(Poll: http://strawpoll.me/2358724 (http://strawpoll.me/2358724))
I think that releases are being focused too much on addition to the point that it's getting hard to play the game correctly. I think we should have more updates like Alpha 3, where it's an update just for fixing bugs, balancing the game, and improving the framework of the game.
Production needs to slow down a bit, make everything stable and playable and re-playable. Not just play once, fix any problems, add something new, and play once more. New stuff is always good, but the more new features are added, the more bugs are introduced as they conflict in operation with one another (example: walls overlapping trees).
If Alpha 6 is not enjoyable (it's not for me), I think we need to have a stabilization update for Alpha 7. Sure, new stuff is good. But Alpha 7 should not have factories or multiplayer or anything groundbreaking like that. It should just be fixing. Currently, there are 66 bugs assigned, and many more still to be found or named.
My gripe with Alpha 6 are the centipedes and mechanoids, and the storyteller. Centipedes and mechanoids are too OP, and the storyteller should generate a sort of sine wave, not a sawtooth wave, in terms of the welfare of the colony. For me, the storyteller either goes too easy or too hard on me. (Example: Phoebe Friendly, set to "Casual" difficulty. One incident, they send 2 raiders against me; the next incident, it's an AI core along with a centipede equipped with a minigun.) Plus, the mortar launchers do not consume shells, nor do their accuracy correlate with a colonist's shooting skill, nor do they increase a colonist's shooting skill.
Sorry for the rant, I'm probably going to get flamed, but what are your experiences with Alpha 6? Is it "stable" in your opinion?
Alpha is alpha.
It's going to be buggy, and the developers (developer in this game) are (is) going to focus on feature additions, because the game your playing now isn't meant to be played "correctly", as it isn't complete yet.
Works fine for me, more fun than previous builds. Certainly it's challenging but the difficulty options provide plenty of tuning to suit your tastes.
I completely disagree with this post, a lot of people I know are hesitant to buy RimWorld because it doesn't look like it has enough content.
Literally, every single person I've seen interested in this game asks the same question: "Is it worth it?"
I believe that Tynan needs to continue on work on features. The damage models in alpha 6 are damn impressive.
I really like Alpha 6. As far as balance is concerned, I have the feeling that Tynan is looking at that pretty hard right now. The new health system has changed gun balance quite a lot. My brother and I have been working on a Rimworld Weapons Balancer tool (first version is already released over in the mods/tools section) which seems to have caught his interest.
I think a lot of the frustration that people are getting from Alpha 6 stems out of the health system. It's something that (so far as I can tell) about 70% of people really like, and 30% of people really dislike. I've made a suggestion for advanced game set-up options so people can easily change a few things to be more to their liking. (that thread is here (http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=5523.0), if you'd like to add anything to it.)
Considering I just had a wave of Centipede that outnumbered my colonists roughly 5 to 1 and during that raid one of my colonists in full power armour and equipped with a mini gun was revealed to be a member of the an enemy faction, and the death of the last centipede is immediately followed by pirates dropping into my base directly..... Yeah... next update focusing on balance and bugs could be a good thing.
The total wealth of my base INCREASED by 50% just due to the loot dropped on the ground immediately after the battle X.x
My base has a total pop of 10 + 1 traitor and the robots had 16 mini guns in their wave... more miniguns than I had colonists. I get an FPS of 0 and I am playing on the rough difficulty which is 60% of the 'normal' wave size.... good gods what kind of machine do you need to play this game?
And now the fractured remnants of that base just got hit with a wave of tribes people and just as that wave reaches their front door... MORE PIRATES! at which point my computer crashed...
I don't mind my base falling to unrealistically massive waves of certain death... but it isn't my base that is being attacked... it's my computer and that's no fun X.x
Maybe more types of traders and more trading options. Let me sell my stone blocks, and let me make a little profit on the side arbitrage trading.
For instance, it's not really feasible to think you can trade in one good from one trader to the next and be able to come out with something extra for the time and effort, ie investment.
