Ideology needs some work

Started by theultimatepumpkinpie, July 23, 2021, 03:35:33 PM

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theultimatepumpkinpie

Okay so I've never used these forums before, and I apologize in advanced for this being a long post to start a discussion with but I have a lot to say and there's no better place to say it. Also, halfway through there is some spoilers about how to get the new ending but not the actual ending itself.

I love RimWorld both with and without mods, I have over 2,000 hours in it. Hell it's earned it's spot as my all time favorite game. I love role-playing with my colonies. Making unique backstories for some of them and future stories and what not. Hell I have a comic story boarded (I'm not happy with my art well enough to actually post any of it anywhere) about one of my colonists and a whole book's worth of headcanons for the archotechs (and the storytellers as archotechs). So you can imagine I was positively ecstatic for the new ideology dlc when it was announced.

When I first loaded it up I could tell it was really well thought out and covers all the bases you would expect. There's a lot of options and the auto generated descriptions are amazing. I spent an entire day just picking different memes to go with the archist structure (the Archotech worshiping  structure) just to see the different notions that would be associated with them. I love them all. (I also cheated to see the new ending and love the text for that too.) I can tell they put a lot of thought and time into making this but I don't think it was play tested enough or that the effects of the memes and precepts were balanced very well with the normal base game RimWorld because of my gameplay experience. While looking at all the options I could tell that some of the options would be OP of you cherry picked them and not go with a more roleplay inclined ideology which could easily make the game more difficult, and that's to be expected to a degree. But boy oh boy does some of them make the game way too difficult. My actual gameplay experience with it has been a nightmare so far.

Took me ages to decide on what to do first but after a lot of digging around in dev mode and with character editor I realized there wasn't hardly  any new content in the way of items or gameplay that wasn't just mood management from the ideologies besides the dryads and I wanted to do the new ending myself with a mostly unmodded save. (only thing I had was rimsaves and character editor for setting the colony up). So I made an archist structure with tree connection. Made them nudists and gave them high life for fun and made charity essential because I wanted them to be good people. And I plonked them down in a temperate forest in a warm climate so they wouldn't freeze to death. I went for well balanced pawns who all had one or two decent skills and passions but none of them had anything higher than a 7.

They all suck and I hate them. First event I get is a charity quest that I can't do because the people that visited us wanted beer that we don't have. Instant -8 mood debuff out of my control. Fine, base game RimWorld is hard and Randy is well, random. I can deal with that. What I can't deal with is that I can't build anything because they all scream bloody murder if I chop down some trees even though I purposefully DID NOT give them the 'prohibits tree cutting meme' and no amount of planting more trees makes them any happier. I had to make the initial building out of steel because we needed our starting wood to make food while we wait for the fiber corn to grown. But after a short while they are all having mental breaks constantly because of their shitty three tile bedrooms because there's no where to build more and nothing to build them out of. It  takes awhile to cut stone after all. The barracks they lived in before was worse because of them constantly interrupting each other's sleep.  They all keep complaining that there surrounding are ugly which doesn't make any sense because aren't they supposed to love nature? Oh yeah they  do love nature don't they. After all they get a mood debug for not seeing any trees in a long time WHILE THEY'RE SLEEPING.

Anyway, It didn't take long before we got a random event for our first gauranlen tree which is good because everyone suddenly wants one. Except they suck too because being connected to one only gets you a measly +3 mood buff and it takes FIVE HOURS A DAY to main it at only a 50% connection for it to produce and support dryads. I went for gaumakers so I could get more trees for the others but it takes 7 days to get a single pod, another like 5 to get  the actual dryad and your telling me I have to get three of those and wait even longer to get another pod which is a waste of time when I could just do a festival to get more except all of those keep failing because we can't build a good room to have them in because there's no materials and no space. Which gives them further mood debuffs and so begins the mental breaks.

