Game could use some more ups?

[Minandreas]

I've played around 20 hours of Rimworld now and think it's quite an awesome little game.  But I found myself not really wanting to start a new round after my first two, and I did some thinking about why.  Just wanted to share here, as it results in a sort of broad suggestion.

The game doesn't do a very enjoyable job of balancing good and bad events.  I feel like in general, you spend almost the entire game desperately trying to cover all your bases and prepare for the worst, and the worst is all you ever get.  I enjoy games that can be very random and feel unfair at times in their brutality.  But usually because they offer a nice rollercoaster experience of highs and lows.  This game only really ever seems to go lower and lower.  Nothing good ever seems to happen.  There are some that I think are meant to be good events, but the layers of RNG involved more often than not make them nothing but disappointments.  Traders!  With nothing remotely useful or interesting.  Lovers came together!  Great, -15 happiness hit incoming when they inevitably break up.  Someone needs help and wants to join your colony!  Too bad they are absolutely useless.

My suggestion is to create some more events to be happy about.  Particularly ones that don't have layers of RNG behind them, and that you can legitimately just be happy about occurring!  Just some ideas I can throw out there:

• Pawn has found a new passion in life! - Pawn immediately goes up to a minimum rank of 5 in a skill and has a burning passion for it (150% learning rate).  Balance it by having this event trigger less frequently the more passions they already have.  Now even those awful useless characters that you sometimes get saddled with can potentially suddenly and happily become more useful.
• Pawn has been struck with inspiration! - Pawn immediately completes an art or craft project it was working on, and it's quality is higher than it would have been.
• Pawn has overcome their limitations! - Pawn loses one of the negative traits they once had.

How often these events occur I'm not certain.  I'm not a game designer.  I just know how I feel about the game and how it has made me feel while playing it.  I would really like to see some moments in the game to just fist pump and move on.  The occasional high on the rollercoaster ride to keep it from feeling like an endless series of misfortune. 

[cultist]

Positive events tend to become rarer and rarer as your colony gains in strength. Essentially, the AI only shows mercy when it's obvious you are struggling.

If you are having trouble related to mood, the game expects you to do certiain things (which are not explained anywhere) to maintain a neutral mood as the game progresses. The most important (apart from the obvious like food and a private room) are a beautiful dining room and a beautiful rec room. Beautiful bedrooms help as well, but it can be tricky to achieve without using up a lot of space, plus every pawns needs their own beautiful bedroom for the small mood boost.

Also, relationships are pretty new and Tynan has stated they will be balanced in the future.

[Minandreas]

Thanks for the info.  I just wanted to post my experience and suggestion as it was, pretty take or leave for the dev.  I just know it's hard to improve a game without feedback, so try to give it when I can.  Didn't know the relationships system is new.  Good to hear there is more work coming on that.  It's definitely one of the most interesting little elements of the game. 

[Havan_IronOak]

Love your suggestion for extra positive events.

I agree that they are too rare.

[JDCAce]

I registered an account just to support this idea. I particularly like the "new passion in life." And good things shouldn't happen only when you're doing poorly. As in real life, good things can happen whenever, when you're at your lowest and when you're at your highest.

On second thought, maybe they should be more common when you're struggling.

[winddbourne]

I agree!

When this was a crash landing simulator it made sense that the story tellers were trying to push you off the planet . . . but now it's just annoying. My lost tribe or rich explorer doesn't want to escape the planet into space ... this is supposed to be a colony simulation and it should feel like you can get ahead.

Sure not every colony should be successful but . . . skill should be rewarded with new layers of colony management not just bigger disasters. As it stands if your goal is to survive as long as possible the game rewards you for doing just the minimum. You need to meet the colonists needs without growing your wealth level, or making people too happy.

If you manage that day after day drags on following routines and dealing with the same basic problems over and over again until it gets boring. There is no score counter for how long you survived . . . and you can't try to complete the scenario.