I haven't really looked into the lore of rimworld, but I will say this. With all those different types of traders passing by, they have to get hungry, or need some fuel for their uranium reactors or something.
I mean, just make their prices random for all I care. If I had to think of a game that has very simple mechanics that work in the way I'm trying to convey, I would suggest looking at the Drug Wars/Dope Wars type of games.
And OP, the game is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. despite what I wrote above...
Most people are thinking that 30 bucks for the Alpha is too much. Just way too much.
That said people are buying the game so its fine. Also Tynan replies really fast and cares about the game so more stuff is added all the time. And update every month is 12 times faster than most games and 100 times faster than some interesting ones.
The DF (Not Dwarf Fortress BTW) team has 12 people working and it took them 6 months to reply with a plain generic message.
Hypothesis: Players playing with small colonies, while exercising care with which pawns to convert to their cause, are more upset about this update due to the fact that a colonist can get permanently impaired by a single hit. The event is rare but pawns receive a number of hits that guarantees permanent impairment sooner rather than later, with no cure. Players playing with large colonies suffer little from a loss of a colonist, much less permanent disability.
Rant: Tynan & co. are visibly taking the game into Dwarf Fortress's direction. This, in a way and in my opinion, goes against the original mission of RimWorld. The vibe from Tynan has always been that he wanted his players to go with small colonies, in which every character is important. On the other hand, while I myself always play with small colonies, I have supported the idea of having support for the management of large colonies, so does that diminish my right to criticize this direction? On the other hand, Tynan attributed Dwarf Fortress as its influence since day 1, but to me it was always a marketing gimmick, and not to be taken seriously. But then Tynan seriously went dwarffortress with RimWorld. Therein lies the contradiction - were we expected to play with small colonies or is this Dwarf Fortress in space. Incidentally, I play DF with small crews as well. And I avoid combat like plague. I utilize traps, defenses and suicidal engineering. But I know for a fact that some (the majority of?) players have dozens, hundreds of dorfs in their fortresses.
The questions: How do we, as players of RimWorld, are divided with our playstyle? What portion of us plays with small (less than 12) colonists, in which case permanent impairment is a major setback, and what portion of us collects colonists like pokemon, with the 'gotta catch them all' approach, in which case they are shielded against the effects of occasional dismemberment? I have a hunch that the divide over Alpha 6 correlates with each one's playstyle in this regard.
Further rant: Another difference with RimWorld and DF is that DF is heavily melee-oriented, while RimWorld is for gunslingers. There's a massive difference between melee and ranged, and you can't just make ranged combat as brutal in RimWorld as melee is in DF, and expect proper level of brutality as a result. No, the road to balanced brutality is different and you have to be more careful. Guns are dangerous.
Alpha 6 actually brought me back to Rimworld. The previous Alpha's just didn't have enough content to keep me entertained. I'm loving the new traits and medical system and the game is really starting to take some shape. I hope they keep up the development as they are.
Prison Arc got up to Alpha 22 before they made a release focusing on bugs
Plenty of time to wait, plus it's no use bug fixing at this stage as every bug 3 more will pop up when you add a new feature.
Quote from: longbyte1 on August 16, 2014, 10:50:28 PM
(Poll: http://strawpoll.me/2358724 (http://strawpoll.me/2358724))
Totally unrelated to your question, but the forum actually includes a poll system. There's a "new poll" button right beside the "new topic" button.
Quote from: James009 on August 17, 2014, 07:04:32 AM
Alpha 6 actually brought me back to Rimworld. The previous Alpha's just didn't have enough content to keep me entertained. I'm loving the new traits and medical system and the game is really starting to take some shape. I hope they keep up the development as they are.
This is the same for me. The more features are added, the better the game will be.
I think the results of your own poll are pretty telling. http://strawpoll.me/2358724/r
41 total votes.
