I Call Bullsh*t

[Vlad0mi3r]

Why is all this thread not in A18 Unstable? Where's Callahan?

The new Zzztt is too lame, like said earlier, the old one was more fun as we had to re-connect the power lines. Now it was reduced to no threat at all.

This is part of my point Yoshida. Now Its no major threat but you also can't do anything about it.

Shhh with the Callahan bit. Callahan is everywhere and knows all.

[Boboid]

I.. really can't agree with you on this one Vlad.

For starters I think you're misusing the word "Agency". Your personal definition in this context seems to be "The ability to completely prevent this from happening" which.. is not really what agency is.

There are a wide variety of ways you can impact how Zzzzt events effect you, all of which are active decisions you can make and that will always have an impact on the situation.

The ability to PREVENT something from happening is not the same as the ability to React To, or Modify the results of something.

You can no longer prevent Zzzzt events, but you can still reduce them to their pre-change levels of harmlessness due to the OVERWHELMING amount of agency the nature of the event provides.


---


Additionally I think it's worth pointing out at this stage that Zzzzt events were already essentially harmless even if you did nothing more than build out of stone and not place conduits all over your valuable flammables. And perhaps limit your battery usage to sane levels.

Frankly the largest change to the entire event is that it no longer immediately gibs a conduit forcing you to replace it. Whoopy freaking do.

If someone is genuinely willing to argue that the experience of playing "Where's my broken conduit" after a power fault was what drove their enjoyment of Rimworld then feel free, but I'd be amazed if anyone would beyond simply wanting to be a contrarian.

[TheMeInTeam]

Why is all this thread not in A18 Unstable? Where's Callahan?

The new Zzztt is too lame, like said earlier, the old one was more fun as we had to re-connect the power lines. Now it was reduced to no threat at all.

...and the Tornado version 3.0 is tremendously lame...




What are people going to do now? A killbox for Tornados? Torna-box?

Making it bounce back on stone walls made it so weak that if you are in Large Hills, just making a wall to connect two hills could simply bounce it back to the map borders...all this because of the "Agency" bullshit...

If people didn't like the Tornado version 1.0... you should have just rolled back to Base Builder difficulty (with Tornado version 3.0) and let the fun for everybody else.

You seem to be confusing RNG with difficulty.  Tornadoes are not a good mechanic in any of their iterations to date, the 3.0 is less annoying but it carries the same problem as always; a noise factor in a game where your preparation is supposed to matter.

Compare the current conduit event (or even the old one, which was pretty similar in threat overall but a bit more annoying).  While you can't block it if you make any conduits (which actually not a necessity), you can trivialize its impact with planning how you use conduits.  This is the same idea that raids, heat waves, mad animals, and big mood hits from killing family member raiders has.  In each of these cases, you have something unavoidable to the player, but things the player can do to limit or completely mitigate the damage if planned + executed skillfully enough.

The overwhelming majority of the game's mechanics fit that design.  Tornadoes can be made to fit that design too while still be threatening, but from a design perspective it's harder to do (this is why I was against it when it was suggested).  Cargo pods killing people is junk.

I do not respect calling out people's skill/difficulty tolerance because they want their outcomes to reflect choices and execution.  That's callous and ducking the point of people arguing in favor of agency.

[Crow_T]

The simple answer is if you don't like an event, or think it is unfair, disable it. Personally I disable single animal insanity because I find it to be annoying- but I don't advocate removing it from the game because some people may find it to be interesting. Hopefully Tynan and Co lean on the side of being challenging and inflicting some pain, but this is tricky to balance obviously. If the Zzzt is now basically ineffective what's the point, and although I have yet to deal with a tornado having them bounce off stone walls seems way too nerfed, better to go over them, damage them a bit, pull roofs off, etc. Perhaps a bit of angular deflection but not 100%.

[Yoshida Keiji]

You seem to be confusing RNG with difficulty.  Tornadoes are not a good mechanic in any of their iterations to date, the 3.0 is less annoying but it carries the same problem as always; a noise factor in a game where your preparation is supposed to matter.

Compare the current conduit event (or even the old one, which was pretty similar in threat overall but a bit more annoying).  While you can't block it if you make any conduits (which actually not a necessity), you can trivialize its impact with planning how you use conduits.  This is the same idea that raids, heat waves, mad animals, and big mood hits from killing family member raiders has.  In each of these cases, you have something unavoidable to the player, but things the player can do to limit or completely mitigate the damage if planned + executed skillfully enough.