Somehow we get to summer and everyone is hot and sweaty. So much so they keep having heat stroke so I have to put a passive cooler in the main big building that's fine, usual rimworld content, except we have nothing to fuel it with because all of the initial wood is gone and the fiber corn only yields two a piece so even though I planted 200 of the damn things we still barely have enough to keep everyone alive because of the passive cooler and the need to cook food. We've recruited a prisoner, got a quest to host a dude and a refuge quest for 3 more people. Can't  refuse it or they'll be sad but that's fine I need more workers because one of our best dudes now has to spend 5 hours a day pruning a tree that doesn't do anything at the moment. So now we have more mouths to feed nowhere enough beds and more people going on mental breaks because everyone is miserable. "I'm sweaty. I have an awful bedroom and the environment is unsightly and we had to chop trees to survive" but god forbid we actually care about planting more trees or planting flowers or feel good about not having to wear restricted clothing.

And don't get me started on how worse the mood management can get. Why the hell does having a special role increase your expectations BY TWO WHOLE LEVELS. One level I could see but TWO?! How am I supposed to run a colony with two leaders and a specialist who all want luxurious accommodations when we're supposed to be nature loving tree people?!?! And it gets worse is you try to do the Archotech ending (mild spoilers ahead). Which is kinda stupid in a lot of ways and doesn't line up with the ideology trailer at all. The dungeoneering thing is completely optional and doesn't relate to the new ending AT ALL. If you want to do the new ending you need to sell wealthy bases to other factions. (No idea how that works if you have multiple bases turned on). Which why the hell would you do that if you have tree people? They would have to leave the dryads behind. Unless you left those people behind but wait isn't my colony suppose to also worship archotechs? Why would they leave behind one thing that's essential to their religion to seek out another especially when the trailer had them put together?

Ignore that, let's say you sell your first base. you start the second one with the same gear you started with which makes no sense but I'll allow it  because it's there to prevent cheesing the game and taking all the  wealth back out of it. Except now you have a mood debuff near the Archotech structure that takes up space on the middle your new map. Who the hell would want to live near it and buy that new base anyway??? But if you do sell it, you get another new base with an even worse mood debuff! It's mood debuffs all the way down. You mean I'm supposed to beat the game while having a level of expectations higher than sky high while having a constant minus 13 (If I recall correctly,) mood debuff on top of all the original struggles??? But what if you had a different ideology you say? I Tried to play a transhumanist high life colony with a crash landed start and that went quiet a bit better. Mind you I purposefully avoiding giving roles too soon and started with well suited colonists. But that's not the point. The later mood debuffs from the social roles and the Archotech structures still would have been completely crippling gameplay wise. And the important take away here? I couldn't roleplay the way I wanted to. The way that ya know the DLC was marketed.

And just for reference, this me playing it at the 'adventure story' difficulty. I'm one of those people that get angry at people complaining about the game being too hard at higher difficulties even though that's kinda the point of having higher difficulties and say they should just play at lower difficulties. But that's what I've been doing. The idea of trying to do the new ending with any sense of nuance in your ideology on even harder difficulties is just mind numbing. I was going to stream a whole play through of it but I'm glad I didn't because now I know that I simply couldn't.

I've watched a few videos and read some stuff on the community discord of other people's ideologies some people have colonies with crazy high moods all the time because it's easy to satisfy their requirements. Tree connection is easier in biomes with less trees (lol whut? That doesn't make any sense.) High life and open lovin' is super easy especially with an auto bong. Okay great but what if I don't want to do that? Make a torture pain cult and do some scarification ritual. Now they're happy, but Oh wait now your pawn is receiving constant debuffs to their working abilities (when small scars usually don't give that much pain in real life??) Oh you want a blind colony? I hope you don't want to construct anything ever because they won't be able to do it supposed 'psysense' be damned. Live underground with tunnelers? Well devilstrand hasn't changed so good luck growing material to make new clothes. Yes, I get that having different ideologies is meant to push you to have different lifestyles and stuff but the way it actually does, doesn't make any sense like tree people making houses out of stone and steel. And none of this is even touching on the fact that the original RimWorld scenerios don't go hand in hand with the ideology stuff at all. Yes you can create custom scenerios and enough people have talked about the need to make and change ideologies after the fact enough so that I won't but the point is still there.

