources are so much less efficient than unmanaged resources is likely false. On top of this, there did exist management of resources before fences existed, as towns did have organization to them.

jasonrohrer wrote:

I've never been satisfied with how food pressure felt in later-stage towns.

Yet again Jason is more interested in how the game feels to him than how the game feels to people who have purchased the game including those who stream the game or those who have regularly played the game. And apparently he's under the delusion that food pressure is part of the attraction of the early game for people who enjoy it. As if people who play survival games like Rimworld, Oxygen Not Included, or OHOL enjoy the moments most when their characters end up close to dying. As if Oxygen Not Included players usually enjoy playing with the maximum amount of hunger and stress. And as if Fug has lied when he's said that he wants a *relaxed* experience with fishing, and has hadn't previous projects trying to decrease the hunger rate.

And on top of that, Jason isn't looking to increase the diversity of experiences in game. He's looking to make people more dependent. So that they have less freedom in game. So that they feel less empowered and more forced to play how he wants them to play. He doesn't want players to things for their own reasons, but for reasons imposed upon them like survival in game... similar to what he said back here:

jasonrohrer wrote:

And in terms of my vision for the game, or why players would use buildings or clothing---this isn't Minecraft Creative Mode, folks. I'm not trying to make a game where you build stuff "just for fun" or "because it looks cool." I'm trying to make a game where you build stuff because you have to---because your survival depends on it, and because it's optimal.

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewt … d=5304&p=3

Because your fun doesn't matter. Because if you think something looks cool that doesn't matter. Because if you're happy with how food works in late game towns, it's YOUR SATISFICATION that is off the mark. Instead, you should play, because of the artificially imposed conditions of "survival" on you. Even though every life you die. And even though re-incarnation exists. And as if survival means anything more than mere existence in the end.

fug · 2020-02-26 20:46:33

jasonrohrer wrote:

Fug, what is the reason that managed resources are so much less efficient than unmanaged resources?
I don't think that "bouncing between lineages" has anything to do with it. Throwing resources in a communal pile is something that you do now, in this life, and not across lives. You're not paving the way for yourself to wander in as an outsider and take from that pile in your next life.

I'm trying to come up with a thought experiment. Suppose you are baking pies, and half the people in the village are well-dressed, and the other half are naked. The naked people are burning through food much faster and wasting your pies, but does it matter to you? If they are your genetic relatives, you want to keep them alive regardless, so they don't hurt your score. And what are the chances that we actually run out of food, sometime soon? Probably pretty low chances.
I think there's a general feeling that the way we spend these resources doesn't matter. Efficiency and "wise use" doesn't matter.
In an early camp, you might be pretty livid if someone wasted a burdock on a half-full baby instead of saving it for the Eve who is nursing. That one misstep might actually doom the entire camp.
Later on, wasting resources might matter long-term in the abstract, but it really doesn't matter right now, in any tangible way.

Of course, managing resources takes time (and thus resources). If the benefit of management is perceived to be dwarfed by the cost of management, then people won't manage their resources.

I've never been satisfied with how food pressure felt in later-stage towns.

I want to keep the naked people alive regardless because I would like to come back to the town in the future to continue whatever I was doing. It's better for me to start handing out even the most simply crafted clothing (straw hats, mouflon hides, rabbit shoes, rabbit loin cloths) than for me to sit around snuffing my nose at them. Maybe they're new and don't know how urgent clothing is? Maybe they're just lazy and don't want to make it but it's better for me to improve everyone rather than dicking on them for not dressing.

I don't even lock up my fishing huts on main server and frankly doing so does no one a favor even if they steal or loot the place as its helping someone somewhere with whatever they're doing and you know what? That's okay. I can restock it with nets, I can restock it with rods, and I can restock it with people. Me being selfish and gating off the ability for people to enjoy what I do is just plain dumb. On the other hand, any time I have seen someone make a private property its ALWAYS mismanaged with people taking in more than they ever produce. I bet even when you did a milkweed farm in your little fenced area you grew eight or so and thought you were making a "noticeable" difference.

I take a cart, hoe, bucket, and bowl and I can produce much more milkweed than I'm going to need so why don't I just give it away? Unused resources have the same value as nonexistent resources as a rope sitting in a box kept away is just as useful as the same rope not existing.

By keeping resources to myself and potentially killing non genescore family I only hurt myself and to be frank I've stopped caring about gene score as it was causing me to essentially afk instead of playing the game. I'd rather have 6 slots and play than to have 8 and be stuck in this loop where I play only to live.

http://onehouronelife.com/fitnessServer … il&id=1797

I'm 562nd out of 573 when I used to be in the mid to high 40's regularly. I've just realized how little I was enjoying the game when I focused on gene score instead of playing for good lives and I think I'll stick to the ideology.

jasonrohrer · 2020-02-26 23:11:25

You keep talking about yourself across lives. Like, "lock up my hut to keep others out," meaning, while you're sleeping, and not playing the game?

