Dead bodies, Backpacks, Forest Types, Heath Fire Protection

[BaneStar]

I do like the game, but It does seem to be a bit hard to get past some 'start locations'

E.g. I'm in a forested area, nothing around me to eat, sure there is a river and I have the fishing pole, but I'm apparently just too dumb to use it. (not me, the character) I have 4 bread, to survive.

As a Game, I think this starts ok, except,.. how do I survive once my bread is gone? I understand its still Alpha, and we have to suffer a few dead characters (Dwarf Fortress anyone?) to understand how to get going. So how about making that opening bit, just a tad easier?

Firstly.. Bone Saws, and Bone Hooks,,. unless I can actually fight a creature, which I've yet been unable to do, How else can I get such things..

Answer? Dead Animals? Animal types attack animal types, which results in dead bodies.. maybe some left-over meat (cook out the germs? disguise with curry?) and some bones to use in the early days of the game, make the quality low for now, so players will eventually rather better quality bone.

Second, Are we supposed to stand still where we arrive? what if we use our dream for a heath fire? how do we get another? I get the impression from the forums, that travelling away from your opening location is the smarter idea, but without a decent bag to carry stuff around in, I'm looking already like, well. I supposed before I become an adventurer, I need to make a backpack.. yet the skill set required is Soooo much higher than I can possibly make.

Which raises the question.. where did my clothes come from? why am I not naked? oh thats right, I was given some things at the start.. well.. why not give over a backpack for storage? and then allow later in the game for bigger backpacks, which hold more weight, etc.. then use the same code set and DB for carts, carriages, etc.. Sacks, Things that transport goods (i.e., not furniture)

Third, Forest Types... the problem I have, & therefore others might too, but not have the patience to play longer, is that food is hard to get.. Unless I leave my heath fire and go into the big bad world, I don;t know where it is.. and I'll starve to death..

The idea that might work, is to 'spawn' an apple tree (biblical reference) in the players starting location... this allows the player a readied source of food, so you might not even need the opening bread items.

Also, The tree types seriously hampers what you can do, without birch trees, you can't fish, make cups, without fir, you cannot make a bed.. why bother to have the skills for something you cannot even do?

and the last idea.. I understand that you have some kind of safe zone, but it requires 4000LP to gain the skills for, even if this is a total.. its a hefty amount for a newb, Maybe instead, the Heath fire, has a 3x3 radius around it, which people have to 'break the law' to be able to steal from..

The ideas I present are to help out the beginning player, but also it helps the community as a whole, more accessable game = more players = better future. It might even bring more prosperity, i.e. with a starting food tree for each new account, theres a slight increase in the ammount of food, also players don;t NEED to get "the Will to Power" which leads to skills for theft etc, so the likely hood of griefers will be lower (also you could increase the LP cost for this skill, further reducing the griefer count,

[burgingham]

Maybe you should read up on the "How do I?" stickies and the wiki before proposing stuff like this in here. Most things you think are impossible for a newb to do in fact are not. I will just pick one example: bones. You do not have to hunt down big game to get a bone, simply catching a rabbit or a chicken will do the task.

You might need to buy some 200lp skills for doing most of the stuff you mentioned, but since you can make 1k lp just by gathering branches, which costs no stamina (and thus almost no hunger), this is fairly easy to achieve.

[Nanothnir]

Oh this idiot needs a nudge in the right way to even find his nose. And even then he would need directions to find his finger to touch it...

Here, this is the Tutorial created for the playerbase by a player...
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3196

[BaneStar]

Ignoring the 'idiot' comment,

As a fellow games designer, I find it important to make sure the gradiant curve of player discovery vs difficulty to need to rise quickly at first and then slow down as the game progresses so that the average user will at least give it a go, and rather than quitting early because they just can't be asked to try harder, instead become more immersed into the game itself in the early end of the game, and then try to do more difficult things later when they already have emotional attachment to the game (i.e. I allready spent 100 hours playing, I'm not going to quit just because I can't find a blue flower)

Also, the average player is not going to go to the forums, nor Wiki (I myself was unaware of the wiki until you mentioned it here.. and yet, I don;t see an Obvious link to it on the game homepage) Its standard game design practice, cater the first 10 minutes to children, the next 20 to teenagers and assume an adult audience for the rest of the game.. not doing so scares off a bulk of your potential market.

In that frame of mine, I presented, what was for my first 15 minutes of play, obvious challenges, without obvious answers. If the game designers don;t think that my personal ideas are worth a hoot, they should be clever enough to at least identify the underlying problem and research how common the problem is, and rectify if necessary. Game problems in the first 15 minutes is the most critical audience, without it, you have a very limited scope.

