Very needed balance changes (0.19.2009)

[Actarion]

In some way i disagree , cause you complain that the hardest difficulty is not difficult enough, but, you still try to use and abuse every little gamedesign mistake.
Back in A12 you could wall and cook a psychic ship, You COULD, you didn't HAD to

If you want challenge why not just don't use it ? that what i don't understand.



Honestly i have no opinion about your changes, cause i would never do such thing, i play rimworld for living a story, not for challenge. Stoping building piece of art right before the end have no sence for me.

Now you could say that there is not point in arging, but we are still playing the same game. And for me i would rater see tynan concentrate on other thing than fixing those thing that you point out.

[BLACK_FR]

So you think that it's gamedesign mistake but you don't want Tynan and crew spend time to fix it. Got you. Makes sense don't fix mistakes in most important mechanic in the game.

[Actarion]

there is bigger problem to solve imo

in fact, our debate is more or less like that

so let's stop here and let the designer do there job and settle what should be fixed.

i just hope that you finally understand that your way of playing the game isn't the only one...

[BLACK_FR]

Yes, there is also the way to not fix the problems with most important mechanic of the game.
I always knew that there are other ways. I just don't think that most of them are valid.

[bobucles]

If you want challenge why not just don't use it ? that what i don't understand.

Existing mechanics are made to be used. It is dumb to expect players to close their eyes and pretend that exploits don't exist.

Sometimes an exploit creates a wacky, wild new way to play a game and that's okay. But if the most compelling argument is "I use it to win, don't use it if you don't like it" then it's probably not good.

[RemingtonRyder]

I think that the biggest thing is to just assume an item or building's value at 100% HP, rather than current market value, when the storyteller looks at how much wealth you have.

[AileTheAlien]

It is dumb to expect players to close their eyes and pretend that exploits don't exist. [...] But if the most compelling argument is "I use it to win, don't use it if you don't like it" then it's probably not good.

You're assuming that players who are trying to cheat don't value their own time. The exploits that are being argued over in this thread are extremely tedious, and are obviously cheating. If players are willing to cheat, there's a way to do that without wasting their own time - turn on dev mode. There's no reason to fix something which itself disincentivizes players from using it.

The other changes, I agree with, for the most part. Completed research should affect difficulty, since it gives the player power through flexibility. Adding an option to disable time- or wealth-based difficulty would be pretty cheap to implement, and gives players more options on how they want to play, so I can get behind that. Threat level changing with the difficulty is something I assumed already happened; It's possible it's at a flat value right now, to avoid some other bad situation, like easy difficulties allowing players to avoid combat too far into the game, and die quickly to their first raid.

[BLACK_FR]

I see that many people assume that taking advantage of current health/wealth mechanics is exploit or cheating. That is wrong. Current game is intentionally designed this way, it's not some bug or exploit that cheaters abuse. It's like saying that making turrets is cheating because they make defending raids so much easier. Or making art is cheating because it gives so much money for free. You have to distinguish between using more effective ways to play and cheating. If you call all effective ways to play cheating - than it's something wrong with you.

Existing mechanics are made to be used. It is dumb to expect players to close their eyes and pretend that exploits don't exist.

Using mechanics and using exploits is a different thing. I think using any confirmed exploits is a bad idea, it steals fun from the game, so exploits are NOT ok. But we are talking not about exploits, but about taking advantage of current game mechanics which is equal to just good play.

I think that the biggest thing is to just assume an item or building's value at 100% HP, rather than current market value, when the storyteller looks at how much wealth you have.

That's too cheap solution that distorts gameplay, because it's not distinguishing between new item and item with 1% helath. Why do you think that health of the items should not matter? It seems to me that dropping utility of item with health and wealth is better idea (and use your idea only for items where dropping in utility isn't appropriate).

You're assuming that players who are trying to cheat don't value their own time. The exploits that are being argued over in this thread are extremely tedious, and are obviously cheating. If players are willing to cheat, there's a way to do that without wasting their own time - turn on dev mode. There's no reason to fix something which itself disincentivizes players from using it.

The other changes, I agree with, for the most part. Completed research should affect difficulty, since it gives the player power through flexibility. Adding an option to disable time- or wealth-based difficulty is pretty cheap, and gives players more options on how they want to play, so I can get behind that. Threat level changing with the difficulty is something I assumed already happened; It's possible it's at a flat value right now, to avoid some other bad situation, like easy difficulties allowing players to avoid combat too far into the game, and die quickly to their first raid.

