[Feedback] Phoebe is boring, Cassandra frustrating

[Stormfox]

My recent plays reinforce the feelings I had about a year ago when I last played a lot:

Phoebe as a storyteller is too boring, sometimes nothing happens for many weeks at a time. If she is intended to be anything more than a tutorial storyteller (or a fallback one if you decide you need a break from cassandra, see below), she should be a tad more active.

Perhaps her event severity could be reduced slightly, but her frequency buffed?


Cassandra has the opposite problem: She is simply too frantic. By the time a raid is over, your wounded halfway healed and the loot gathered, the next raid is already there. Shipwrecks tend to get put off for weeks because you never have time for them. Actually building up your base is almost impossible because you rarely have more than a day of peace. It is simply unfun.

Cassandra's difficulty is fine, but the frequency of major bad events, especially combat ones, really should be toned down a bit. This is not a perception issue or something that only happened in one game - its a consistent problem with her over a dozen games or so. I suggest doing the exact opposite of what I prescribed for Phoebe - reduce her frequency, and slightly buff her severity on higher difficulties.

[JuicyPVP]

Randy Random??? FTW??? lol

[Wanderer_joins]

Frequency is not the only factor, if your ass gets kicked, it is factored in to determine the scale of the next raid.

[xrumblingcdsx]

Randy is the best. I love when I get a raid and a warg pack at the same time or a raid and siege at the same time. He makes games EPIC.

[Sola]

You can change storytellers at will in-game.

To paraphrase a review of Dwarf Fortress from ten years ago, "Losing is fun".  Playing the same game forever is boring.  We're not here to play Farmville.  We're here to do the best we can, die to mechanoids, plague, fire, carcinomas, or our own stupidity.  Then, we start over and do it again.  That's how you take advantage of a game's replay value.

First time I won, I quit this game for like two months, because it felt so boring.  I came home, progressed closer to the ship, went to bed, repeat.  After I finished, it felt really unfulfilling, and I simply didn't really want to start over.  However, on the sea ice challenge, I die, think "Yep.  Let's not do that again.", and promptly start another game, hoping to fix whatever went wrong.

[NeverPire]

Cassandra's difficulty is fine, but the frequency of major bad events, especially combat ones, really should be toned down a bit. This is not a perception issue or something that only happened in one game - its a consistent problem with her over a dozen games or so. I suggest doing the exact opposite of what I prescribed for Phoebe - reduce her frequency, and slightly buff her severity on higher difficulties.

If i understand well, the problem is neither the frequency nor the raids but the lack of different events. At the moment, we must undergo a lot of combat events only because there aren't enough alternatives. In the future, with the addition of new events, in my opinion, this specific problem will solve itself.

[Catastrophy]

Strange, I find I'm having Cassandra send raids in ever increasing intervals. I feel she actually doesn't send enough.

[PiggyBacon]

I never get the seeming never ending raids. I get raids far from each other but goddamit when they do come....I think I've seen tribal raids over 100+ at times. Diseases are the worst 25+ people getting the plague at once or sleeping sickness for everyone. Never tried phobia since I like the increasing challenge.

[Stormfox]

Interestingly enough, a year later with a developed, well defended colony, the raids have come down to a level that would have been actually manageable back then. Still, there seems to be a problem there, since I have experienced that neverending staccato of raids in multiple games now, and it is extremely crippling in the first months.

[taha]

I always play on ice. Before A16 was Ice Sheet, now is Sea Ice. Last night I started Sea Ice Community Challenge about 15th time (that means 14 ships launched, not 14 failures ), because, honestly, once you play in harsh conditions and win, the rest of the biomes are simply boring. (Way too many resources to play with)

Sea Ice Community Challenge have Cassandra as storyteller, on extreme (also with permadeath). There are a lot of raids and other bad events. But you want the raids, because they mean food, clothes, weapons, etc. And as you can imagine, you never have enough raids for your needs.

My point is, try that challenge, or make one of your own. Play the game like a survivor, not like a base builder, and in the end you will find Cassandra as boring as Phoebe.