37 enjoy Alpha 6. (90%)
4 enjoy it, but only for awhile. (10%)
0 don't enjoy it. (0%)
Quote from: UrbanBourbon on August 17, 2014, 07:02:26 AM
Hypothesis: Players playing with small colonies, while exercising care with which pawns to convert to their cause, are more upset about this update due to the fact that a colonist can get permanently impaired by a single hit. The event is rare but pawns receive a number of hits that guarantees permanent impairment sooner rather than later, with no cure. Players playing with large colonies suffer little from a loss of a colonist, much less permanent disability.
Rant: Tynan & co. are visibly taking the game into Dwarf Fortress's direction. This, in a way and in my opinion, goes against the original mission of RimWorld. The vibe from Tynan has always been that he wanted his players to go with small colonies, in which every character is important. On the other hand, while I myself always play with small colonies, I have supported the idea of having support for the management of large colonies, so does that diminish my right to criticize this direction? On the other hand, Tynan attributed Dwarf Fortress as its influence since day 1, but to me it was always a marketing gimmick, and not to be taken seriously. But then Tynan seriously went dwarffortress with RimWorld. Therein lies the contradiction - were we expected to play with small colonies or is this Dwarf Fortress in space. Incidentally, I play DF with small crews as well. And I avoid combat like plague. I utilize traps, defenses and suicidal engineering. But I know for a fact that some (the majority of?) players have dozens, hundreds of dorfs in their fortresses.
The questions: How do we, as players of RimWorld, are divided with our playstyle? What portion of us plays with small (less than 12) colonists, in which case permanent impairment is a major setback, and what portion of us collects colonists like pokemon, with the 'gotta catch them all' approach, in which case they are shielded against the effects of occasional dismemberment? I have a hunch that the divide over Alpha 6 correlates with each one's playstyle in this regard.
Further rant: Another difference with RimWorld and DF is that DF is heavily melee-oriented, while RimWorld is for gunslingers. There's a massive difference between melee and ranged, and you can't just make ranged combat as brutal in RimWorld as melee is in DF, and expect proper level of brutality as a result. No, the road to balanced brutality is different and you have to be more careful. Guns are dangerous.
I suspect that there might be a further divide, largely over whether or not players treat rimworld as a city builder or not. Given the major interest that some have portrayed for phoebe friendly, and the whole name change to specifically reference building, it seems that there is a minority of people who are interested in the base building aspect, and not the often violent, ai storytelling that forms the core of the game. As such, an update that focuses on violence would probably upset the balance for these people.
Another issue, is that the core gameplay has remained unchanged for long enough that some people may have ended up lulled into a sense of complacency, wherein they believe that what the current game is, embodies what the finished product will be.
A third issue, is that when a game offers substantial abstraction, it often sidesteps criticisms of realism, etc that a more simulationist approach cannot avoid. Few people complained about colonists soaking up a couple dozen bullets at a time before alpha 6, but all of a sudden once detailed wounds and medical systems are added, people are pointing out the problems of getting shot by a half dozen bullets, and then healing up fine. Whether or not this is a problem is not the issue, but that more detailed simulation almost always invites criticism, largely because there is actually something specific to target.
All that said, as others have stated, I think this has been one of the best updates thus far.
Is Alpha 6 actually enjoyable?
1. yes!
2. alpha!
Tailoring the experience much like in XCOM (The second wave options 'random abilities' 'damage roulette' '100% flanked criticals' 'Random stats' 'decreased performance when wounded' etc)
That sort of thing would be very beneficial for this game I feel!