The overwhelming majority of the game's mechanics fit that design.  Tornadoes can be made to fit that design too while still be threatening, but from a design perspective it's harder to do (this is why I was against it when it was suggested).  Cargo pods killing people is junk.

I do not respect calling out people's skill/difficulty tolerance because they want their outcomes to reflect choices and execution.  That's callous and ducking the point of people arguing in favor of agency.

Now you have made it clear what your problem is: You are "grading" all threats with a same scale. For you, short-circuit is as much of a catastrophic as a Tornado. Same for comparing Raids with Heatwaves.

Low level threat: Short circuit.
Mid level threat: Raids.
High level threats: Heatwave and Tornado.

You can't put all of them in a same box. Same with real life, if a heatwave or tornado is threatening a city, you will surely see that on the TV news. In some degree, bank robberies, government corruption too, but these...will not issue a citywide evacuation or national broadcast in preparation for an armageddon. Now... a short circuit will certainly not go to public mass media. Maybe you can tell your friends about it...but that's as much as it will go.

A TORNADO!!!!! comes...and while you can hide in your home bunker...you should be able to presume the rest of your house will blow off to the sky... Regardless of all preparations...

https://youtu.be/8NLamOmRQpg

In base builder level, bigger threats are blocked like toxic fallout, flash storm and volcanic winter, I would guess tornado fills in that list to.


With A18 0.10.1712... we are making Tynan go nuts by creating new threats that at the end will not threat... To the point that making the new events like tornado have no significance in the game if it's just going to be another "manhunting turtle". I ain't a game developer myself but I would certainly find it very frustrating if a new creation gets diminished to insignificance.

New threat! No, no, no and no....NERF IIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!

[TheMeInTeam]

The simple answer is if you don't like an event, or think it is unfair, disable it. Personally I disable single animal insanity because I find it to be annoying- but I don't advocate removing it from the game because some people may find it to be interesting. Hopefully Tynan and Co lean on the side of being challenging and inflicting some pain, but this is tricky to balance obviously. If the Zzzt is now basically ineffective what's the point, and although I have yet to deal with a tornado having them bounce off stone walls seems way too nerfed, better to go over them, damage them a bit, pull roofs off, etc. Perhaps a bit of angular deflection but not 100%.

Events that lack agency can be made into events that have agency, and then they have gameplay value.  People can still turn them off regardless.

I gave a proposal for tornadoes in the A18 thread (rooms larger than x size get roofs stripped, stone walls do better, tornadoes blocked from spawning immediately on top of entities).  With that kind of implementation you could leave their destructive nature intact while still giving players a means to prepare against them with some basis in reality.  Since building tornado-safe stockpiles under such a scenario is costly, you'd have to choose what you're willing to risk.

I do find it amusing that players are complaining about tornadoes "bouncing off" small/large hills though.  It *IS* a tornado.  You don't get them with any real frequency in mountainous or even hilly terrain IRL for a reason.  If we're going to accept that a tornado even exists in large hills, them behaving slightly more like actual tornadoes being a strike against them is odd.

For any mechanic, the question is "what does the player do to plan for this event?" + "what can the player do in reaction to this event occurring"?  Valid mechanics have answers to these questions, and to this game's credit most of its stuff manages just fine, including conduit zzzt.  That's what agency means.

Making tornadoes stronger or weaker does not make them better.  Making them threaten you unless you've set up a contingency for them (and you can still lose a little, but avoid crucial) is what can make them a mechanic rather than arbitrary resource reduction or a complete non-issue.

A TORNADO!!!!! comes...and while you can hide in your home bunker...you should be able to presume the rest of your house will blow off to the sky... Regardless of all preparations...

It is disingenuous to link real life examples as basis for game inclusion while ignoring the inconvenient parts of real life.  If you wanted to argue for realism wrt tornadoes, the event should be completely impossible in a large number of terrains and biomes, and extremely weak in most others.  IRL, there are only a couple places in the world that can even generate F5 tornadoes, and sorry but F0-F2 is not putting down a stone structure.  If there were no debris, you could face tank F0 and F1 tornadoes without any shelter at all.

Let's not be selective with reality.

Heat waves and tornadoes are very different in this game.  Remember that part about agency?  Heat waves have agency.  Back when they didn't for tribal starts, the game was broken.  Tynan fixed it by adding the passive cooler.

The fact that you group these two events without acknowledging the glaring difference in agency between the two is perplexing.  You've yet to even address the agency argument.