When royalty came out and they kept adding to it it was weird and frustrating for modders but the way ideology was marketed it sounded like it would be much more finished and polished by the time it came out so it would be a great addition without all the inconveniences. And looking at the actual ideology system it seems like it but playing it? Feels like it's in beta or at least I'm dying hoping, pleading that it is because as is practically unplayable at least for me. No amount of cool roleplay based gameplay matter if you can't ya know actually use them to any degree of  efficiency. I've checking the steam workshop any chance I get to see if there any mods that tweak the new ideology stuff  because I just can't make a successful colony the way I want to. Which was kind of the whole point of the DLC to begin with.

I've been wanting to join the discussion and make suggestions and didn't want this to turn out like a review or a rant but that is kind how it turned out and I'm sorry for that but there's just so much about it that just doesn't work the way it should and I can't not say something and expect it to get better. I really love Rimworld and I'm grateful that the devs are still making content for it and ideology is a really cool concept  and I really wanted to like it. I really hope I can love what it becomes like I have in the past. But as is it actively punishes you making some of the weird funny colonies they promised and it really does need a lot of work still.


TLDR; I was so excited for this DLC and everything it had to offer. The core system is there and it's a cool idea with a lot of cool options but a lot of the precepts just don't work well with the vanilla gameplay in a logical way and overall I'm very frustrated and disheartened by it. It could be really good but it still needs a lot of work to balance it.

Mirador

#1
Hello there!

I must admit that I feel exactly what you are saying. I was thinking on making such a post to explain my own feeling about the new DLC so let's me share it here. First, I need to say that I love Rimworld and it's by far my favorite game with over 3,000 hours of playing. Like you I mostly play with or without mod on adventure and sometime strive to survive difficulty.

This being say, there is multiple issues on the whole system as it stand right now. However, I do hope that they will somehow fix some of them in time. Still the best way to get them fixed is to express our feeling about it.

When you create an ideologion, you have a structure, style and memee. Structure and style are mostly for flavor and that is perfect.
Memee is the building fondation of your ideoligion, giving it meaning and will help to determine precepts, ritual and roles. A few will also give starting technology, buildable and few hidden effects on starting pawn generation, like blindsight memee. Roles specialists are generally very beneficial part of a memee even if they have somekind of restriction via disabled work. The player still have the freedom to use them or not.

What really need tweaking are precepts. Some precepts are available to everyone and some Memee have unique precept that will completly shape the gameplay. A lots of precepts have heavy restriction/mood debuff without bonus to counterbalance it.

For exemple, Nudism Memee, heavily restrict clothing precept. Giving large mood and opinion debuff to anyone that don't respect it. However, it do not offer anything in exchange. Not even a mood buff for respecting the precept unless the pawn himself is a nudist. I would suggest to atleast have a bias in pawn generation for nudist but that not currently the case. So what the point of this ?

Let's talk about self imposed challenge.

The difficulty in Rimworld can already be easily modified with colony starting location, storyteller setting, scenario, personal choice/restriction/roleplay, pawns selection and various mods. It's a storyteller game after all. Everything can be edited in Rimworld.
That being say, what we hoped was having a way to play specific gameplay without totally feeling penalized.

What I mean is, it was already possible to play any kind of colony, cannibal, nudist, undergrounder, etc. with mods/scenario. But as it's right now, all it offer is to transform personal choice into enforced restriction, most of the time without giving anything in return.

Flesh purity is another exemple. If you think that Body purist was already a bad trait. With this memee the whole colony will suffer from this insane -80 opinion debuff. The only good thing about this precept is the medical specialist. Otherwise, no mood or opinion buff, nothing.
Give me atleast a little something, you know?  Ability to regenerate scar or limb? Yeah I am dreaming, Anyway.