Cause I know people really like to play different For instance while I really loved to have all the extreme randomness and iron man route
My friend savescummed the shieeeet out of it because he doesn't enjoy starting over, over and over again when stuff hits the fan
Some extra options in the game start like "No permanent wounds" etc could work
But then again the prosthetics are coming so I guess the permanent wounds can be healed in the future
So options like that moght not even be needed
Edit: and you can still have your small size colony, then, only your guys will be more and more something like the agents straight out of Syndicate towards the end =P
Quote from: Shinzy on August 17, 2014, 12:16:17 PM
My friend savescummed the shieeeet out of it because he doesn't enjoy starting over, over and over again when stuff hits the fan
I've never liked the term "Savescumming" If we aren't supposed to reload a saved game after dying, why does the game bother auto saving every 5 minutes? I don't consider reloading a save to be a cheesy tactic anymore than I consider rebinding keys to be cheating. It's just an ease of use feature. That said, I've had several colonies meet what I considered a satisfying "end" at the hands of enemies, and thus shelved them to start a new one... At heart this is a story generator and I don't think the game's over until you're happy with the story.
But yeah, an Xcom like menu where you can turn on/off things like: Ironman mode, Friendly Fire, Advanced damage modeling, etc... would be great!
i rly enjoy alpha 6. i find the new health system amazing and much more realistic. also i can now place my best shooter away from the enemy raiders shooting them and killing them with headshots all the time :D
Quote from: HatesYourFace on August 17, 2014, 03:01:08 PM
Quote from: Shinzy on August 17, 2014, 12:16:17 PM
My friend savescummed the shieeeet out of it because he doesn't enjoy starting over, over and over again when stuff hits the fan
I've never liked the term "Savescumming" If we aren't supposed to reload a saved game after dying, why does the game bother auto saving every 5 minutes? I don't consider reloading a save to be a cheesy tactic anymore than I consider rebinding keys to be cheating. It's just an ease of use feature. That said, I've had several colonies meet what I considered a satisfying "end" at the hands of enemies, and thus shelved them to start a new one... At heart this is a story generator and I don't think the game's over until you're happy with the story.
But yeah, an Xcom like menu where you can turn on/off things like: Ironman mode, Friendly Fire, Advanced damage modeling, etc... would be great!
Autosaves are pretty standard, and it's there in case the game crashes, or you accidentally close the game, or you forget to save the game before load another game, etc. Not really meant to be used for reloading over and over again so you can play the game perfectly.
Ironman mode would be a cool future feature anyway.
I really like the new health system - except for the lack of replacement limbs that are supposed to come in Alpha 7 IIRC.
The M24 needs some rebalancing though imo. Once the M24 is on the field you will start to lose limbs and colonist. If you counter with a couple of M24 yourself a large number of enemies you want to capture either die or are permanently crippled. I have currently 3 or 4 prisoners waiting for the next slave trader because I can't use them.
Another problem is that the M24 rolls dice for all your battles. You can play the same battle and get completely different results solely based on your RNG luck with the first couple of M24 hits.
But those are balancing problems and I can fix that in 10 minutes if it annoys me too much. More features however are always welcome, even if they are buggy. The new world gen is awesome!
I love the new system, sure it needs some work, but on the whole its pretty interesting, rather then the dull war of attrition it use to be. Plus, saying that it's taking the game away from rimworlds original vision and more towards dwarf fortress, well this health system was always on the roadmap for development, I remember it being clearly stated on ty's kickstarter for the game and was one of the reasons I got intrigued by it.
Quote from: null on August 17, 2014, 08:04:46 AM
Totally unrelated to your question, but the forum actually includes a poll system. There's a "new poll" button right beside the "new topic" button.
Gah.. I though it was like vBulletin where the poll menu was integrated into the "new post" menu. Too late now..
Quote from: HatesYourFace on August 17, 2014, 11:43:07 AM
I think the results of your own poll are pretty telling.
37 enjoy Alpha 6. (90%)
4 enjoy it, but only for awhile. (10%)
0 don't enjoy it. (0%)
Obviously people are going to say yes, because it's like a fine meal given to somebody. Could
you do any better? Obviously not, so it's considered a good meal.
But from my eyes, the game is looking extremely complicated, like a big
PCB. It's really hard to add something, because you have to change things around it.
By the way, Alpha only states the stage of the development of a piece of software. While early on, it reflects on the stability of the program, you can call a software "alpha" for its entire life and get away with the bug disclaimer. (See Dwarf Fortress (http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:About).)