I'm talking about managing resources during one life.

Say we're running out of food, and we all have backpacks and full clothing already.

Some guy wants to hunt rabbits, so he's using carrots and berries to make bait.

We're low on compost, and the sheep need feeding too. Even just straight up eating the berries and carrot might be a better use of those food resources (three cooked rabbits is 36 food, where the berries alone would be 42 food).

In that situation, would you say, "Feel free to use our last food to hunt these rabbits?"

Imagine a situation where the proper management of resources meant the life (vs. death) of the entire town.

That is currently an imaginary situation, except in Eve camps.

Well, another example might be making the first diesel engine, when we're about to run out of water, and then using that engine to make a car instead of a pump.

Maybe you don't use a property fence to protect your engine while you work on it, but you use some system to manage it, to make sure it's used to save the village and not lost or stolen or misused along the way.

Spoonwood · 2020-02-26 23:46:59

jasonrohrer wrote:

Imagine a situation where the proper management of resources meant the life (vs. death) of the entire town.

Jason is talking about a system that would lead to pre-defined "choices" which is static and fragile in terms of players even existing. Such won't lead to more creativity or players feeling more empowered. It's more like "die, die, die" than anything else.

Popular survival games like Rimworld and Oxygen Not Included don't have popularity, because of forcing as many people as possible into the same harsh conditions. Were Oxygen Not Included have only the Oassise asteroid, it wouldn't be popular. Were RimWorld only to have sea ice biomes available, it wouldn't be popular. Were The Long Dark only to have the hardest mode and little to explore in it, it wouldn't be popular.

He's also only talking about one theme here, lots of hunger.

Jason has again indicated plans or desire to develop a system that would make the game even more monotone.

fug · 2020-02-27 00:45:51

jasonrohrer wrote:

Some guy wants to hunt rabbits, so he's using carrots and berries to make bait.
We're low on compost, and the sheep need feeding too. Even just straight up eating the berries and carrot might be a better use of those food resources (three cooked rabbits is 36 food, where the berries alone would be 42 food).

In that situation, would you say, "Feel free to use our last food to hunt these rabbits?"

Imagine a situation where the proper management of resources meant the life (vs. death) of the entire town.

That is currently an imaginary situation, except in Eve camps.
Well, another example might be making the first diesel engine, when we're about to run out of water, and then using that engine to make a car instead of a pump.
Maybe you don't use a property fence to protect your engine while you work on it, but you use some system to manage it, to make sure it's used to save the village and not lost or stolen or misused along the way.

"Did you know there's a bunch of wild berries in the southern green biome? You can take a bowl down there and even collect up wild carrots so you can make bait." Or I'm just going to go grab a cart and start hauling berries + wild carrots because why would I sit in a starving town? Maybe a new player doesn't know any better but it's very clear that they also don't go and tap the abundance of free resources.

In Eve camps I just tell my kids to go collect eggs so we can cut down on adults having to eat low pip foods while boosting ourselves past the soft cap. If my kids are too dumb to fetch them then I'll do it instead of starting steel tools since dead kids don't need a shovel. Sometimes, you just let the kids die because killing everyone is worse than whatever score negative I can get from one or two children.

In relation to the engine thing just wait to make the engine until you actually need the thing instead of making it and sitting on it. You don't need the engine for the oil grind, and even if you're out of water you only need 5-6 buckets worth to whip up an engine anyways. And even if someone puts the engine on the car you've specifically talked about fixing this exact issue by talking about allowing us to just remove the engine from the car which fixes the issue too.

The only thing that cannot be reasonably solved is something like being the last person in a town as I can't clone myself. If I leave I'm better off just living with my new family or just trying to ring a bell or tidy the place up.

Spoonwood · 2020-02-27 01:02:24

fug wrote:

Sometimes, you just let the kids die because killing everyone is worse than whatever score negative I can get from one or two children.

Yeah, early game has never been good for the game's growth. Bad design from the very start.

pein · 2020-02-27 03:34:36

I think that you really missing the strategical point of property fences

I imagine an ideal situation: the eve is making a camp, has a few kids, other families come into town etc.
ideally, people would make their own homes for their tiny family, set up some business, they could still share some things, but it would be a more selfish version where they care about their own family and friends more
this doesn't mean that I want to go back but might as well
more like making a tradition in a sub-family

now what would we need for that:
-people should be able to travel and find cities
-cities should have some worth, so others want to join city A over city B
-that would require that space has some value to it
-some economy where you can get items trough trade, which isn't otherwise possible
-people shouldn't be able to steal so easily
-some partnership with benefits like marriage, multinational families could have different colour sons (so it won't go down genetically)

fences aren't good for this, since people hoard, lock away resources
stealing and hoarding aren't good game mechanics, the game should enforce people to act decently
now that is an issue which is hard to solve with current mechanics
if I make a bowl that bowl should belong to me and I could share it but I could also keep it for myself
sure, that would be bad for a small town but later on, could be solved

that might require a trading system where you can get items, swap resources, sell your excess and trade for other resources

one thing that could be made is rent. if you want a property, you need to pay for it monthly, we would need a city centre where everything is shared, like 20x20 around the well, then people could claim 10x10 places around it for personal use.
then they could make a home or a shop there and make something to pay off the rent and some extra
if the city would be a limited size, having some bonuses, these places would worth more since you can't get bonuses outside of the city

rent mechanics also would encourage work and trade
you could live in the shared space but then you wouldn't be able to access some content
then we would see truly rich and poor families

