1.0 changing the game too much?

[Alenerel]

Your note on food poisoning indicates you're working on really obsolete information from very early, highly experimental 1.0 builds. Food poisoning hasn't had an incapacitating effect since June 25, over a month ago. A lot of stuff has changed since then.

1.0 came with a lot of intentionally over-done balance changes. This is a classic balancing technique where we push a change too far on purpose to find the boundaries where it breaks the game or creates negative effects. It's something I learned from the senior designers when I was working on BioShock Infinite. It works well, as a design method, but of course it makes the game worse in the short term, until those experiments are harvested and wrapped up.

I've seen this characterization that "Every change made the game harder" before and I find it really strange since it's so obviously not true. Tons of things have been made easier and more beneficial to the player, tons of new options and pathways to success have been opened up, more strategies are viable. Just look at some of the recent patch notes. Here's last patch:

"Speed up: -Speed up research 10%. -Speed deep drilling 10%. -Cocoa tree yield adjusted, harvest speed adjusted. -Shift plant work from sow to harvest and speed it up a bit. -Adjust some build speeds. -Made prosthetics and bionics a bit cheaper. -Remove smelting and cremation research. -Devilstrand research is cheaper. -Increase mineable yields. -Improve power armor insulation. -Animal taming/training chance improved. -Made the ship buildings cheaper. -Double snow clearing speed. Factor it by unskilled labor speed. -Increase uranium prevalence.
Traders sell everything at normal price. Trade price base adjusted. Orbital traders carry 30k silver.
Bandit camp letter now says how many enemies are at the site. Bandit camp now gives the total value of all the rewards. Sites listing rewards now also list their total value in brackets after the rewards."

Basically I encourage you to play the build and give feedback based on how it is currently. I'm really trying to kill these zombie memes based on out-of-date information because they're really damaging the feedback process. (I blame myself, of course, for exposing the public to the instability of the balancing process without properly preparing people; I won't make that mistake again.)

For everyone: If you comment, it'd be good if you indicated your storyteller, difficulty, biome, and the last time you played 3+ hours. It'll really help contextualize feedback since a lot of us aren't even talking about the same game at this point.

Sorry for the long quote but I honestly thing that you should close this post and start another one, just so people read this, and explain your way of balancing very clearly, and also requesting what you requested earlier of difficulty, storyteller, hours, etc. You should also try to make the explanation as short as possible...

[Firestonezz]

I feel like one culprit responsible for some of this negative feedback (not in this thread specifically) regarding "1.0 is too hard" is mods.

Some of the mods in B18 make the game significantly easier, such as fertile soil editing, embrasures, shoot-while-moving, craft-your-own x, labor robots, mending/repairing, stack capacity increase, etc. Now that people tend not to use them in the 1.0 version due to instability, their perception of difficulty is biased because they aren't comparing it to vanilla B18.

Not trying to hate on mod creators or users here, just stating a concern with some of the feedback.

[bbqftw]

There are ways to deal with drop pods and sappers cleanly in interesting ways (or absolutely degenerate ones if you're into that sort of thing), but you aren't hearing about them here.

XND does a bunch of testing, finds that spears are strong, spears get double nerfed and mechs get a bunch of internal organs which barely, or in case of chemical analyzer, don't even affect combat performance.

Lesson learned. If you value the time you spend learning about the game, it's best not to post what you found here, or publically.

[Eterm]

That's a very good point about comparing b18+mods to vanilla 1.0.

That said, I do have one concern about difficulty and balancing which will take me some time to explain. I'm worried there is an approach to making things difficult or balancing the game  around people who try to break the game, either through using "cheese" tactics such as the door abuse (expertly demonstrated in those videos) or through focusing all their gameplay on a single method of making money to min/max their income.

For example in previous versions human leather hats sold very well, so some people turned their whole colonies into hat factories.

There are three easy ways to then approach balancing that:

• directly fix the issue (reduce the value of human leather hats when sold)
• balance around it (Buff raid strengths to accommodate the new-found wealth)
• do nothing

The first approach in this case is very appropriate, it's an easy thing to do (Adjust the sell value directly, or reduce the sell value of the whole item-class). It's also isolated, so shouldn't have too many unintended consequences.