[CannibarRechter]

> If there were no debris, you could face tank F0 and F1 tornadoes without any shelter at all.

I feel like this should be a thing. "Let's get together, go outside, and face tank an F1 tornado, it'll be a BLAST." ;-P

[Yoshida Keiji]

The fact that you group these two events without acknowledging the glaring difference in agency between the two is perplexing.  You've yet to even address the agency argument.

Like I replied to you in the A18 unstable thread, natural disasters don't need to have agency as must. Volcano eruptions, Tsunamis, Earthquakes...will never have the perfect 100% defense. In Japan we have shelters in mountainous zones, but even then, getting to the shelters may not always be possible...some people will just die anyways. We also have tsunami walls...that...still didn't help the city of Fukushima. Earthquakes are constant, much like typhoons in spring/summer...but still... there will be casualties....  AND, a lot of destruction.

You don't like a tornado appearing on top of a colonist...well tell that to the hikers on mount Ontake...it blew off ...ON THEM...nothing they could do... Fukushima citizens...drawned... all sea water over them...sure some tried to swim... I saw the raw pictures before media censorship so I have a good notion about these matters.

[Limdood]

agency does not mean a 100% perfect defense...you're strawmanning the argument.

agency means:
1) a way to prepare for an event to mitigate or negate the dangers (ie. defenses for raid prep, food stores for blight, etc.)
2) actions that can be taken DURING an event to mitigate or negate the dangers (sending colonists out to intercept a raid that will otherwise kill one of your pawns far from home when it spawned, or packing up and leaving when the mother of all infestations hits your map)


to that end, please note that:
1) having agency doesn't always mean you get to use it.  sappers can render defenses less useful.  You may just NOT have prepared adequately for a given situation and get wiped out...it happens.  The difference is that in cases of well-designed events that have agency, there is something you COULD HAVE done, AND that action should make sense and be apparent, even if the cost vs. payout is normally low.
2) SOMETIMES agency allows a player to negate a threat.  Extreme killboxes do that for some raids, a good powergrid and heating/cooling does that for temperature-based threats, and base settlement choices do that for environmental-based threats (infestations avoidable by never digging into mountain).  Sometimes agency only allows you to reduce an event's impact.  Blights will still affect your food/drug production.  Disease will still hit you on an ice sheet.  Zzzt will still hiccup the power in a carefully planned base unless they completely forego batteries (which has it's own drawbacks)

A tornado appearing, and cutting a swath straight through the base, destroying everything no matter what the player does lacks agency.  Being able to completely deflect a tornado with a 1-thick sandstone wall for the most part ALSO lacks agency, since it negates a threat WITHOUT special planning or action - most people will probably be using stone walls as soon as they can, and will GENERALLY put all their things indoors.  Being able to double wall a building and build some new type of resource-intensive roof to protect the contents of a building from a tornado gives the players some agency, an investment vs. payoff...it might be too much or too little agency, depending on the point of view, but it makes for more engaging gameplay than either unavoidable or completely risk AND cost free disasters

In other words, the old tornados that ripped thru everything no matter what lacked agency, but the new ones that are countered simply be building a base the way you always do with no other considerations ALSO lack agency.

[TheMeInTeam]

^ You do hear stories of drunken fools going out into ~100 mph hurricane winds to screw around in it.  They will live until debris hits them, and might live then if they're lucky.  Not the kind of dice I prefer rolling, but useful for context.  If it's literally just the tornado you're very likely to survive a direct hit from an F1 unsheltered.

This is in contrast to F5's, typically only found in US midwest and Bengali India.  Those don't need help from debris to kill you.  You ARE the debris in those (along with everything else).  Outside of these regions even F4s are rare (Florida gets a ton of tornadoes, but has only had two F4s recorded since they started being tracked).

In terms of what the game is modeling, it really depends because you have to make assumptions about Rimworld's climate, but tornado alley conditions aren't super common and without them IRL tornadoes are dangerous but manageable.

Like I replied to you in the A18 unstable thread, natural disasters don't need to have agency as must.

These are not IRL natural disasters though.  They're game events.  In reality, you don't know where enemies are located top down, guns can fire many times the distance they can in Rimworld, ammo is a thing, crops take more than 5 days to grow (they even take more than the scaled time to grow), toxic fallout has actual causality, and animals don't track down the source of gunfire at long range to run into it for "revenge". 