I know its not perfect but it's not the point. if people want their own space, they should work for it so others can't have an issue with them holding it, the game should enforce that shared items are recognizable so people won't hoard what others made
some reason to live inside a property and upgrade it

Kinrany · 2020-02-27 13:49:31

My post from January about property: https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=8883

TL;DR: property exists to make it easy to find stuff. In OHOL even a big town is small enough that it takes less than a minute on average to find the thing you need, no matter where it is. So we just don't need property.

We'd need property if, for example, a shaman had to perform a long and time-sensitive ritual in the middle of the town using a large and very precise set of mundane objects. If they tried to do that without property, they'd fail because of someone eating the carrot lying on the ground.

Property is useful as a way of saying "This stuff has a purpose you don't understand. Don't ruin my plans."

DestinyCall · 2020-02-27 13:56:15

Of course, there are other ways to do that too. For example, building are frequently just a way to organize a particular area and give it a recognizable purpose - bakery, nursery, clothing storage, smithing area, etc.

Kinrany · 2020-02-27 14:00:52

DestinyCall wrote:

Of course, there are other ways to do that too. For example, building are frequently just a way to organize a particular area and give it a recognizable purpose - bakery, nursery, clothing storage, smithing area, etc.

Yeah. OHOL is simple enough that you can recognize a building's purpose by its contents, and someone who runs the place will generally be able to fight the entropy just by cleaning the place up from time to time.

DestinyCall · 2020-02-27 14:13:37

It would be great if signs were easier to make. In towns that have signs, you can convey more information about the locations intended purpose. For example, we had a town that had a "theater" in it. I'd never seen a theater in OHOL before, but because someone took the time to make that sign, I could understand the purpose of the building and it made sense. Without the sign, it would not have been obvious because theaters don't have a strong place in the current game meta.

I think it helps when we have certain fixed objects or workstations. The bakery and the forge are excellent examples of this. It is much easier to find the bakery in every town, than to try to find the carpentry shop. Even though there was probably a spot where someone worked on making carts at some point, that work doesn't necessarily occur at a fixed location. In contrast, the oven is rarely moved after the initial start-up of the town (unless the location is really bad). This creates a fixed location for the bakery that future generations can build around. I think it would be great if we had more immobile crafting stations, to compliment some of the more mobile tools. It gives us a reason to create shops and buildings organized around a specific profession or purpose.

Kinrany · 2020-02-27 14:23:29

It also helps that there are barely any tools used in more than one process.

Plates and bowls are the main exception. They're very general purpose and needed in large numbers. As a result smiths and bakers constantly steal them from each other.

Edit: inspired by this thread - worktables that let you use tools without picking them up https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewt … ?pid=89954

Last edited by Kinrany (2020-02-27 14:44:09)

Karrots · 2020-03-01 00:15:23

I find they're useful for small projects. When I want to dye clothes or make tortillas or candles or something else expensive and pretty but without much practical use, I like to fence off my workspace since people tend to take the resources I've gathered for the task or just generally be a nuisance.

I always give the finished product and all the tools used to make it back to the village and make my ugly property fences well out of the way, but I still get called out sometimes for building them. They're useful, just not the way Jason intended. I'd like to see them used more often for projects, would eliminate some of the "that's mine," "I'm using that," "move over" confusion and restore some order to the village.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2020-02-25 22:05:51

Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

#2 2020-02-26 01:29:20

Re: Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

#3 2020-02-26 10:57:45

Re: Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

#4 2020-02-26 11:57:34

Re: Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

#5 2020-02-26 15:33:31

Re: Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

#6 2020-02-26 18:37:55

Re: Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

#7 2020-02-26 19:38:11

Re: Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

#8 2020-02-26 20:46:33

Re: Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

#9 2020-02-26 23:11:25

Re: Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

#10 2020-02-26 23:46:59

Re: Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

#11 2020-02-27 00:45:51

Re: Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

#12 2020-02-27 01:02:24

Re: Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

#13 2020-02-27 03:34:36

Re: Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

#14 2020-02-27 13:49:31

Re: Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

#15 2020-02-27 13:56:15

Re: Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

#16 2020-02-27 14:00:52

Re: Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

#17 2020-02-27 14:13:37

Re: Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

#18 2020-02-27 14:23:29

Re: Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

#19 2020-03-01 00:15:23

Re: Problem with current Property Fence mechanics

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