Game Development: Cigar Box

[OIchi]

Let me put some of my random thoughts on the mater.

Lets start with saying that this game is designed for endless stat/ql race and taking it away would make many players quit dependless if they would admit it now or not. Stat caps would make characters more of a disposable thing and would promote alts(once you hit cap you'll make another char to hit the cap with).

When it comes gap in strength of characters imho best solution is just make the bonus curve stepper instead of doubling the starter damage at 40 str double it at 90.

I feel that the game becomes more and more punishing, I think it's a bad direction. No one wants to be punished for no reason, that is why there is so much h8 on forums.
I like the idea of allowing to finish more quests to players whos stats are below top.

My idea is to rework hunger based on those two things.
You'll get 300%/200% bonus for all FEP values until you rise your stats by x points, bonus restores daily and amount of stats gains depends on how far you are from top players. eg 4 stat gains for top player and 16 for fresh char, after that back to 100% fep gain No more punishing for eating foods with bad hunger-fep ratio, instead reward for eating every day.

About satiation, put a limit on how far down they can go and I beg of you remove RNG from satiations.
Make it so ppl want to eat different kinds of food instead of having to.
My idea is every time your satiation deceases by 1 point another random increases by that one point.
The bottom is 50% an top 125%, every point above 100% would be worth 0.5%.
Get rewarded for eating all kinds of food and do not be too severely punished for eating what you have.

[MagicManICT]

this game is designed for endless stat/ql race

Is it really, though? neither jorb nor loftar have come out and said this. Their actions and development style has leaned in this direction, but as of yet, several other mechanics and attempts at balance have indicated quite the opposite.

taking it away would make many players quit dependless if they would admit it now or not

Probably. if that's all they're here for, maybe they're in the wrong game.

Stat caps would make characters more of a disposable thing and would promote alts(once you hit cap you'll make another char to hit the cap with).

Maybe true. The one experiment with it here, i think the caps were too low, and not enough experimenting was done, nor enough math to figure out the "best way" to implement an effective cap.

[OIchi]

this game is designed for endless stat/ql race

Is it really, though? neither jorb nor loftar have come out and said this. Their actions and development style has leaned in this direction, but as of yet, several other mechanics and attempts at balance have indicated quite the opposite.

Yeah no one confirmed it, but the game is how it is and all recent changes(setting aside one failed attempt of capping stats) just make the progression slower and hit the gap between weak and strong but it is not making any changes against endless race, in fact making the gap smaller contributes to the race.

taking it away would make many players quit dependless if they would admit it now or not

Probably. if that's all they're here for, maybe they're in the wrong game.

And maybe the are in the right game since they play for it for so long and they are having fun. What else makes the game right?

Stat caps would make characters more of a disposable thing and would promote alts(once you hit cap you'll make another char to hit the cap with).

Maybe true. The one experiment with it here, i think the caps were too low, and not enough experimenting was done, nor enough math to figure out the "best way" to implement an effective cap.

Experiment failed, had negative impact so got stopped, what do you want to experiment with without finding solution to problems that appeared?

I would rather have you finding flaws in my ideas.

[OIchi]

Until Jorb and Loftar state what they want with this game, the best we can do is to support with ideas based on it's current state and what we think is the best for it.
Abandoning ideas just because we don't know if they would like it is counterproductive.
Provide them with options for all directions should make it easier for them, they will use it if they like it, adjust it to their liking or come with their own ideas.
And after all we are the ones that play this game, so we have to pull in the direction we want it to go.

[MagicManICT]

Hunger itself is a flawed mechanic as a time gate. Why should i bother trying to poke any holes in it when it's as simple as that? it was flawed in legacy because people simply gamed the system by botting away the hunger bar so they could eat more. People game it now to stay in or as close to the 3x multiplier. Just get rid of the stupid thing. We have satiations that help cap the amount of food one can eat in a session and limit stat growth. If anyone "feels" hunger must be kept (despite not actually doing anything other than penalizing players who can't play the "hunger games"), then nuke the damn bonuses all together.

And no, the caps weren't a "failure" so much as they weren't high enough given the system they were capping. They were hit in, what, two months, three at most? There's too many other flaws in the system to declare the caps themselves a failure without corrections in other systems first--combat, siege, etc.

[Agrik]

This rabbit hole is quite offtopic but whatever:

1a) Starting earlier should give player an advantage.
1b) Players should be able to catch up no matter how late they start.

2a) Playing more should give an advantage
2b) Casual players should have a chance against nolifers.

That's a rabbit hole, yes...
I daresay a) variants are not much a game. Both of them use external conditions as winning, or at least, superiority criteria, doing no more than preferring one people group to another. In particular:

1a) means that the time of decision to enter a game should affect its outcome. Why? What's the point to make a game that alters player's experience based on the real life decision to enter it? I don't see what good it does to a gameplay, it's hardly a competition at all, but will outright decrease number of sane players willing to enter or reenter (permadeath, huh?) the game as the time goes. Because they have the option not to enter the game at all. They are free to simply mark game as bad and uninteresting if presented with disadvantage even before entering that game. Unfortunately, many of those who already agreed to such a "competition" will cry and threat and demand to keep their snowballing advantage until the point no one else would like to play with them. Then wipe comes. Because there was no real base under this advantage, it was just an arbitrarily given preference.

