Poll: In its present state (Alpha 15), do you think RimWorld is well balanced?

[delheit]

To the comments about preparing for a situation: Just because you can prepare for random events before they come does Not A: Mean they are not random and thus luck is not a major factor. (Which I am ok with for the most part.) or B: It does not change whether or not something is balanced.

What I mean is, if a certain event or feature were terribly unbalanced and so you prepared as best as you could for it to come... Does not mean that it is in fact balanced. With this line of logic all games are balanced because if it's not then react accordingly.

I think we can all agree that no game is balanced 100% perfectly and all though that would be awesome it is impossible. But I think a few aspects could use a feature to let you fight back against it. The issue with the ragging fridge inferno isn't that he could have a second a second stock pile or torn down the walls. It's the fact that meat frozen to zero degree's shouldn't even lit on fire by a shower a sparks. But what I think would make a better example is crop blight.

Yes crops are lost in real life but wouldn't it feel more enjoyable to be able to do something whether preventively or reactivily to deal with crop blight? Sure you could store food and medicine but when talking about balance and RNG lets keep in mind that one play through you might get to the point of great storage and some successful hunts and crops and then be ready for a blight but on another play through you could get unlucky and get blights right before your harvest so often you never seam to have any food to store.

To clarify I'm not complaining about the game being random, but if you claim it's not ruled by RNG. RNG stands for Random Number Generator.... Seriously this whole game is random, random colonists on a random world with random events. But it sounds like your saying shut up about balance and learn to git gud. Why? I love that the game is random and wish some aspects where more random, but some of it could use more balance.

I personally like the idea of having power fuses that you could research and use later in the game so random inferno's could be eventually mitigated against when it comes to using a power grid. On the other hand you could also use those fire extinguisher, popper, foam things. Either way yes the game is random and yes the other commenters are trying play well and mitigate against disaster. But no it's not perfectly balanced and discussing places that need improvement help us communicate with the designers so we can all have a better game.

Things that you have said :

"The game is not ruled by RNG. There are many ways to mitigate it: it is called planning ahead.
Stop blaming the game and learn to come up with solutions to your problems.
Stop complaining that the game is impossible (when it isn't)...]"


Ok, Ok, we get it... Stop sharing opinions on how we feel about game balance and git gud. Except that on numerous occasions you say it unbalanced as well.

"Since a12 the games balance has been thrown entirely out the window if you play the game in a 'competitive' manner"

"There is no 'game is now very unbalanced for competitive play, but staggeringly easy on vanilla settings and storytellers' option."

I don't think anyone here is saying remove all difficulty from the game, or that it is impossible and it's all the games fault. Nope just saying we would like some recruitment options other then capture / buy slaves and poof free recruit. And that some events are so spontaneous it might be nice to have a bit more player agency.

However.
To quote you again.
"If the game is too hard, lower the difficulty. Stop complaining that the game is impossible"

Well

If the game is too easy, increase the difficulty. Stop complaining that the game is too possible.

Also yes, yes, someone could bring up mods, alpha, early access. Well same goes to you. Mods can add difficulty and no one is saying we want a cake walk. Now is the best time possible to discuss balance and more challenge can be added as well.

TLDR: Game is random. Awesome. Sometimes too easy other times too hard. Awesome. Some aspects are spontaneous but predictable. I think more choice and player agency in events would go a long way.

Thank You for the read.

[Scalare]

