Unstable build feedback thread

[ashaffee]

Found a really horrible and weird chain reaction for mental breaks. My character had a minor break for dazed. Lasted almost the entire day and when it was over they were low on sleep, joy and food (minor starvation). As they came out of dazed because of these things they were at extreme break risk and went catatonic for like a week + before they could get to their meal.

[giltirn]

-The removal of boar capability to haul.  I understand that boar swarms were very OP, but the solution would seem simple: remove the ability to follow a master, and the ability to release in an attack.  Their real utility was their ability to haul, without having to ramp up Kibble production for Dogs, which can easily strangle an early game's food supply (in both meat and Hay production).  Pigs don't work in this role either, IMO: they can't be found and tamed in the wild, and they'll die on colder maps. 

Really, no more boar hauling? That's terrible. Boars are the only animals I ever kept because they could be obtained and fed reliably and they could do useful work. Dogs are a poor substitute because of the meat requirement and their propensity to snack on all the drugs. Please reconsider this Tynan!

[Azrael_Itaru]

Or if we are going to get nerfs on animal's intelligence then can animals PLEASE be recoded to not consume drugs? I've never used drugs in Rimworld because I hate losing animals to them.

[Madman666]

I am inclined to agree. However hilarious it is to see huskies with cirrhosis, i am kinda tired of having to replenish my booze supply because my dogs learned how to open bottles... Pretty please, master Tynan?

[Gfurst]

Here are some more notes I got, mind you from playing yesterday, so not the latest patch:

• have an auto roof option, like auto expand home area, just so they don't build roof automatically whenever you enclose a room
• right it seems that animals always get pregnant, despite the time investment its still too easy to breed livestock
• chemfuel generator doesn't seem to produce any heat, or is it just too little to notice?
• the cutting wood order seems to take on very early stage trees, below 50%, not sure if intentional, but maybe its better to target more mature trees?
• there still are some visual shadow glitches from roofed but not walled areas
• don't remember if already mentioned earlier, but watermills are pretty OP, being an obvious choice early on an unparalleled power source despite its wood requirements, maybe make water flow variable like wind turbines
• wow sunlamps are such tremendous power hogs now, even though they power off at night
• the same way sunlamps now auto shutdown, I would like to see workbenches being flicked automatically when used or not (there was a mod doing that some versions ago), maybe balance that by separating between passive/active power usage
• and likewise, the above for lamps, turning on only when someone is in the room, balance with passive/active as well, and maybe behind a tech. Its not just about the power usage, but having a more dynamic visual to the base, and justifying placing lamps on lesser visited places.
• taming seems alright, and its a nice way to keep your pawns training the skill, but they often seem to be using less optimal meal, like raw meats and good meals, instead of for example, kibble or hay where appropriate.
• dog doesn't seem to be able to move with a leg cut off? as far as I know, most 4 legged animals have no problem adapting to being 3 legged, even if slower, lower capacity.
• also had a problem with food poisoning, getting three colonists sick one after the other, but saw you nerfed this a bit, may I suggest having different degrees of food poisoning, and also hinting somewhere on the item if meal may or not be poisoned, instead of having the player blindly guessing what causes it.

[TheMeInTeam]

I've notice a few things break the early goings for naked brutality:

Food poisoning: right now this is overtuned.  You run a good chance of instant game over on RNG via being attacked while down unless you roll for a good cook w/o exception. 

Early disease: you can apparently contract malaria or such within the first month of play.  Again, this is instant game over on RNG unless your medical stat is ridiculous, and maybe even then since it will impact tend quality.  Grace period might be useful on this.

Game would still greatly benefit from predator hunt alert too.  It's still very asymmetric to have a random timber wolf that wandered into the map a few days ago be a larger threat than an AI sapper raid on extreme difficulty just because you didn't notice it on the wildlife tab list in time.

I can feel your pain, I've already lost a game within a few days. But on the other hand, you shouldn't expect devs to make it easier for this game mode. As it's described, this is supposed to be directed for hardcore players.

Food poisoning? You gotta secure yourself asap keeping in mind that a raid may occur while you're resting.