Blindness memee is also pretty bad. Being blind completly cripple your pawn. Well, atleast they have some mood/opinion bonus plus psysense nonsense buff when blind. They also have acess to medical specialist which would probably be the only reason to pick this memee. That being say, I don't want to pick a memee solely because of a specialist, but for the gameplay, the story, the flavour, and in order to do so, it actually need to be playable.

Of course, not all memee are like this. Those are probably the worse. Some are much more balanced then other and I think it's the work of the dev right now to try to balance the whole system (and of course, fix bug). The only reason I could see someone playing those memee is if the player himself is masochist, that being say, for such experience, Pain is virtue is a much better memee than any of thoses. =P

When I seen this DLC, I first though: Finally, it will make unplayable gameplay actually playable! All those bad traits might have some use after all! I can play a flesh purity nudist club. ROFL. Yeah right... Nope, it just enforce it, penalizing any attempt of adaptation for the colony.

That being say, some memee impact are often wrong. For exemple, female and male supremacy impact is so low that it actually don't influence anything at all. It do not even influence pawn generation or trait bias. On the other side, you have Supremacist memee, with execution and slavery precept and 2 of the most powerful roles that is impact is rated low ? It should atleast have the same impact as Raider memee. Also, I would give a little something to loyalist, individualist and both sex supremacy memee as they are really meaningless as they are right now.

Oh I completly forgot Cannibal memee. Currently, any ideoligion, no matter which memee they have, can already take accepted or prefered cannibalism precept. So, you can easily do a cannibal ideology without even taking the cannibal memee. So, what Cannibal memee add with is high impact ? Well two even stricter cannibalism precept and cannibal feast ritual, that it. Also, if your pawns are not psychopath, cannibal or bloodlust, they will receive mood penalty for butchering human.  Again, the system should atleast bias starting pawn toward those traits and the tools to make it possible.

So basically, you can still have cannibal, underground, nudism, raider gameplay without the corresponding memee. But it should atleast make it easier, not harder, when you select the proper memee to your ideology gameplay.

Unlike you I did not really explore the tree lover precept but I think we are talking about the same issue as a whole. Each precept have setting that are generally better overall, the stricter one are pretty much alway bad and all those moods bonus/malus stack. So, you can do an ideoligion with physical love prohibited, cutting trees horrible, research not allowed, slaughting animal prohibited, autonomous weapons prohibited, killing innoncent animal abhorrent, meat eating abhorrent, mining prohibited, etc. it's going to be hell and you will gain absolutly no benefice out of it.

Oh I am sure that some youtuber will one day try a run with blindness, nudism, body purist ideology colony in ice sheet at losing is fun at +500% difficulty challenge with all those crazy precepts but I don't think that should be the purpose of this. I don't expect it to be fully balanced, but I expected it to atleast give us a reason to explore those gameplay that we are less familiar with.

It would be nice if the system would give you tools in exchange of those restriction. Okay, you cannot do this BUT you can do that in exchange.

You want an easy game ? just play an ideoligion with as few precept restriction as possible and select any memee I did not talk about in this thread with the specialist role you like. haha! =oP

You know, I have been brainstorming about this whole issue and maybe they should simply give the ability to edit existing precept/memee and even create new one? That would be awesome.

In the end, Rimworld is still an amazing game, and not matter what, I know that some modder will come in play to provide some solutions. ;o)

Thank you for your time!

AileTheAlien

#2
Re: blindness.

You can actually play this without much consequence, if you just use blindfolds most of the time. You can remove them for critical or slow tasks, but leave them on most of the time for the mood boost. The psylink is nice, but it only makes sense to pick pawns who don't do any real work. So your warden/social/counsellor/trader character, would be a good one to blind. Everyone else should just have blindfolds, or deal with the mood penalty.