Quote from: UrbanBourbon on August 17, 2014, 07:02:26 AM
Hypothesis: Players playing with small colonies, while exercising care with which pawns to convert to their cause, are more upset about this update due to the fact that a colonist can get permanently impaired by a single hit. The event is rare but pawns receive a number of hits that guarantees permanent impairment sooner rather than later, with no cure. Players playing with large colonies suffer little from a loss of a colonist, much less permanent disability.
I play with smaller colonies and I actually love this update - though it's possible it might be because I'm a big DF fan too. xD Regardless, you're right that the impairment issue is a pain in the ass when playing with a smaller group. I'm hoping for prosthetics/cyborg technology and organ transplants to get implemented at some point. If it's something that isn't commonly available (such as requiring a mechanoid body to create the artificial body part, and a high doctor skill for organ transplants) it would still make the impairment system significant, but without actually dooming a valuable individual to becoming permanently useless forever.
Edit: Ah, I just found that artificial limbs are coming in A7, now I just hope Tynan won't make it too easy to replace them. Don't want the damage system going from significant to a distraction only. ^^;
To be completely honest, while I was interested in this game previous to Alpha 6 I did not consider buying it until I seen Alpha 6 and the whole slew of changes and new stuff it's adding. Knowing this game is steaming ahead in its production of new features and such detail in the gameplay is what is pushing me towards buying this game, and not only that perhaps writing up a custom character thing. I am seriously looking forward to how this develops and I am quite excited for how its going- the only thing I want to happen at the moment that's a huge step forward is the addition of different altitude levels, like subterranean or mountains/cliffs and potentially, sky and such. Buildings with multiple stories and such so I can make fortress walls where my colonists can blast their firearms down on some poor shmucks attacking my gates with makeshift rams or trying to bunker underground as terrifying pirates are barreling away with mortars on my poor folks.
Quote from: JonoRig on August 17, 2014, 09:23:20 PM
I love the new system, sure it needs some work, but on the whole its pretty interesting, rather then the dull war of attrition it use to be. Plus, saying that it's taking the game away from rimworlds original vision and more towards dwarf fortress, well this health system was always on the roadmap for development, I remember it being clearly stated on ty's kickstarter for the game and was one of the reasons I got intrigued by it.
It... it was? And it was! Holy sh--! Ok. Well... that just means my outrage has been largely baseless! I never saw that "roadmap". And it's clearly there on the Kickstarter page! And here I was, sometimes wondering if there was a public development plan of sorts somewhere... You can't underestimate the intensity of the facepalm I just did. On the other hand, even if I HAD seen it, I wouldn't have taken it seriously, because who was Tynan to me before RimWorld? A nobody. Possibly a con-artist, possibly a developer with questionable skills at best, trying to make a buck. Well, not anymore. Now it's more interesting than ever to take a(nother) look at the roadmap. So far every single one of the modules on the map has been achieved, and not all that many remaining. I'm not used to people keeping their words, not like this. Tynan, stop keeping your word so thoroughly. You're making me make myself look bad.
The 'roadmap':
https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/000/955/032/03d82b80aadc4703b3264a87f643293b_large.png?1380126478
Alternatively:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tynansylvester/rimworld
(The 'roadmap' is slightly below halfway. In case the first link doesn't work.)
Quote from: UrbanBourbon on August 18, 2014, 04:22:46 AM
It... it was? And it was! Holy sh--! Ok. Well... that just means my outrage has been largely baseless! I never saw that "roadmap".
*hug*
Alpha 6 actually what made me get back to modding and continue my mod called RimTECH.
so yes its very enjoyable, with all the new content ^_^
Quote from: longbyte1 on August 17, 2014, 09:40:18 PM
Quote from: HatesYourFace on August 17, 2014, 11:43:07 AM
I think the results of your own poll are pretty telling.