As a game event, it needs to function within the constraints of the game, not some pseudo-reality implementation that only cares about reality sometimes.  What's next, tsunamis 500 miles inland in large hills?  No, that would be silly, but that's what tornadoes are like in the game.

Making .0001% chance things happen once every other game because "it can happen in real life" is an awful basis to include anything in a game, and modeling extreme fluke incidents to randomly penalize the player does not add anything meaningful to gameplay.

In other words, the old tornados that ripped thru everything no matter what lacked agency, but the new ones that are countered simply be building a base the way you always do with no other considerations ALSO lack agency.

About sums up my stance also, though technically the new tornadoes have agency, they're just reduced to a trivial non-threat rather than something that requires special planning as compared to other events, the latter being the supposed point of including them.

[Vlad0mi3r]

I.. really can't agree with you on this one Vlad.

For starters I think you're misusing the word "Agency". Your personal definition in this context seems to be "The ability to completely prevent this from happening" which.. is not really what agency is.

There are a wide variety of ways you can impact how Zzzzt events effect you, all of which are active decisions you can make and that will always have an impact on the situation.

The ability to PREVENT something from happening is not the same as the ability to React To, or Modify the results of something.

You can no longer prevent Zzzzt events, but you can still reduce them to their pre-change levels of harmlessness due to the OVERWHELMING amount of agency the nature of the event provides.


---


Additionally I think it's worth pointing out at this stage that Zzzzt events were already essentially harmless even if you did nothing more than build out of stone and not place conduits all over your valuable flammables. And perhaps limit your battery usage to sane levels.

Frankly the largest change to the entire event is that it no longer immediately gibs a conduit forcing you to replace it. Whoopy freaking do.

If someone is genuinely willing to argue that the experience of playing "Where's my broken conduit" after a power fault was what drove their enjoyment of Rimworld then feel free, but I'd be amazed if anyone would beyond simply wanting to be a contrarian.

Well no, I am not saying that you should be able to completely deal with it. The old Zzzt you could work around at a huge cost in steal and components. So there was a balance so to speak, you want to avoid/minimise pay for it ((Agency) never using that word in the forum again). There was also the requirement for a battery to be connected to a conduit. Battery+Conduit expect Zzzt event now conduit connected to power source expect Zzzt event. I posted the thread because It feels like we are on a slippery slope from when I started playing in A16.

I understand why people like the change I get it. I however am not being "contrary" I genuinely liked the old Zzzt. It limited battery size, provided a valid use for switches (backup batteries) and it was a pain in the arse. It generated thought of how do I work around this. What solutions can I use to minimise or avoid it. Hell even cheesey ones like building battery conduit connections away from your base to reduce the RNG hitting the important ones. That is what I was trying to get at with what I was saying.

Now why bother working it out you cannot avoid it, so meh just build the bloody conduit and sit back and wait. Part of the suggested solution I keep on seeing is fire proof your base. Really, fire proof your base you say ?!? Who doesn't fire proof their base it is a redundant argument for a fix for this. Like a Zzzt event is the only thing that could ever possibly start a fire, good grief.

Also stop talking about Tornados who cares they are new and the fact they have already been tweeked 3 times means I don't expect them to have been left as they will end up.

[Limdood]

Also stop talking about Tornados who cares they are new and the fact they have already been tweeked 3 times means I don't expect them to have been left as they will end up.

You do realize they're getting tweaked BECAUSE people are talking about them right?  The only way they will hit a level that more or less works is from feedback. 

Perhaps you meant "I appreciate that this attention is being paid to tornados, and it will likely help them to get to where they need to be, but I think that X aspect of Y new feature should also be addressed.  Here are my reasons, observations, and evidence:"

[Boboid]

Well no, I am not saying that you should be able to completely deal with it. The old Zzzt you could work around at a huge cost in steal and components.

Right away there's already a stumbling block with this line of logic. That huge cost in steel and components was just that - A huge cost that far out-weighed the benefits. It was already cheaper in manpower, resources, and raid size to circumnavigate Zzzt events by simple base design ( Insulated conduit corridors ) rather than by excessive power generation. And it wasn't worth doing even then.

That, is the SOLE solution that has been removed from Zzzt events. The only way you could mitigate Zzzt events in A17 that you can't in A18 ( by having them not happen at all in this case ) was to not use batteries.

I posted the thread because It feels like we are on a slippery slope from when I started playing in A16.

Trying to think of a kind way to say this...slippery slopes are typically considered a logical fallacy because it's very hard (read:almost impossible) to prove that they will have the doomsday-style consequences people use to justify their concern.