I'm a bit torn on whether that feels 'right' or not. Like, how did a religion form around blindness, if it hampers so much of daily life? I can imagine scarification, or the meat-restriction stuff in the game, but blindness feels like it's breaking the verisimilitude.

Sorbo

Quote from: AileTheAlien on July 31, 2021, 02:12:29 PM
Re: blindness.
Like, how did a religion form around blindness, if it hampers so much of daily life? I can imagine scarification, or the meat-restriction stuff in the game, but blindness feels like it's breaking the verisimilitude.
I think it gives psychic sensitivity bonus when blind. So with psychic phenomena real it is easy to argue merits of blindness when it actually works.

zgrssd

Quote from: AileTheAlien on July 31, 2021, 02:12:29 PM
Re: blindness.

You can actually play this without much consequence, if you just use blindfolds most of the time. You can remove them for critical or slow tasks, but leave them on most of the time for the mood boost. The psylink is nice, but it only makes sense to pick pawns who don't do any real work. So your warden/social/counsellor/trader character, would be a good one to blind. Everyone else should just have blindfolds, or deal with the mood penalty.

I'm a bit torn on whether that feels 'right' or not. Like, how did a religion form around blindness, if it hampers so much of daily life? I can imagine scarification, or the meat-restriction stuff in the game, but blindness feels like it's breaking the verisimilitude.
There was a christian sect that demand mass to be held entirely naked and did not believe in marriage:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adamites

Finding one that revered blindness as a way to "get away from the distraction of the material world" should be doable for any Religious student. It could even be limited to as little as one monestary, but you will propably find it.

PDCWolf

My biggest gripe right now with the DLC is the lack of mutability and any sort of general dynamic to ideoligions. Like yeah, there are other issues with some memes and precepts being no brainers if you want to go optimal, but I'd prefer dynamics first rather than "balance". Here's my point:

Both religions and ideologies have mutated greatly with time, and when they haven't directly changed themselves, they've at least split into different branches that deviate from the same base. This is easily exemplified by current religions like Christianism with at least 2 major identifiable divisions and many subdivisions inside those. To that, add the fact of it's core beliefs changing as time went on, from burning Giordano Bruno on the stake for suggesting the dots in the sky might be other stars with their own planets, to having to accept that forcefully as to not fall into retrograde ignorance.

Ideoligions should be either allowed to change, or forcefully evolve and/or split into branches.

I'd also love being able to introduce new ideoligions into the same world, which is something that RimWorld really fails at: worldbuilding. For such a narrative oriented game, there's little you can do to alter the world other than pick a seed and a couple parameters, and there's literally zero to do once the game has started.

Bolgfred

Quote from: PDCWolf on August 01, 2021, 06:20:49 PM
I'd also love being able to introduce new ideoligions into the same world, which is something that RimWorld really fails at: worldbuilding. For such a narrative oriented game, there's little you can do to alter the world other than pick a seed and a couple parameters, and there's literally zero to do once the game has started.

That's a pretty solid point. At now the only effect you have on the world is destroying villages, which barely has an effect aswell as it doesn't change anything happening in the game(if faction a doesn't exist, faction b will replace it).

Furthermore none of the Memeshave a real effect on Factions aswell.  There are many ways to dislike you, but none leads to a diplomatic change.
In the other way, no meme will make others like you more, like nudists like nudists or cannicals or treelovers might fraternize, but they don't.
As far as I tested, none of the meds will influence goodwill in a positive way.


Actually none of the memes really influence anything in a enjoyable way. I tried some combinations which looked promising, but I never picked another route in gameplay as I used to be: same base layout, same colonist roles, same mid- and endgame- goals.

Some examples:
Supremacist/Raider
=> Soldier Expert is stronger overall, but doesn't change my game. I still use the same combat stereotypes and weapons as before.
=> Raiding-Options are limited. You cannot specialise in raiding as the amount of opportunities are fixed.  And (mostly) raid for the buff, not for the loot.
=> Slaves.. I didn't tried too hard, but I don't see any advantage in them. they are normal colonists with a very unpredictable and dangerous tantrum behaviour(rebellion).