which exploded into a 2700 degree F firestorm that obviously nobody could get to without collapsing.

~~~~

Not a chance, if you get 2+ pacifists you're 100% screwed. The game is not at all balanced for anybody but the since-alpha-1 masochists who like to play on "cripple me" difficulty.

1. Deconstruct a wall. Put out fires. Save as much food as you can. Not enough food after a single bad event? Should have grown more.

2. Tame a few animals to help protect you while you research. Then build some turrets. Hide behind them. Pacifists are usually good wardens, so you will quickly have 4, 5 or 6 people within a week or two. Stop blaming the game and learn to come up with solutions to your problems.

As for the poll:

I did not vote. Poll options are horribly biased. There is no 'game is now very unbalanced for competitive play, but staggeringly easy on vanilla settings and storytellers' option. 

Thing is, in real life survival the colonists wouldn't be such pricks and have mental breaks about broken toenails and rooms not being to their liking. I don't think the game is unbalanced, it's just unrealistic for a survival game .

[Scalare]

I just use the "plan ahead" mod, so I can custom-build my colonists. I like to make little roleplay setups for them, like a group of angry teenagers trying to colonize a planet all on their own, a "planned colony" with three families and a few single people, complete with animals, tons of supplies, etc, and then "accidentally" drop them into a biome they didn't plan for (ice sheet was a challenge), or a colony full of replicants who wanted to start a new life away from humans, so they're much hardier and have a more even assortment of skills, etc.

I don't like such a mod. I usually do the rimworld equivalent of 'i'm feeling lucky' since I played dwarf fortress before and there it's perfectly possible to have a fun game with entirely randomized characters and location. At rimworld this is not so much the case, which is sad.

[Ambigore]

Turrets are OP. AFAIK, they're not considered when the AI creates a raid. I've got over 30 plasteel turrets and when pirates raid me, they usually send about 10 people, albeit some will be armed with rocket launchers. I've never lost a colonist to a raid. I just hide them in a room and let the turrets deal with them. Even mechs or 30-warg manhunter packs don't scare me. The most damage I received was two destroyed turrets.

[CannibarRechter]

> I've never lost a colonist to a raid

What do you do about the orbital drop raids when they land in the middle of your base?

[Ambigore]

> I've never lost a colonist to a raid

What do you do about the orbital drop raids when they land in the middle of your base?

Ya know, I've been playing this game for 300 hours, and I've never yet to experience a drop pod raid. :p

Just a few hours ago though, I lost two colonists when a solar flare hit just as a 40-man tribal raid occurred. We held them off in the end, but most of my injuries stemmed from friendly fire!

[cultist]

The whole point of the game is that it is stacked against you....

I feel like this comment sort of drowned in the complaints about specifics, so I think it's worth highlighting. If you actually read through the full description of the game on Steam or the official page, you will realize that Rimworld is intended first and foremost to be a story generator, where the story is created through the interaction between the AI and the player.
Whether or not you launch the spaceship and win the game is irrelevant. This is evidenced by two things:

1) the spaceship is a relatively recent addition. Before that, there was no ending.

2) the game never actually ends. When you launch the spaceship, the game will continue even if there are no pawns left on the map. Eventually, a wanderer will join.

Rimworld is a story generator, and it will continue to generate stories even if there is no player to interact with. It does not fit comfortably into any of the video game genres because while it has the framework of a traditional game, it's not about winning or losing but simply experiencing it. It sits a weird crossroad between a strategy game, the Sims and the sort of games that are usually refered to as "walking simulators" - narratives surrounded by a video game shell, but uncaring about the player's performance and interaction.

The unique selling point of Rimworld is that the story is not "canned". I was sceptical at first about the game's promise of emergent narrative (emergent is one of those developer buzzwords that makes my skin crawl) but I was quickly convinced. Rimworld provides just the right amount of the right kind of information about pawns that allows me to imagine them as human beings and share their ups and downs as if I was actually there. No other game I have played has done anything like that.

[CrazyCoco]

My biggest complaint is the trading system.  I frequently find myself sitting on giant stockpiles of silver and rice waiting for traders to show up with something I want to buy -- steel especially.  And since colony wealth is a major determinant in hazard strength, it gets annoying that the wealth I am accumulating is *worse* than useless -- does nothing for me but increases the danger I face.

As of A15, you can call friendly factions via comms console and request either a Bulk Goods, Pirate, Exotic Goods, or Combat Supply caravan to come by in a few days. It does cost from 300-600 silver though.

[Shurp]

Ahhh, I forgot about that.  But the likelihood of a bulk goods cravan bringing 1000 steel is pretty slim.  1000 plasteel is even less likely.  It seems like bulk traders are the only way of disposing of serious silver surpluses.

I guess it would help to turn rice into silver so my freezer isn't so full.

[Shurp]

So I gave it a whirl.  I called a bulk goods trader from a neighboring town.  The caravan arrived.  It's carrying a whole 107 units of steel.  Whoo hoo! :-P

This is ridiculous, I'm devmoding an orbital.

[KnockTwice]

a Zzzt (a totally random event that is actually made worse by planning ahead with battery power) in my freezer, which exploded into a 2700 degree F firestorm

Yeah, putting that much battery power into a single power grid is a bad idea.  Nowadays I will only connect two batteries at a time to any grid segment and separate them with switches so that I don't get such problems.

I had a Zzzt in a conduit next to a sleeping colonist.  Ouch.  Good thing it was only two batteries.

[delheit]

a Zzzt (a totally random event that is actually made worse by planning ahead with battery power) in my freezer, which exploded into a 2700 degree F firestorm

Yeah, putting that much battery power into a single power grid is a bad idea.  Nowadays I will only connect two batteries at a time to any grid segment and separate them with switches so that I don't get such problems.

I had a Zzzt in a conduit next to a sleeping colonist.  Ouch.  Good thing it was only two batteries.

So do you have the batteries each connected to their own generators? Or can you connect all the generators to all the batteries and then on the power going from the batteries to everything else have them all separate?

Sorry I don't know exactly how this works but it sounds like it has something to do with the amount of power going through.

[OFWG]

So do you have the batteries each connected to their own generators? Or can you connect all the generators to all the batteries and then on the power going from the batteries to everything else have them all separate?

Sorry I don't know exactly how this works but it sounds like it has something to do with the amount of power going through.

Yeah, he's saying to split the batteries into 2 battery groups, and use a switch to turn all but one of the groups off at any given time. The switches connect all the batteries to the same line. It's a solid plan.

[DariusWolfe]

I use the below setup:

Code Select Expand


######
#****#
####+#
####&#
&----&
######


• #: stone wall
• *: battery
• +: switch
• &: stone door
• -: electrical wiring

...and the Switch is turned off if I'm not charging the bank, or discharging from it during an outage. I know I should probably cover my electrical wiring with stone walls, but usually the closed corridor also acts as a quick access to my electrical farm. I don't recall problems with this setup.

[Britnoth]

If the game is too easy, increase the difficulty. Stop complaining that the game is too possible.

Difficulty level is irrelevant when you can launch the ship in under four days.