The second approach would be less valid, and I'll discuss later specifically why I think it would be problematic.

The third I think would actually be valid too if the tactic of producing hats wasn't too overbearing so that people who didn't want to produce hats had to produce hats.

There are a class of players who will min/max their game. They will always do this so it seems to me feutile to balance the game around how they play. If you take away their hat-factory they'll just turn to the next repetitive broken method of abusing the game and that might even be less fun for them than a hat factory.

The second approach is dangerous because it forces people who previously didn't want to cheese to have to cheese to "keep up" and play at that difficulty. So now even people who didn't want to run human-hat-factories now have to run those miserable cannibalfests to keep up.

Now in the case of this example, the first has a neat solution, just nerf or fix the fact that human leather hats were over-valued. Over-value is actually easy to spot in rimworld because almost everything degrades or is consumable so you can see how much you want to use vs sell. If you're only ever selling a class of item and never using it (an example for me is flake) then it is probably over-value.

A much harder example is the door-abuse. That doesn't likely have an easy to implement or isolated fix that can be rolled out without consequence.

That means you can either balance the game around it, or not balance around it. I think balancing around the ways people "break" the game is dangerous because it forces people to adopt those strategies to keep up.

Now this game isn't a multiplayer game, so I think it's actually valid to let people who abuse single-strategies to make the game "too easy" compared to how most players approach it. It's up to the player to choose whether they want to abuse door mechanics. If raids are too difficult however they will feel pressured into using it.

An example of this is in Path of Exile hardcore mode. That has an abusive strategy where people macro a "kill switch" which instantly removes you from the game so you don't actually die.

The devs can't fix that, so instead, and because it's a multiplayer game in as much as it has leaderboards and some trading, they balance around it.

That means that more and more of the damage mechanics are "one-shot" insta-death mechanics. This makes the game not just less fun but it means that anyone who approaches hardcore without logout macros will almost certainly die before making much real progress because the game is balanced around the fact that people will abuse that mechanic.

tldr; Don't worry about how the game is balanced for those that abuse mechanics or min/max their production around the single-most-broken income production. If they make the game too easy for themselves only they have lost out in a single-player game. The game is already plenty difficult enough for casual players and even as an experienced player "rough" is a setting where you have to actually try which feels good and I can't imagine how difficult extreme already is.

[topace3000]

Shouldn't hard mode be... hard?

Obviously hard is a subjective term, much like "fun". I've been playing rough for a couple of years (I think..), but rough on 1.0 is a lot "rougher" than it has been especially in 16 and also 18. The reason for the that is you have tweaked just about every mechanic. I should have a long list, I don't but some examples off the top of the head.

Infestations, mechanics have gotten tougher in every single version from 16.. when it was still fun.
New traits, like gourmand, no counter traits like light-eater, or 'stays-full' or something to balance it.
The way factions slide into KOS status if you don't actively do something for them no more 3 friendly factions.
The way research is a pain in the ass, researching batteries and solar panels if your a space cowboy, and needing to learn how to plant trees. (1000 research!?)
The way food sickness leaves you suddenly incapacitated on the floor unable to even get into a bed.
The new mood debufs, needing more entertainment, while yet somehow we are are supposed to do more research, pump more work out and ya-da-ya-da.

It "feels" like a million tiny tweaks, all of them up scaling the difficulty, all of them taking away old strategies (going back to burning of freezing raiders who come to visit, that shit is actually fun, that is what SOME players want and would actually make Rimworld a legendary game).

I don't need to play on "hard" to "be a man" or something like that, but I truly believe that 1.0 shouldn't be "an epiphany of balance changes to make the game hard (again)" (NOT FUN!?), 18 was fairly bad on this but 1.0 is ridiculous.

If you want to make Riwworld the best game of all time, make as many strategies viable to players as possible, don't care so much about "players breaking the game" as much. Let players decide what kind of cheese they want in their game instead of nanny dev-ing stuff out of the game.

You're asking to have a sandbox instead of a game.  You can bump down the difficulty if you want to win using unusual strategies, I promise there's no shame in it.