Tree Connection
=> Gaunthlean trees look beautiful and cute and such, but maintaining them is a hassle and doesn't harmonize with gameplay at all. its a very workstation outside your base, offering workforce similar of 2-3 huskies for a pawn 100% busy. Integrating the trees into you base layout is possible but offers no benefit.
=> 'Trees: Desired' doesn't influence my gameplay aswell. I build the same base as usual but replace some statues with trees. While using stone walls I still remove nature for placing my base
=> Farming Specialist doesn't chance anything aswell. I still plant the same stuff as always, as growth time and temperature are still the dominating factors which I care about.

Animal Personhood
You cannot hunt or butcher. Thats it.
=> Same Animals are useful as before
=> Same Animals are useless as before
=> herding carnivores is even more of a hassle as they must feed themselves independent.
=> Making bonds requires animal skill. The time needed for raising the skill is exorbitantly high for the mood buff of bonding.
=> Animals still sleep in the same shabby barns, even as being "equal" to humans.

...
I could continue with all memes I guess. The Argumentation of Tynan Memes, are being for role-play mostly, I think it's much easier to roleplay these things without using them as they only offer annoying limitations and no inspiration or beneficial options which would underline a roleplay aspect.



Some cool Ideas in my eyes would be things like Animal specialist being able to train animals for combat/hauling that couldn't be trained. E.g. Squirrels, or giving them special training options like self-shearing, super-nuzzling, dirtyness-nullification. If a muffalo can be trained to clean my base, I would have hundreds of them inside my bedroom instead of a barn.
Similar things would be..
Plant specialist being able to protect plants from cold damage or grow trees as defense structures or traps, maybe gain 5000% on planting chocolate trees.
High life could give an option to use drugs you rarely use. E.g. While you're high on smokeleaf(30% or more) you cannot get chemical damage and 50% or more will prevent luciferum madness....
Blindsight offering a psypower called... well "blindsight", which temporary buffs sight and a ritual which give permantly offer sight but drain psycraft faster, or simply offer sight % equal to psypower level... or whatever.


I am pretty sure Tynan did write something in his book like "if it's not fun remove it. If it doesn't change gameplay remove it."
"The earth has only been lent to us,
but no one has said anything about returning."
-J.R. Van Devil

AileTheAlien

#7
Having played with a few of the memes and precepts this week, they all seem to fall into three broad categories for me: reward strategies that are already dominant (i.e. make an easy playstyle even easier), increase the difficulty without a new way to play to circumvent it, or ones that barely affect the game. For example, the blindness meme is basically a mood debuff, unless you make everyone nearly useless at most skills (warden, trading, a bit of animals, and psychic are unaffected). Or the techno-whatever, that just rewards the default behavior of cyber-jacking everyone up to their eyeballs. Or the tunneler or darkness memes, which reward mountain bases, which were already very powerful until insect infestations got buffed back in the day. (They're still a decent strategy if you can manage the bugs.) Or you take the pain meme and remember that combat is 25% weapon-range management, and 75% pain management.

And the furniture styles, that force everything to be The One True Way. Even if I enjoyed the styles for each item type (which I don't), I'd actually rather have the 'normal' boring styles most of the time, and reserve the rest for my shrines, social rooms, etc. But I don't get a choice.

The new items to build and trade - those are about the only things I consistently enjoy. (But they're locked the the aformentioned memes, so...)

Zeyson

Hi,
I've read every post in here so far and have to say Thank You! I'm feeling exactly the same and want to share some of my thoughts about this. Initially I came to this forum to report an annoying bug and get some answers wether some mechanics are intented or just buggy - the answer is yet not given to me. And while waiting I found this thread and got hocked to tell my experience so far.
Ideology or even 1.3 made the game a lot harder (animal mechanic, early moods, breacher) and i'm telling this from an "I only play loosing is fun" perspective. I'm really struggling with the game at the moment (motivation-wise) while hitting 1000 hours playtime recently...but let's start with a bigger problem that I have.
I was very excited for the new ending and have yet not finished it, but made a bit of progress.