37 enjoy Alpha 6. (90%)
4 enjoy it, but only for awhile. (10%)
0 don't enjoy it. (0%)
Obviously people are going to say yes, because it's like a fine meal given to somebody. Could you do any better? Obviously not, so it's considered a good meal.
But from my eyes, the game is looking extremely complicated, like a big PCB. It's really hard to add something, because you have to change things around it.
Are
you implying that
you could do better? If so, where's
your game? I'd love to play it.
Quote from: ZestyLemons on August 17, 2014, 08:50:11 PM
Autosaves are pretty standard, and it's there in case the game crashes, or you accidentally close the game, or you forget to save the game before load another game, etc. Not really meant to be used for reloading over and over again so you can play the game perfectly.
Sure they are, if that's how you like to play your game lol. If it wasn't "meant to be used" this way you would only get one save file per map (The latest auto save/save replacing the current one) and the Random events would work off a base seed generated when you start your map, so that reloading wouldn't change the next random event. I'd wager Tynan is more worried about whether or not you had a good time with your colony, not how many times you saved/reloaded.
I just saw on the roadmap the part about religions. I knew there was a reason this game has been giving off this slight Warhammer 40k vibe!
Anyway, I suppose what you think of this update depends on how and why you play the game. I play to completion, which is to say, I play until all my colonists die horribly, and then I annoy my friends on facebook with a several page story of how it happened. I'm not sure why I do that, this is the first game that's ever engaged me like this. I tried playing Xcom on iron man, and couldn't do it, losing people hurt too much. Here, though, I let it happen and press on.
Because of that, because I'm playing for the emerging storyline, I think that the health system is great.
Quote from: wolfman1911 on August 18, 2014, 08:05:08 AM
I just saw on the roadmap the part about religions. I knew there was a reason this game has been giving off this slight Warhammer 40k vibe!
Anyway, I suppose what you think of this update depends on how and why you play the game. I play to completion, which is to say, I play until all my colonists die horribly, and then I annoy my friends on facebook with a several page story of how it happened. I'm not sure why I do that, this is the first game that's ever engaged me like this. I tried playing Xcom on iron man, and couldn't do it, losing people hurt too much. Here, though, I let it happen and press on.
Because of that, because I'm playing for the emerging storyline, I think that the health system is great.
(http://gifatron.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/George-Costanza-clapping.gif)
So much yes. This guy actually gets what this game is about.
More content is most welcomed. Large chunks of time balancing now is generally a waste of effort, as new content will cause everything to be reevaluated again regardless. Frankly Tynan's efforts to balance now are probably much more for the community's desire to play Alphas then it is to come to a finished state of the game. If you remember Alpha 1, the game got old pretty quick, but showed great promise. The game generally degraded into a siege mentality where it took ever increasing waves of enemies to actually threaten you. Now the game has several aspects which affect your play, and make you make decisions on which way to best proceed. This is the essence of the game that I believe Tynan wants to make, which is actually something Dwarf Fortress does pretty well. (Also I do believe DF does inspire RimWorld substantially, and any aspects that are similar are welcomed)
The last word is also the first word. Alpha.
I like the content that came with alpha 6, but some balancing to the waves would be nice to see soon. Also, I wish you could buy clothes, armor and those fancy cowboy hats from ships passing by!
Quote from: wolfman1911 on August 18, 2014, 08:05:08 AM
I just saw on the roadmap the part about religions. I knew there was a reason this game has been giving off this slight Warhammer 40k vibe!
Anyway, I suppose what you think of this update depends on how and why you play the game. I play to completion, which is to say, I play until all my colonists die horribly, and then I annoy my friends on facebook with a several page story of how it happened. I'm not sure why I do that, this is the first game that's ever engaged me like this. I tried playing Xcom on iron man, and couldn't do it, losing people hurt too much. Here, though, I let it happen and press on.
Because of that, because I'm playing for the emerging storyline, I think that the health system is great.
I'd love to see some of your stories on the Stories board. With screenshots if you have 'em. ;)