Early disease? You simply settle into an area with the least disease frequency. Avoid swamps and forests.

Predator attacking? Well, you gotta make sure there are other preys the predator would be interested in, especially when you're starting with no apparel. Then make a ranged weapon and fight kiting, using internal rooms.

No notification about predator hunting is just a strict QoL design issue, so it's unlike the others.

Your other suggestions are non-starters.  Less chance of instant loss to RNG is still chance of instant loss on RNG.  Putting yourself in tundra or whatever doesn't mean you can't get malaria before you can possibly survive it.

I got food poisoned despite cooking inside a small, clean room with flooring.  It's impossible to have a nicer environment than this in opening 10 days.  If you don't reroll for good cooking skill, surviving this phase of the game is pure RNG.

Do not mistake "challenge" and "luck dependency".  These are fundamentally opposed concepts.  The more your outcome is contingent on RNG rather than player choices/execution, the less skill is a meaningful contributor to the outcome.

Removal of skill is not skill, nor is it credible as a challenge.  I've been doing 1 man starts with tribal tech on extreme difficulty for multiple patches now.  1.0 introduced more pure RNG to these openings than it removed, and that is not a good direction for the game.  For most design elements, player choices and preparation matters. 

I'm not keen on the concept of "starting pawn absolutely must have good skill in X or you will die most of the time".  That's especially true when you need multiple skills (cooking and medicine at minimum).

[Mitz]

by the way, balance is overdone. used to be a lot of fun to play rimworld...
so you're telling me i get 3 people food poisoned with a 8+ cook in a stone floor kitchen, which they all down at the same time, leaving me with 3 colonists? O-O
i think i need to repeat some things:

• recreation is impossible to fulfill late game
• caravans can magically disappear without story (your favorite thing) because your 2 colonists got downed in the same second.
• there are no animals to teach hauling anymore.
• you changed pump shotguns to be no longer be viable now, any scenario. too short of range compared to chain shotguns having the same range.
• my colonists keep breaking up just before being married????????????
• soaking wet is not a fun balance to water turbines.
• i think set-up camp is gonna have to add in a lot more code because you removed ore from encounter maps.
• a balance to bionics would be to have the rich explorer start remove the decrease of mood because of bionics. other colonies would still have the debuff, but rich explorer would have more glitterworld expectations.
• goddamnit, sir doodles is very sad that he's the fault of your dirty "drill balance". it's overbalanced, OKAY?!

if i can think of 5 or more, i will make another post.

[PatrykSzczescie]

@TheMeInTeam

The same RNG can kill your colonist with a bow during a fight despite covering well. The same RNG can give you permanent injuries, etc. You simply make strategies that maximally decrease the chance of loss, that's how you play RimWorld on a difficulty of your level.

Btw are you on Randy?


However, I agree, Tynan has to nerf this food poisoning stuff.

Iirc downed colonists make raids easier.

[ashaffee]

by the way, balance is overdone. used to be a lot of fun to play rimworld...
so you're telling me i get 3 people food poisoned with a 8+ cook in a stone floor kitchen, which they all down at the same time, leaving me with 3 colonists? O-O
i think i need to repeat some things:

• recreation is impossible to fulfill late game
• caravans can magically disappear without story (your favorite thing) because your 2 colonists got downed in the same second.
• there are no animals to teach hauling anymore.
• you changed pump shotguns to be no longer be viable now, any scenario. too short of range compared to chain shotguns having the same range.
• my colonists keep breaking up just before being married???
• soaking wet is not a fun balance to water turbines.
• i think set-up camp is gonna have to add in a lot more code because you removed ore from encounter maps.
• a balance to bionics would be to have the rich explorer start remove the decrease of mood because of bionics. other colonies would still have the debuff, but rich explorer would have more glitterworld expectations.
• goddamnit, sir doodles is very sad that he's the fault of your dirty "drill balance". it's overbalanced, OKAY?!

if i can think of 5 or more, i will make another post.

