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

[delheit]

Personally I think there is a surprising amount that is unbalanced and/or needlessly frustrating. Some aspects of the game are really strong and work surprisingly well but others are not necessarily fun but difficult and are instead either fighting against the way the game works or being boned by something without warning. Honestly it's the first one, fighting against the game's frustrations, that bothers me more.

However ignoring specific event's or features lets look just plain at numbers. Most colonists get more upset about things like dirt on the floor or working in area with rock chunks then they do about their friends dying. Or for example, My sleep was interrupted twice do to medical emergencies and patient care and I am the doctor also that cute girl who is married keeps turning me down so I think I will go on a murderous rampage and or go outside in zero degree weather and strip naked. But how was your day?

Oh me, well my wife died, she was friend and also a fellow colonist and I spent the whole day cutting rocks in the dark but honestly this chair is so luxuriously comfortable I just don't care.

I don't have the exact numbers in front of me come on we all know there are circumstances like this that just don't sit well in your mind.

I wish I could explain the other thing I meant about fighting against the game but I don't know how to put it into word's and I fully understand I will be told I am wrong about all of this. But you know things like trying to force the colonists to cook instead of eating the raw meat or butchering an animal just to have a pet on the other side of the map who can't see you immediately claim the pile of meat you must set on the floor before cooking.

[CrazyCoco]

I went with the "No, not really" option, though I don't really mod it for balance. It's still entertaining, but a lot of that is because of how hilariously bad and unbalanced some things are. Were the game advertised as being feature-complete and a lot of the balance issues were still there, I'd probably find the game a lot more frustrating than I do; Knowing that Tynan is focused on adding features and fixing game-breaking bugs moreso than fine-tuning the balance allows me to be a lot more philosophical about the frustrating aspects.

What sorts of things do you find unbalanced?

[Shurp]

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.

[mumblemumble]

Grass seems to always vanish from the center of the map over time, as its never replenished fast enough....

[Serenity]

Grass seems to always vanish from the center of the map over time, as its never replenished fast enough....

Unless it's invading your farm. Currently playing jungle and weeds constantly grow over my fields. I think building a wall around them might have helped

[Britnoth]

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. 

[DariusWolfe]

What sorts of things do you find unbalanced?

Off the cuff, raid scaling, mental buffs/debuffs, and diseases (though I haven't played much A15 yet, so maybe that's better)

[gadjung]

playing longer time, imo past few releases are pretty much well balanced (as long You don't play Randy)

If i did not fckup early game i have to start again because game get's too boring and i'm able to take care of any situation since i have stuff well managed (it doesn't mean it's easy - i'm just prepared to fend of stuff with low chance of starting spiral downto doom of my colony)

Sure that some stuff would be better expanded (i.e CombatRealism combat system, storages, crafting in general) but it's ok and balanced the way it is.

Game is pretty complex and i like treating balance as a resemblance to real life so :
raid scaling has pretty much complex formula but basicly the more stuff You have the heavier raids You would have - ergo You sit on crapload of steel, plasteel, food, equipment, superior furniture, etc etc You get hell of a raids - kind of logical

diseases - let's say it's balanced as long as You treat pawns as rl - but i think that plauge might take a little more than 2 weeks for full recovery (running in full armor, sniper rifle and hunting elephants)

mental buffs/debuffs - hard to balance that (if You want to be as rl as possible) - still if You play right keeping mental heath of colonist on avg 40-60% is pretty easy (even without drugs)

There is only one path to win - manage colony according to circumstances. And even that might not always work. One time it might be 20 guys with sniper rifles killing all that's coming, other time might be farm of 2  pacifists with 80 huskies, grinding every raid thats coming...

[OFWG]

(snipped 'git gud' comment)

You're kind of making my point, there's always a group of masochists who think the game is easy because they've been obsessing over it since inception. See the Dwarf Fortress forums

In any case, that's not the same thing as balance.

[CannibarRechter]

> I just use the "plan ahead" mod, so I can custom-build my colonists.

"Prepare Carefully" is the mod you use. One who uses Prepare Carefully cannot observe the game as being balanced in any way. This mod is a trainer. I use it and many other mods, but as such this makes me personally unqualified to comment on the games balance at all, I'd say.

[submarine]

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

[Wintersdark]

> I just use the "plan ahead" mod, so I can custom-build my colonists.

"Prepare Carefully" is the mod you use. One who uses Prepare Carefully cannot observe the game as being balanced in any way. This mod is a trainer. I use it and many other mods, but as such this makes me personally unqualified to comment on the games balance at all, I'd say.

That depends heavily on what you use Prepare Carefully for. 

After all, you can get really awesome colonists just hitting that random button like it owes you money, or really terrible ones.  Unless you're using PC to make grossly OP colonists, then, it's functionally identical to just rerolling till you get what you want.

[Britnoth]

(snipped 'git gud' comment)

You're kind of making my point, there's always a group of masochists who think the game is easy because they've been obsessing over it since inception. See the Dwarf Fortress forums

In any case, that's not the same thing as balance.

If the game is too hard, lower the difficulty. Stop complaining that the game is impossible (when it isn't) and ignoring the fact others want the game to be more challenging, not less.

AFAIK, Dwarf Fortress did not have a difficulty level system. Or a UI. Or antidepressants to take after trying to cope with said lack of UI.

~~~~

Some elements in Rimworld are pretty balanced: Harvestable crops all have their niche uses at different times. Melee and ranged weapons less so, but are still not 'unbalanced' in that there is no one obvious super weapon that rules all. Sniper rifles are perhaps the closest, but are not the best in every situation.

Then at the other end of the scale, we have land traders and drugs, which are so broken right now they let you ignore half the game. Make things to sell? Nah just pay for traders to arrive and murder them. Need food? Murder traders. Need components? Murder traders. Bionics? drugs? plasteel? AI core? Art? Murder traders.

What about working faster? Drugs. Run faster? Drugs. Dying of infection? Drugs. Doctor cant install bionics? Drugs. Poor mood? Drugs. Lack a careful shot to fight that siege? Drugs drugs drugs.

Did I mention drugs?

[CannibarRechter]

>  Unless you're using PC to make grossly OP colonists, then, it's functionally identical to just rerolling till you get what you want.

No. With rerolling, you have to make a choice between your personal time investment, or accepting colonists as-is. With Prepare Carefully, the personal time loss choice is not present. Anyway, don't get me wrong. I use PC.

[ruddthree]

A15 is balanced, yes, but I believe that things like the medical/injury system or the "food-finding mechanic" could use some polishing.