[Haba]

I think it is a conscious decision by the devs. The game is in early alpha, and things are constantly changing (there is a reason that you start with a fishing rod that you cant fish with...). Early game can be improved in great deal by some minor adjustments, but the adjustments themselves are of such nature that future changes would require additional adjustments ad nauseam.

And when you look at the fact that we're already struggling with 300 active users... I'd fathom the devs don't have much incentive to lower the early learning curve. What they need at the moment are dedicated players who are willing to live with the quirks the game has in it's currect form.

[RamenNoodle]

The only official guide is the How-to link on the main page, and that is seriously out of date. Months ago when the devs had this pointed out to them, they replied that they would rather spend their time in game developing and personal play testing than in writing and re-writing and re-writing the manual. This actually makes a lot of sense. Not only does H & H have an interesting learning curve, but most weekends the devs release a new feature -and suddenly everything we do is often turned upside down. Many of the changes they make have been significantly game changing so that players themselves are scrambling to keep up and learn to play.

So it has been left up to the players to write the unofficial manuals -and we end up hard pressed to keep up with the changes ourselves. Since none of it is dev approved it is all unofficial although they have been good enough to put a sticky on Jackard's Noobie guide in the "How Do I" section of the forum.

It's worth nothing that the dev's are both students doing this as a hobby, and I believe paid employment has been mentioned as another occupation that takes up their time. Marketing is definitely not high on their priorities. It took a lot of agitating on the part of the players for them even to put in a "Donate" button.

It's hard on new players only having trial and error and no tutorial to guide them. You're darn right about that.

[sabinati]

I do like the game, but It does seem to be a bit hard to get past some 'start locations'

E.g. I'm in a forested area, nothing around me to eat, sure there is a river and I have the fishing pole, but I'm apparently just too dumb to use it. (not me, the character) I have 4 bread, to survive.

the first skills one should buy are foraging and fishing, then one can survive in any start location. this will cost 400 LP but using these skills gets you food and LP

As a Game, I think this starts ok, except,.. how do I survive once my bread is gone? I understand its still Alpha, and we have to suffer a few dead characters (Dwarf Fortress anyone?) to understand how to get going. So how about making that opening bit, just a tad easier?

...

Firstly.. Bone Saws, and Bone Hooks,,. unless I can actually fight a creature, which I've yet been unable to do, How else can I get such things..

Answer? Dead Animals? Animal types attack animal types, which results in dead bodies.. maybe some left-over meat (cook out the germs? disguise with curry?) and some bones to use in the early days of the game, make the quality low for now, so players will eventually rather better quality bone.

foxes attack rabbits so without even spending the 200 LP that would allow you to catch and kill a rabbit or chicken you can find a dead rabbit sometimes

Second, Are we supposed to stand still where we arrive? what if we use our dream for a heath fire? how do we get another? I get the impression from the forums, that travelling away from your opening location is the smarter idea, but without a decent bag to carry stuff around in, I'm looking already like, well. I supposed before I become an adventurer, I need to make a backpack.. yet the skill set required is Soooo much higher than I can possibly make.

the skill hearth magic allows you to build a dreamcatcher to catch more dreams. when you start out you really don't have that many things to carry around with you so the backpack is not that neccessary. your goal should be exploring for a place to settle.

Which raises the question.. where did my clothes come from? why am I not naked? oh thats right, I was given some things at the start.. well.. why not give over a backpack for storage? and then allow later in the game for bigger backpacks, which hold more weight, etc.. then use the same code set and DB for carts, carriages, etc.. Sacks, Things that transport goods (i.e., not furniture)

it should only take a couple days of playing to be able to make your backpack

Third, Forest Types... the problem I have, & therefore others might too, but not have the patience to play longer, is that food is hard to get.. Unless I leave my heath fire and go into the big bad world, I don;t know where it is.. and I'll starve to death..

again, you need foraging, and fishing, and you need to explore.

The idea that might work, is to 'spawn' an apple tree (biblical reference) in the players starting location... this allows the player a readied source of food, so you might not even need the opening bread items.

you'd only be able to get 5 apples though?