You are very confused about main problem in this topic. Main problem is that health of the items and buildings don't affect their utility but affect their generated wealth. And managing items and buildings health is NOT tedious and also not cheating. So your statement that using that mechanic have disencentive is wrong.
Also I don't understand what you mean by "threat level changing with difficulty". It wasn't discussed here at all, may be you got something wrong from the original post?
Main reason why this changes are important is that current mechanic allows to win the game (in normal sense, I don't understand why anyone considers using dev mod as possible "winning option") on the hardest possible difficulty with no risk and on autopilot (just like on peaceful difficulty). That's not ok and that's why I made suggestions in OP.

[AileTheAlien]

And managing items and buildings health is NOT tedious

I think you and I differ on what "tedious" means. In the other thread where you describe how to easily win, you say

Same goes for buildings. You should melee attack them a little (not too much because of zzzt events).

Manually, individually damaging all of your items and buildings, is exactly what I would call tedious. Players can use this tactic to win the game, and it is easy, but it takes a lot more time than just playing the game normally, or playing with cheats. It involves repeating the same task (damaging items), for little gain (compared to just playing the game normally, or using proper cheats). That's the dictionary definition of tedium - doing something which is monotonous to the point of boredom. It also seems very obvious to me that this is not the intended way to play the game, which is why I called it an exploit.

Also I don't understand what you mean by "threat level changing with difficulty". It wasn't discussed here at all, may be you got something wrong from the original post?

Isn't that what you're describing in this next quote - the (minimum) difficulty of raids changing with the difficulty setting of the game? From what you wrote, and what I read in a post you linked, where it discusses how enemy raids scale with various things in the game (time, wealth, etc) it seems to me like what you're describing.

2. Rework minimum wealth threshold. Make it dependent on difficulty. Make it 28k on peaceful, 14k on rough, 0k on merciless or something like that.

[BLACK_FR]

@AileTheAlien

In your definition building the base is tedious or growing food is tedious. It requires work, yes, but to become tedious it has to be monotonous (we can use dictionary definition you provided, I think it's ok).

The reason why damaging your buildings is not tedious is because you have to do it once. It's like making your base - you also do it once.
It's not "a lot more time than usual", but it's "more time than usual". And gains are very big. It depends on how wealthy is your colony. For my base it cuts 1-2 raiders from the raid, for big colonies with 10+ people it can cut dozens of raiders. So gain is very big for the once-only activity.
Also it's definitely not an exploit. You can say that it's taking advantage of poorly balanced mechanic, but to be exploit the usage has to be that was not intended on micro-level. Burning poison ship is exploit, not completing apparel to hide wealth is exploit, damaging your items is not an exploit.
Proof of that is that last change in that mechanic was that utility drop of weapons and apparel ware removed in B19, while wealth drop wasn't changed. So dev team looked into this mechanic and how it was used and decided that it should work the way it works now.

Regarding your last question. I was talking  about new feature in B19 - minimum wealth threshold. Now if you have wealth in range 0-14000 it doesn't count at all to raid strength. My idea was that on higher difficulties that minimum wealth threshold should be reduced and on merciless it should be removed. Merciless should be hard as hell, not suitable for 95%+ of people.

[Bobisme]

I get what Black_FR is saying, in a game designed to be IMPOSSIBLE to win, you are going to use every avenue to win, EVERY AVENUE.

How many ppl have completed naked brutal or what ever?
Due to the tactic that Black_FR is talking about people can coast through, come out to brag by essentially cheating, exploiting. It is supposed to be a feat, a badge of honor, but ppl can exploit it and the wow is lost.
Your supposed to use every thing to your advantage but some things should not be there to take.
Ignore them and die or use everything given to you to survive..

The changes that he is talking about don't effect the casual player as they would not be doing those things anyway, hell  they wouldn't even notice, but when you play the 'you will die' level and don't die because the game allows loop holes it's a bad thing.


Ppl have had a go at him for his play style, if you ask me, that is not his play style, (in my opinion)  sounds to me his play style is 'you're gunna die' , but he doesn't.
The loop holes allow that skill level to be negated by options that should not exist and  there for points out that the 'ima fkn die skill lvl isn't, actually, ima fkn die.
And we are talking about the top hardness level, not the 'casual player' skill level, where again the balance issue would not even be noticed. I'm sure very few do what has been mentioned to be fixed, i'd say a lot of ppl haven't tried that skill level either..


I'm all for things loosing there ability to work their best when it degrades in quality it makes sense (but not all items) as Black_FR and others have said. at present there is absolutely no reason to build new weapons for your self when the garbage raiders drop is just as good

Look, you shouldn't be able to do those things to win, you shouldn't have the option, i know for a fact that in the same situation, you'd fight for survival, what ever it takes.