It limited battery size,

Explosion size is still determined by excess power.

provided a valid use for switches (backup batteries)

These are still just as useful.
In fact to save some time - That same cheesy strategy works and the ONLY difference in the intensity (danger/threat) of the event is ONE broken conduit.

Now why bother working it out you cannot avoid it, so meh just build the bloody conduit and sit back and wait.

You're arguing that because something is inevitable that it's not worth reacting to or mitigating. I'd like to remind you that the previous Zzzt event was just as harmless as it is now.

By that logic you shouldn't bother to clean your clothes, they're just going to get dirty again.
Or don't bother drying yourself after a shower, you're just going to get rained on.
Don't bother steering your car, car crashes are inevitable.

Part of the suggested solution I keep on seeing is fire proof your base. Really, fire proof your base you say ?!? Who doesn't fire proof their base it is a redundant argument for a fix for this. Like a Zzzt event is the only thing that could ever possibly start a fire, good grief.

The reason people keep pointing this out is because the ENTIRE event is trivial and your notion that this is a slippery slope feels unfounded to them. They point out that that you can circumnavigate your stated unwanted consequences of this event through simple logical thought because they think you might need that advice.

[Nameless]

Why do people complain about ZZZt now when it used to be more annoying? I don't get this.

[Vlad0mi3r]

Right away there's already a stumbling block with this line of logic. That huge cost in steel and components was just that - A huge cost that far out-weighed the benefits. It was already cheaper in manpower, resources, and raid size to circumnavigate Zzzt events by simple base design ( Insulated conduit corridors ) rather than by excessive power generation. And it wasn't worth doing even then.

That, is the SOLE solution that has been removed from Zzzt events. The only way you could mitigate Zzzt events in A17 that you can't in A18 ( by having them not happen at all in this case ) was to not use batteries.

Sorry thats just incorrect. My point is agreeing with the solution being expensive and that I am ok with that. stop reading everything with a negative voice. which you are doing because of your point by point rebuttal. "it wasn't worth doing even then" thats your view and I understand and appreciate that point of view, I just don't share it.

Your "SOLE" (please don't shout at me I don't like it) solution required batteries and conduits. I still use batteries they are now even more important and actually a critical part of now avoiding Zzzzt (yes you can still avoid it). My issue is it takes away from geothermal which for me was viewed as my safe source of power.

Trying to think of a kind way to say this...slippery slopes are typically considered a logical fallacy because it's very hard (read:almost impossible) to prove that they will have the doomsday-style consequences people use to justify their concern.

Its a figure of speech it. Just my observation and opinion you yet again don't need to share my view.

It limited battery size,

Explosion size is still determined by excess power.

Yes I am aware of that. I know you have been around longer than myself here but you are being very condescending. I don't think my point is invalid.

provided a valid use for switches (backup batteries)

These are still just as useful.
In fact to save some time - That same cheesy strategy works and the ONLY difference in the intensity (danger/threat) of the event is ONE broken conduit.

Did I say the only use, no I didn't

Now why bother working it out you cannot avoid it, so meh just build the bloody conduit and sit back and wait.

You're arguing that because something is inevitable that it's not worth reacting to or mitigating. I'd like to remind you that the previous Zzzt event was just as harmless as it is now.

By that logic you shouldn't bother to clean your clothes, they're just going to get dirty again.
Or don't bother drying yourself after a shower, you're just going to get rained on.
Don't bother steering your car, car crashes are inevitable.

Almost at peek condescension but not quite. Just as harmless as it is now then why change it? The rest of the drivel you spouted does not deserve response and is prime troll material.

Part of the suggested solution I keep on seeing is fire proof your base. Really, fire proof your base you say ?!? Who doesn't fire proof their base it is a redundant argument for a fix for this. Like a Zzzt event is the only thing that could ever possibly start a fire, good grief.

The reason people keep pointing this out is because the ENTIRE event is trivial and your notion that this is a slippery slope feels unfounded to them. They point out that that you can circumnavigate your stated unwanted consequences of this event through simple logical thought because they think you might need that advice.
[/quote]

And we peek at maximum condescension and troll with shouting. Thank you you have reminded me of those wonderful years spent in high school. I don't think its trivial I said what i said because it has changed my game play and it has taken away an option. I know I have only spent 800hrs playing the game but that is 800 hrs that I suppose I will remember more fondly than now.

Now seeing as the attacks have become personal I withdraw from this conversation.