---SPOILER incoming!---

While selling your base and everything is kinda interessting, it seems so unrewarding and the thing that kinda killed it for me is the loss of your research. Like WHY? Imagine research is based on plans and building instructions ok, maybe loose some of the advanced research projects but everything resets? You sell your base, you move on and by that you forget how to cook a meal (packaged survival meal)? Rimworld was - while still being a game - somewhat realistic. Bullets hurt, sleeping regenerates and you need food in order to not starve. But if I sell my house, move to another country I wont loose the knowledge to cook chicken or rice. I think you get the point. Atleast basic research stuff should remain let's say until microelectronics. And why 5 people? Do the others leave voluntarely? Do I also "sell" them? Do they want to stay at the old base? It would be totally fine if there was only space for 5 people in the shuttle or wha ever, but you could atleast be able to form a caravan with the remaining colonists and let them walk to the new location.

---SPOILER end---

Personally I like to the style of Transhumanist as i always like to improve things like working speed, moving speed etc. so I was lucky that you can now get mood buffs for all colonists while not changing my playstyle, BUT at what cost?
Transhumanist are unavailable for 5 days every 60 days at what benefit? It's a basic need and gets nothing in return, although your colonists stop aging, but this doesn't seem right. Aging was never a problem - for me - You can pretty much revert all aging effects through the game, so I don't see a benefit and on top of that most colonies don't last longer then like 15 years and you don't really have a lot of aging effects anyway.
I know its a challenge and not everything bad should have a rewarding counterpart, but what about +1 mood for 45 days or +2 mood for 30 days after the age reversal, just to show it is necessary, affects them and they also like it. I mean there a alot of new mood debuffs that have been added to the game.. looking at you "two higher levels of expectations for roles" that others already mentioned. And what about the "Transhumanist" trait that got reworked... For the ideology it's +1 for a bionic limb for everyone (capped at 4 if I remember correct)? Even the old "Transhumanist" trait was way better and now it even got nerfed. Why does there have to be a cap when it's buff (+1) is so low?

And yes I also think some low impact memes have actually more powerful rolls than high impact memes and there have actually a higher impact.

But I also agree with the "tree problem" Yes, it might be a super hard challenge to play Tree lovers in the jungle or rainforest, but as others mentioned... cutting trees is bad, but planting trees doesn't get you anything in return? This doesn't sound right to me or even logical.

With all the bad things, there are also good things. I love the darkness thing. I think it's totally reasonable and balanced. And im telling this form a non mountain base playthrough. You get debuffs for light, either mood or fighting accuracy and you get buffs for darkness in return -  totally fine, something new and fascinating, also the darklight mechanic.

These are just my 2 cents to this "discussion" and I really hope that there will be more changes in the future as I think some of the new content just isn't Rimworld anymore to me.

kind regars,
Zeyson

AileTheAlien

OK, this week I tried a few more memes, and have found some good ones: pain is virtue and tree connection. The reason is not their more obvious precepts, but Rough Living (welcomed) and Temperature (tough). That lets you have everyone sleep outdoors in many environments, which will save you a lot of space for the walls and doors normally spent on bedrooms. You'll also save a lot of resources by not needing beds or temperature control. So you'll be able to fit everyone jigsaw-style into the nooks and crannys of a tiny base, which is easier to maintain and defend! (Plus, it seems like Guaranlan trees are more space-efficient for food and medicine production, and they give a lot of beauty with their ground-carpeting moss. Also, they can grow on sand without any problems, so they're really great for desert tribes!  : )

SeminarCaviar

This is a good read. Thank you for answering these.