[NeverPire]

I always play on ice. Before A16 was Ice Sheet, now is Sea Ice. Last night I started Sea Ice Community Challenge about 15th time (that means 14 ships launched, not 14 failures ), because, honestly, once you play in harsh conditions and win, the rest of the biomes are simply boring. (Way too many resources to play with)

Sea Ice Community Challenge have Cassandra as storyteller, on extreme (also with permadeath). There are a lot of raids and other bad events. But you want the raids, because they mean food, clothes, weapons, etc. And as you can imagine, you never have enough raids for your needs.

My point is, try that challenge, or make one of your own. Play the game like a survivor, not like a base builder, and in the end you will find Cassandra as boring as Phoebe.

I have already done a whole game in Ice sheet flat with Cassandra and when you have only 10 colonists and no turrets, no traps due to the lack of ressources, it stays hard.
Of course, a warg manhunter pack means food but 45 wargs with 10 pawns is not so boring.

[Elixiar]

I always play on ice. Before A16 was Ice Sheet, now is Sea Ice. Last night I started Sea Ice Community Challenge about 15th time (that means 14 ships launched, not 14 failures ), because, honestly, once you play in harsh conditions and win, the rest of the biomes are simply boring. (Way too many resources to play with)

Sea Ice Community Challenge have Cassandra as storyteller, on extreme (also with permadeath). There are a lot of raids and other bad events. But you want the raids, because they mean food, clothes, weapons, etc. And as you can imagine, you never have enough raids for your needs.

My point is, try that challenge, or make one of your own. Play the game like a survivor, not like a base builder, and in the end you will find Cassandra as boring as Phoebe.

Use the crash landing mod hard start + ice sheet.

= super challenge.

[taha]

@Elixiar: Nah, right now I try tribal on Sea Ice with only one tribal (no pets, 450 wood, 450 steel, bow, 50 pemmican) @>-100 C. It's... interesting to say the least. When I'll beat that, I'll try with a brawler armed with shiv. (I think with Crash Landed would be easier, because the fires would help with the hypothermia)

I'm yet to discover a challenge that gives you troubles mid-end game. So far no luck. Even in Sea Ice challenge, the moment you have 2 half-decent colonists, 1 parka and 2 rifles, it becomes too easy.

@NeverPire. No. I meant Sea Ice, not Ice Sheet; see the forum post about that challenge.

[Goo Poni]

I don't quite buy the Dwarf Fortress mentality of losing is fun. I do in Dark Souls, or in Super Meat Boy, but the downtime is momentary and the progress often readily recovered. But not so in Rimworld. Replacing colonists is slow. Never mind the weeks-long downturn in mood, finding a suitably capable replacement can take a great amount of time and its not like the raids slow down or lessen. The raiders have an infinite number of bodies to throw at me, the tribes should be extinct within a few terran months (couple rimyears) with the volume of people thrown at me. I enjoy starting from nothing and working up to a small prosperous self sustaining colony. That doesn't happen without extensive modding though. HCSK scratches that itch partially but suffers from bloating the colony wealth massively that without actively researching all the time, you're going to get rolled by the arbitrary bullshit it adds in. And some of that bull is just so much bull that you might as well call it game or reload when you see the message appear.

[Catastrophy]

I don't quite buy the Dwarf Fortress mentality of losing is fun. I do in Dark Souls, or in Super Meat Boy, but the downtime is momentary and the progress often readily recovered. But not so in Rimworld. Replacing colonists is slow. Never mind the weeks-long downturn in mood, finding a suitably capable replacement can take a great amount of time and its not like the raids slow down or lessen. The raiders have an infinite number of bodies to throw at me, the tribes should be extinct within a few terran months (couple rimyears) with the volume of people thrown at me. I enjoy starting from nothing and working up to a small prosperous self sustaining colony. That doesn't happen without extensive modding though. HCSK scratches that itch partially but suffers from bloating the colony wealth massively that without actively researching all the time, you're going to get rolled by the arbitrary bullshit it adds in. And some of that bull is just so much bull that you might as well call it game or reload when you see the message appear.

"Losing is fun" is mostly accepting strange bugs, unexpected beahviour and ridiculous and hilarious events as entertainment. I rather don't buy the current "ironman is fun" gaming meta. THAT is force feeding potential bullshit to the gameplay and I'm glad it's just an option in this game.