2a) represents more complex problem. Well, time do often comes with an advantage, but there is significant thing in between: overcoming some challenge with mental and physical efforts. Time is inevitably needed as a resource, so nothing can be achieved without time spent, but this by no way means that time itself creates advantage. To think, spent time is actually a downside (!) of achieving. We are given a limited time span of our life and a virtually unlimited number of things to solve and achieve. Thus all the real tasks and challenges usually revolve around achieving more in less time. I hold this as a proper way to set game tasks as well: focus on deeds and reward them while holding time spent as a disadvantage if anything. Whereas throwing a deed, an accomplishment itself, out of window and placing a downside as a rewarded upside is... turning things upside down. A competition in the quantity of time one can afford to throw into a virtual time sink is not a competition in ingame activity. This competition is already won or lost by the time you enter a game, so again, why?

[pppp]

...

In short, a basic counter argument to a) variants is, similar to what you wrote: "why even bother starting if I have already lost" (because of being late, having less time)
and to b) variants is "why do more if I could win doing less" (because as you wrote time is the most valuable resource).

Both may lead to playing less or not at all. Given same amount of time I'd chose short period of nolifing in the late world rather than steady playing over whole server lifetime. Which is of course dumb RL-wise and fun-wise but optimal under <time spent>/<final result> criteria. (fun-wise meaning I have fixed amount of time for all playing over whole period and playing other games does not affect the calculation).

We are given a limited time span of our life and a virtually unlimited number of things to solve and achieve. Thus all the real tasks and challenges usually revolve around achieving more in less time.

Yeah. That's a variant of the backpack problem. Incidentally I was thinking along similar lines in the context of character aging. So the single char would be limited in it's lifetime and number of various actions taken. That would cause optimal game play to be treated as a backpack problem too.

[Agrik]

and to b) variants is "why do more if I could win doing less" (because as you wrote time is the most valuable resource).

You can't win doing less, if the gameplay is focused on deeds. Solving, achieving, finding. I'm sorry my English is probably not good enough to pick one exact word to describe. The troubles to choose have roots in confusing spent time with accomplished tasks, and substituting sometimes one with another. They are not the same.

But you can win by achieving more results while spending less time, that is essentially catching up.

Yeah. That's a variant of the backpack problem. Incidentally I was thinking along similar lines in the context of character aging. So the single char would be limited in it's lifetime and number of various actions taken. That would cause optimal game play to be treated as a backpack problem too.

That's sounds dreadful, but, yes. As I see it, the way to have a stable game world is decay, wear and aging. Devaluation at least, but explicitly devaluing old items by means of creating new ones places excess workload on devs, while old work would be dumped in a trashbox even though progression (1-2-5 dumped)10-20-50-100-200-500 have no difference from 1-2-5-10-20-50 for a newcomer. Anything else won't save from decay and death, but only compress it the form of inevitable needed game session wipe.

[pppp]

To clarify "Doing less".
Suppose we have a game where one has to go through stages 1-2-3-4-5. An early comer would go through all the stages. A late comer would buy stage 3 and would grind through stage 4 to be first at stage 5. Translating to W10 environment it would be like buying a 3k anvil+hammer and then mass spiraling metal to beat the current leader. ( I know, bots, setups, workforce, etc)
In terms of both spending time and achieving it is less total because the late comer did not have to grind form 0 to 3k and only beelined to the final result.
That of course depends on mentality, what does matter more: the way or the destination ? How intermediate objectives are valued in the eyes of players and spectators ?

[Agrik]

To clarify "Doing less".
Suppose we have a game where one has to go through stages 1-2-3-4-5. An early comer would go through all the stages. A late comer would buy stage 3 and would grind through stage 4 to be first at stage 5. Translating to W10 environment it would be like buying a 3k anvil+hammer and then mass spiraling metal to beat the current leader. ( I know, bots, setups, workforce, etc)
In terms of both spending time and achieving it is less total because the late comer did not have to grind form 0 to 3k and only beelined to the final result.
That of course depends on mentality, what does matter more: the way or the destination ? How intermediate objectives are valued in the eyes of players and spectators ?

The only "destination" of a game (again, as I see it) is a player's experience, in the sense that human who played becomes more experienced in acting in some circumstances and solving some kinds of problems. If we exclude from consideration those who use the game merely as a way to take real-life advantage (i.e. RMT) of people who overly value their image of becoming a winner in any competition regardless how stupid that competition is. And that "experience" "destination" coincides with just participating in a "way", fortunately.

So I don't quite understand the story about "stages". Stages to where? Ending the game? Winning in... what? Feel free to point me being wrong, but where do spiraling metal have a point of finding a solution to a problem or need to think at all? Isn't it "wash, rinse, repeat", where everything is already known beforehand, and the "way" through these stages is just... to spend time on the already known algorithm?

By achieving I mean overcoming a problem, finding a method to successfully accomplish a task, not the fact of being granted with some bytes by the devs. Because if we want to discuss the game design, the question is what's the reason for these bytes to be granted. Happiness of a recipient alone isn't enough because it comes at the cost of other becoming a bit less happy. Because qualities (and quantities...) are relative.