Balancing the game isn't "nannying" it.  I moved over from dwarf fortress to rimworld because the former has no balance, and therefore no challenge.  There are all sorts of creative ways to "win" in df, but any player with a modicum of sense can "solve" the game almost immediately, rendering it a sandbox simulator.  That's fine, and it's perfectly legitimate entertainment, but it's clearly not the direction Tynan is going for, and his vision is part of why I love this game.

[Studly Spud]

Instead of 1.0 being a smooth transition of YEARS of alpha/beta, it was in my opinion a middle-of-the-night-drug-induced I'm never going to let it go, recreation of the core mechanics, balance and "I don't want my game to be easy" phobia aka "I don't know when to stop messing with basic balance" bullshit.

newb dev shit tbh.

Please be more specific.

Shouldn't hard mode be... hard?

Yes please.  The difficulty scaling for me is very good with playing on moderate/rough (and I do play a more "roleplay" style of colony where every single pawn is welcome, rather than perfection/efficiency/cheese/brutality).  It's good to know that there are still harder levels for if/when I do want more of a challenge.  A lot of people seem to want the hardest option to be the standard default balanced level.  Which makes no sense. 

I'd like to take this moment to add my 2 cents; that I am very much enjoying the direction 1.0 has gone.  It is fun and challenging, and contrary to a lot of opinions, I don't find the RNG to be undefeatable.  Most things can be dealt with, if your colony isn't running way too close to the wire anyway.

[Studly Spud]

What about buffing defense through preparation rather than simply buffing player pawns (which feels a bit cheaty). An option to 'dig in' or 'hunker down' whilst drafted that would take time to trigger but then impart a state of increased defense/aim/maybe range could provide a similar effect without imparting superhuman abilities to the player! It would reward good defensive positioning and planning but in a way that could be balanced vs offensive strategies (which the player is not forced to take part in to survive)?

I Would actually be pretty keen to see a mechanic like this, perhaps with an additional defensive type of structure.  Sandbags could stay how they are as a good defensive structure you can quickly run to and start firing.  But if we could have maybe an "outpost" or a "sniper pit", something that is a single item and can't be chained together, but allows a single pawn to really hunker down and fire away while being quite well defended.  Could be aimed at later game by requiring plasteel and research.  And most of the structure itself would have to be broken down before it is possible to hit the pawn.  Sappers could be more inclined to chuck grenades at these structures, to at least give the raiders a chance. 

The other thing I would really want to see is training facilities, and active defence duties.  Right now, your defenders are just normal colonists (but the ones that naturally have the better shooting skills).  They have jobs, they have duties, then they run to the defence of a colony.  With a larger colony, maybe by the time you get to 10-15, you may want to have a few people on permanent security, which is kind of what a real colony would do.  They would spend their time training, maybe inspecting defences, preparing things.  Training is pretty obvious; pawn spends time shooting at a target, and gets better at it.  Inspecting and preparing defences is a bit more vague.  Barbed wire could be an option to slow down/mildly damage people running at the aforementioned outposts?  Maybe the outposts have a consumable stat which is helping the pawn inside to fire better; in the down times then your security guys are working to fill up that "stat"?  (I'm really going to need a suggestion from someone here as to what that stat is lol!)  Does it require resources, the way turret barrel replacements now do?  Security could be an actual job in the job tab.  They would also begin to respond to mad animal / bear is hunting someone / etc events.  And all of this is keeping them toned as very good defence pawns.

[Skaer]

It's worth asking what you'd do as a player if you were raiding a faction base and the defenders started doing this.

Shoot the wall from outside the defender's gun range (most fast weapons are short ranged; if they use assault rifles you can still use your charge lances, bolt-action or sniper rifles).

It's worth noting that no matter how evenly matched the defenders and attackers are in terms of gear, the defensive perimeter will always be targetable by the attacker from outside the defender's shooting range, since it has to be placed between the two sides. This means that "shoot the wall" tactic makes any defensive structures useless unless they are backed up by sniper turrets. Which in turn would make the mid-game raids impossible to defend against if they retained their current numbers.