The lost tribe is never going to become rich and powerful enough to defeat the death machines from the stars . . . we don't have the layers of defenses and such needed to turn our base into a perfectly safe fortress yet. The lost explorer isn't going to conquer this world at some set point.

The BEST you can do is LOSE. I define losing as building a rocket ship and fleeing the planet for a safer environment. The lost explorer gave up on taming this world, the lost tribe is running away from the death machines . . . and that is fine if the story is supposed to be about loss but most games where you "can't win" at least reward you for doing better each time you play.

There might be a high score list of some kind saying "You lose, your rocket ship races away from the planet after 3 years . . . that puts you in third place please type in your initials".

Right now the game seems a bit broken. It's not a crash landing simulator where you are trying to escape the planet; but you can't input any win conditions and the story tellers are simply broken. Even Phoebe Basebuilder is trying to push you off planet, she just gives you more time to recover between bad events.

More good events certainly would help balance things out.

[skinicism]

Essentially the game doesn't seem to be like Pikmin, for better or worse;

instead, it's more like Ultima VII: The Black Gate in that player characters

have to cultivate a balance between having NPC factions striking or

essentially calling in sick. Players aren't exactly expected to overcome a

variety of obstacles to find ship parts but, rather, are immersed in

a UPS-like identity crisis in trying to get company credit for projects

undertaken. There are plenty of social security programs in place but

there's also that bit of danger that everything is always going to be taken

away as soon as your colonists go to be treated for any sort of illness.

[ttgg]

While I agree that there should be added more positive events and moodlets, the game does actually get quite manageable once you've played for a while. I'm at a point where I'm playing on Extreme using Randy Random, and still have more than enough time between events to chill out and enjoy building my colony. Once in awhile, I get a "perfect storm" of bad events and get screwed, but that's part of the game.

[SpaceDorf]

Thats because randy is easier than cassandra

Randy does screw with you for the shits and giggles.
Cassandra is coming for you the stronger you get.

But I would like a few more positive events too, and more diverse than just shinies falling from the sky or meat taming itself into my fridge.

A Wedding is such an event, that captures the difference in possibilities.
And I too would like if the pawns could evolve new Traits or change old ones.

[Franklin]

Yeah, I've gotta agree, we need to catch a break from time to time. Maybe it's just Cassandra's habit to constantly get 'harder' as you get 'stronger' and harder means less good events, but it turns the long-game into a performance climb.

As much as I like a good story, over the long-game it shouldn't just be increasingly worse after worse event until you expire. Give us a break now and then.

And I'd agree, stuff falling from the sky and tamed animals are kinda limp events when the opposite of that are raids and such.

[ttgg]

Thats because randy is easier than cassandra

Randy does screw with you for the shits and giggles.
Cassandra is coming for you the stronger you get.

I have to disagree there. Cassandra is predictable, only slowly ramps up difficulty, and can easily be countered by a good kill-box. Randy on the other hand can throw a 25x Warg manhunter pack on top of you only a few weeks after landing, and then drop a 20 man raid the day after, before you get a chance to recover.

I played Cassandra on Extreme as well, and it was much easier to handle, despite the larger raiding forces towards the end, exactly because Cassandra had allowed me to slowly build up my forces and base.

But that's just my opinion. I think we can agree that the hardest part of the game is managing the damn mood system

[SpaceDorf]

You don't believe how happy I was about the manhunter swarm that came for me after that one long nuclear fallout winter where my indoor farm froze over and my colonists started to eat my warg-food

At least I got them all before the psychic shippart fell on me


Hmm ... Lots of ups in there

[Kegereneku]

I invite people to post "positive event" in this topic (because it is known by Tynan and because I posted in it)
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=9755.msg99874#msg99874

(I linked to my own post because I put Good and Neutral event in it)

[SpaceDorf]

reading you're post over there and seeing what's allready added was great,
are you by any chance managing the thread by this post ?
Maybe you should make a new thread that gets stickied, that way it could become a better hub for this suggestions ?