Also, The tree types seriously hampers what you can do, without birch trees, you can't fish, make cups, without fir, you cannot make a bed.. why bother to have the skills for something you cannot even do?

why can't you fish without birch trees? i agree the lack of water container at the start is a bit of a problem but after you catch a rabbit you can make a waterskin after drying the skin on a rack, so at most you have to go a day or so. and you don't need water to survive, just to regen stamina, not a huge deal. i agree that the elm boughs should function the same as fir boughs for building a lean-to or bed so that these are buildable in both types of forest

and the last idea.. I understand that you have some kind of safe zone, but it requires 4000LP to gain the skills for, even if this is a total.. its a hefty amount for a newb, Maybe instead, the Heath fire, has a 3x3 radius around it, which people have to 'break the law' to be able to steal from..

lean-to holds two containers and protects those containers from theft

The ideas I present are to help out the beginning player, but also it helps the community as a whole, more accessable game = more players = better future. It might even bring more prosperity, i.e. with a starting food tree for each new account, theres a slight increase in the ammount of food, also players don;t NEED to get "the Will to Power" which leads to skills for theft etc, so the likely hood of griefers will be lower (also you could increase the LP cost for this skill, further reducing the griefer count,

my comments in red, obviously. the early game has changed a lot in the past couple of months, and as other people have said, the devs are busy developing, and not documenting. as ramennoodle said, jackard made and has updated an excellent introduction thread in the how do i? forum.

[theTrav]

my comments in red

because you hate us and want our eyes to bleed >_<

the first skills one should buy are foraging and fishing, then one can survive in any start location. this will cost 400 LP but using these skills gets you food and LP

One or both of these should be given to new characters OR they should be the only options for spending the first bit of LP on. (maybe hunting should be included as well...)

foxes attack rabbits so without even spending the 200 LP that would allow you to catch and kill a rabbit or chicken you can find a dead rabbit sometimes

I could be wrong but I think you need hunting to butcher the dead animal

when you start out you really don't have that many things to carry around with you so the backpack is not that neccessary. your goal should be exploring for a place to settle.

Agreed, additionally, by forcing the player to construct their own backpacks they are infinitely more appreciative of it's extra capacity.

lean-to holds two containers and protects those containers from theft

[/quote]
Again, I'm not 100% certain on this, but I'm pretty sure in order for a lean-to to be theft proof you need to put ONE container in it, and a bed, and then be sleeping in it... I still think this is sufficient for new players though


In general I think the game has become a lot friendlier to new players than it used to be. My biggest issue with it now is that the skill tree needs a lot of work to nudge new players into selecting the right skills with their first LP rather than buying stoneworking thinking "awesome IMA MAKE A CASTLE!" and having to grind away on some boring task so they can get a skill which will keep them fed.

[BaneStar]

I want to make clear, I didn't want to ask that the Dev's make a game guide, far from it, I like games that chuck you in the deep end, and expect you to swim. But at the same time, as a designer, I can see that if your in a room that has no doors, no windows, no trapdoors, no exists, and are told to exit the room, it can be very frustrating, and the average user will quit within 5 minutes.

The fishing pole makes sense if making one yourself does not actually exist, or is so difficult you'll be dead before that, as for foraging, I've yet to find anything which allows me to forage it. My character is on the verge of death .. I've chopped down over 20 trees to get XP enough to buy some skills, improving my scores to attempt to find food, but nothing yet. So I decided to visit the forums to find answers, and still haven't.

In response to the concept of naturally dead rabbits, sure, that would be great.. IF it happened often enough that I could have found one by now.. for some reason I cannot punch a rabbit to death, even though its sitting still, and even then, surely skinning is a skill, how many people do you know that can actually skin a rabbit.

The Tree only has 5 apples, fine.. I only start with 4 bread if memory serves correctly, AND eventually it will replenish the apples for the future travellers starving to death... (me)

I like that the Lean-to is a 'safe spot' If I knew already, I would not have mentioned it, If I could build one easily, I would have done so already, but without having the time to go check, memory serves its not so easy if you have the wrong tree's nearby.

Longer term, I might suggest abandoning all the clothes and players should start naked, if in the forest, or clothed at a parents house, according to parents level of skills when the character was created. but for the moment, I'm just throwing out the ideas, and seeing what sticks..

I get now that realistically, since I have 16 items I can carry, I sort of have a kind of backpack already, technically, I should only be able to carry two medium or 1 heavy item.

All said, Kudos to the games developers, I've put word in about this game to a few of the guys in our labs, and we'd like to see this take off as a game, pushing the genre out there with dwarf fortress.

[theTrav]

I can see that if your in a room that has no doors, no windows, no trapdoors, no exists, and are told to exit the room, it can be very frustrating, and the average user will quit within 5 minutes.

I think I've played that game... It was pretty awesome