-Hauling animals have moved to something that is cherished instead of expendable fighters. That skill is placed on more rare creatures that are harder to train. Seems a worthy balance to me since boars were way to insanly op. (basically only viable strategy on any map that had them which is almost all).

-Water turbines are borderline op. You  no longer need batteries if you plan properly. Besides reserve batteries specifically for turrets. Plus bridges is basically teraforming. If you don't like the river soaking colonist you can remove all the river on the map with bridges (not that you need to).

-Moving tiles takes like .3 days. You can travel to a tile and enter it (enable more than 1 colony in your options) with no food or any supplies and do it that way if for some reason you are unprepared.

-I personally did the extreme version of rich settler ( naked brutal ). The key is picking your starting character carefully. Having your only colonist have any type of mood debuff traits isn't a smart move.

-You are comparing pump shotgun to a chain shotgun? Why not make the same claim for bolt action rifle to sniper rifle. Or assault rifle to charged rifle. I used pump shotguns almost exclusively on my extreme brutal campain. They are one of the best early game weapons. Of course if a higher teir weapon like a charged rifle or chain shotgun dropped i'd use that instead. But wtf?

Not sure why recreation can't befufilled. I have seen no issues with that. But my guys have set joy times after they wake up and before bed. With 3 our gap without working to do anything they wish.

[TheMeInTeam]

@TheMeInTeam

The same RNG can kill your colonist with a bow during a fight despite covering well.

That's just the thing.  No, it can't.  Unless I screw up micromanagement or reads on AI raiders, it's not happening.  If I do make such a mistake, I can't reasonably blame it on RNG.  That's an execution error on my part.

When I'm playing well, I can be the one with the bow and still win safely.

The same RNG can give you permanent injuries, etc. You simply make strategies that maximally decrease the chance of loss, that's how you play RimWorld on a difficulty of your level.

And with the overwhelming majority of things in the game, including raids and nearly every other event, the "chance of loss" on the order of pawn death or permanent injury is next to nothing with perfect play.  When a malaria proc in the first 15 days is worse for me than an 8 vs 3 raid scenario where the 8 raiders have better weapons, there's something wrong with the RNG-based outcomes on malaria.

Agency doesn't just matter to this game, agency in terms of both planning and execution is a core premise of playing Rimworld.  When an implementation cuts into this agency by adding 100% RNG variance, what you have is a skill-equalizing implementation.  What does it add to the game?  Almost nothing, unless you consider rerolling extra times so you're less vulnerable to RNG death after memorizing that you can be killed at random if you don't do it a "meaningful choice".

[PatrykSzczescie]

Are you playing on Randy?

[ashaffee]

I agree with themaninteam. I played b18 with naked brutal scenario on extreme Cassandra in the desert, icesheet and jungle. You have a HUGE amount of control over your pawns living or dieing in b18 although I don't agree that 1 unlucky shot can't kill them. I've seen a guy with a bow kill my person with a sniper rifle 14 skill in shooting (but it is rare and part of the fun for me). In 1.0 he already stated he fixed food poisoning on page 17. I do agree disease early game seems ramped up. I would rather more raids early on, than disease since it is more unforgiving. having to fight an 8 on 1 battle with a bow and savaging for weapons during the fight is much more fun and rewarding than having to slowly die from the plague before you even have a second colonist or real medication >.>.

[Jumper]

Not player the 1.0 release yet but just wanted to ask, is the check box for allow non-dead mans apparel still the same ? it would make more logical sense to change it to allow dead mans apparel as this should be the exception not the norm.

amazing feedback from tynan so far.

[ssateneth]

Pawns like to just move the same rock al lday long from 1 spot to another. See clip.

https://clips.twitch.tv/SincereDarkMoonSeemsGood

[saulysw]

Two bits of feedback --

1. Pawns don't seem to be using the new opportunistic hauling as much as I would like. eg After a battle outside with loot lying everywhere (not forbidden), they walked past it all back to the base.
2. I had a meteor land a little way from the base, and set it to be mined. It is frustrating to see a miner take the trip there, hit it once, then decide he wants to play horseshoes and starts heading back to base. I have to micro him to do that work properly.