[Ruisuki]

I read two things

1. bionics give mood debuff unless pawn is prostophile

2. living under mountains is automatic mood penalty

That alone broke my love for this game. If its true (and there are worse things that punish the player for playing) then I would definitely drop this unless theres a modder to fix this aspect. I hope its changed if true.

1. Bionics only give debuff to normal colonists if they have 3 or more. You're safe giving your colonists 3 bionics as the penalty for having 3 is only a very minuscule -1.

2. I don't understand your argument here. Are you speaking of cabin fever? That is easily fixable with a few hours of joy with a horseshoe ring outdoors.

Damn so the bionics malus is true. Its small but still somewhat disappointed to hear. I hope there are more mood modifiers added and not just this. Is it -1 per bionic? Or -1 for 3, -5 for 4, and so on?

And not sure what the guy was referring to. I would assume it was cabin fever but thats been out for a while now, not new to 1.0

[blongo]

I read two things

1. bionics give mood debuff unless pawn is prostophile

2. living under mountains is automatic mood penalty

That alone broke my love for this game. If its true (and there are worse things that punish the player for playing) then I would definitely drop this unless theres a modder to fix this aspect. I hope its changed if true.

1. Bionics only give debuff to normal colonists if they have 3 or more. You're safe giving your colonists 3 bionics as the penalty for having 3 is only a very minuscule -1.

2. I don't understand your argument here. Are you speaking of cabin fever? That is easily fixable with a few hours of joy with a horseshoe ring outdoors.

Damn so the bionics malus is true. Its small but still somewhat disappointed to hear. I hope there are more mood modifiers added and not just this. Is it -1 per bionic? Or -1 for 3, -5 for 4, and so on?

And not sure what the guy was referring to. I would assume it was cabin fever but thats been out for a while now, not new to 1.0

Yeah i tried playing 1.0. I want to be polite and respectful but god damn, now the game is just a bitch baby manager. This update really makes you question, who are the actual animals in this game?

I don't know, I was warned that there will be game imbalances in the game when i signed up for 1.0, but still.... even in the previous versions i wish the moods were a little less erratic.

[Tynan]

Blongo, please review rule 2 in the community rules. This is a friendly warning. I want to hear negative opinions but there's no reason to express yourself that way.

It would also be good if you have some indication of what you're referring to. Is it just this one aspect of managing colonist with large numbers of bionic parts? Or is there any other specific experience you're thinking of?

[Ilya]

Yeah i tried playing 1.0. I want to be polite and respectful but god damn, now the game is just a bitch baby manager. This update really makes you question, who are the actual animals in this game?

I don't know, I was warned that there will be game imbalances in the game when i signed up for 1.0, but still.... even in the previous versions i wish the moods were a little less erratic.

You must seriously be mismanaging your pawns. I'm not particularly good at the game, yet all my pawns have their mood almost constantly maxed out. They only get close to a break if they get seriously messed up and overworked. Really, all you have to do to keep them content 4h of recreation a day (which will usually effectively be less) and a beautiful and comfortable environment. Mood is so high that I can even afford to feed them exclusively with nutrient paste and make them all sleep in barracks.

This is my pawn who has the worst mood, with a debuff that is about equivalent to a pawn that isn't transhumanist but has synthetic limbs.

[attachment deleted due to age]

[zizard]

And if you're playing on higher difficulties, send anyone with -mood or +break straight into the trashcan!!!!

[Namsan]

I liked changes in 1.0 overall.
Killboxes are now less effective, raids are tougher, Deep drills becomes less effective but still usable, and General QoL things.

Some people are complaining new hardest difficulty is too hard, but I think it's okay.
Because this game has 6 difficulties, players can lower difficulty if they felt too hard or unfair.

My only concern is changes on armor mechanics.
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=42647.msg420393#msg420393
I still feel unfairness when 10 damage bullet from minigun destroyed a brain(10HP) of my colonist with advanced helmet.

[TrashMan]

Blongo, please review rule 2 in the community rules. This is a friendly warning. I want to hear negative opinions but there's no reason to express yourself that way.

His post looks perfectly fine to me.
The colonists really all moody and stuck-up little buggers with less common sense than a rock.

FFS, you have people who refuse to do things that are below them even if they will starve to death. And starvation is DAMN uncomfortable, to say the least.