Concerned about endgame

[ttgg]

Hi. I'm a pretty new player so apologies if I missed something.

Basically I have a colony running with around 15-20 colonists. Doing fine. However the pirate raiding parties are getting absurdly large and I'm wondering if it's just going to continue that way, snowballing into some crazy invasion?

Are there plans to make the endgame a bit more varied or is the objective just to rush a Spaceship before getting overrun by the endless pirate horde?

[Kinakin]

Iirc the game is not balanced beyond the first year or two but things like raids continue to scale.

Im guessing tynan is working on developing the core/basic mechanics more before adding more end game content. In order to avoid having to drastically having to change them as features are added.

[christhekiller]

You could build a killbox. A simple one could get you running to like year 3 or 4. And if you release enough captives then all the hostile enemies will stop attacking you after awhile, though, this does make the game rather boring imo.

[Halinder]

However, even if you make everyone friendly to you, you can still be assaulted by mechanoids. Whether you prefer raiders/tribals over mechanoids is your choice, though.

[Tynan]

It's currently not really designed as an eternal-play game. It may get there some day but these sorts of things take time.

[Noobshock]

I really wish that was "it will" instead of "it may", because everyone and their dog playing this game is going to want to make their favorite colony last as long as possible. If that's not part of the design intent, :/

If you build a good story generator that more or less arbitrarily stop around say 6 or 7 years because spaceship exit, this will be one massive troll of a game Not that it would stop it from being good but. Yeah.

[Tynan]

"Eternal play" is quite a goal to promise to people. I'm conservative when it comes to promises. I think it makes you more credible in the long run.

[Arenji]

Some alternative endings might be fun, such as leaving on a mission to try to take out the bases of all the raiders. If it were possible to tech up to the point where you have accurate laser weapons and rocket launchers it would be rather satisfying to take one's pawns into a pirate base and eliminate them all. The ship escape is a satisfying ending (and I do like that there's an ending) but one or two more endings would be even better! Perhaps a boss fight, or an invasion by all tribes at once in a massive shoot out. Or...

[akiceabear]

"Eternal play" is quite a goal to promise to people. I'm conservative when it comes to promises. I think it makes you more credible in the long run.

+1

Clearly RimWorld is a game where the player's own creativity and goal setting can enrich the game quite a bit. In my view this a great feature.

That said, it would be nice if there were a few more branches on the tree out of the colony. In addition to research/building paths in that direction, I think it would be nice if colonists had strong personality inclinations towards certain paths. For example, a "Homesick" trait could slowly increase mental instability over time if there is limited progress towards the space ship. Having a few possible "end game" states (rather than eternal play!) and characters with varying inclinations towards them could increase the tension in latter years, eventually forcing some type of end that is not related to raiders. (Note that this could be due to internal strife, not just successful escape!)

What I think would help a lot with the endgame satisfaction without changing the game much itself is a better "game summary" screen after a colony population drops to zero. Perhaps this is already being pursued with the "Tale" system. One possible iteration of this is that the game could take a screenshot every hour (?) of your home base, and creating a video at the end to summarize the growth of your colony, including some normal speed portions during major events (e.g. damage within a day is X factor of total colony health - so big raids would be captured, but not a squirrel hunt). This could be done without heavy text annotations, and if exportable could help support more "casual" players in sharing their experiences (and viewing others, too!) with brief narration (rather than full blown Lets Plays). I think this kind of tool would encourage more creative scenario playing, given you could very easily be sharing your unique play-through with the world.

[Endoric]

Eternal play....  Anyone ever see the longest game of sid meyers civilization ever?  I have so many hours of game time, so many colonies and never have i built a ship.

I have fun and just do not want to leave.

[TheSilencedScream]

Eternal play....  Anyone ever see the longest game of sid meyers civilization ever?  I have so many hours of game time, so many colonies and never have i built a ship.

I have fun and just do not want to leave.

This is essentially my stance on RimWorld. I'm one to get attached to my colonists and don't want to end the game. I like to keep going as long as possible, but it eventually hits the point where 3/4 of my colonists are idle and I'm simply waiting for the next raider wave, to see if it's a real threat.

I don't necessarily want ETERNAL play, but I'd like to see some long term (2-3 year) options. With a moderator researcher and a few miners, I can have everything researched and check out an entire 325x325 map in just a few months.

[Noobshock]

The main thing is there aren't any serious threats besides raider waves as of now. The game just needs more events that can really throw off a well-established, "comfortable" colony (basically a large enough pool of events that scale well into "late" game). If that's feasible, then "eternal" play is really not that hypothetical and even pretty reasonable to think of.

And when it comes to creativity with events, I'm not sure the sky's the limit but close enough.

[Wolfen Waffle]

correct me if I'm wrong but raids are scaled to your relative power, so theoretically if you deconstruct some turrets the raids should spawn in smaller numbers

[akiceabear]

correct me if I'm wrong but raids are scaled to your relative power, so theoretically if you deconstruct some turrets the raids should spawn in smaller numbers

The main thing is there aren't any serious threats besides raider waves as of now. The game just needs more events that can really throw off a well-established, "comfortable" colony (basically a large enough pool of events that scale well into "late" game). If that's feasible, then "eternal" play is really not that hypothetical and even pretty reasonable to think of.

And when it comes to creativity with events, I'm not sure the sky's the limit but close enough.

I think it is correct that raider waves are scaled to wealth of the colony, so those will become more challenging. I agree that what is needed is additional types of events scaling with time/wealth beyond just raid sizes. I mention a few possibilities in another thread, but it could include new raid types, weather/natural disasters, internal strife, the combination of multiple events at once, etc. Anything to throw equilibrium off, even for those that have a very secure-kill-box-mountain-fortress.

[TheSilencedScream]

I can't find it now, but Tynan's posted once or twice about what affects the number of raiders.

The list included (off the top of my mind):
-Number of colonists you have
-Wealth (both stockpiled and built - which would include turrets as well, I believe)
-Time since you've started