Game Development: Ancestral Ropewalk

[MrBunzy]

We are considering disabling seasons. Winter (and spring) remove a fair bit of content -- whole core game loops -- we have no easy fix for that, and it seems to hurt a fair bit more than intended. We're considering reworking seasonality to be a map local thing, rather than a server wide event, but that is a bigger project. Eternal summer? Let us know what you think.

I actually really like winter, especially since it was shortened. A few days of playing with your sleds every once in a while is fun. Also no complaints about fall, the leaves everywhere are pretty and mushrooms are nice. Honestly I think it's just spring that sucks. Get rid of the shitty parts of spring and it'd be fine. (no seeds, no critters spawning, splotchy patches of ice that take forever to melt and leave rivers unusable, etc)

[azrid]

great update tbh

[shubla]

Could just separate discovery LP from craft discoveries.

I think it would be quite ugly to maintain what is effectively two separate lists of discoveries just to support this relatively small mechanic.

Relatively small mechanic possibly, but getting discoveries after your character dies is maybe worst part of the death, as its hard to remember which ones you are still missing and which not to unlock the crafts. So you should reconsider adding the prayer with or without the separating discovery LP.

[Asgaroth22]

We are considering disabling seasons. Winter (and spring) remove a fair bit of content -- whole core game loops -- we have no easy fix for that, and it seems to hurt a fair bit more than intended. We're considering reworking seasonality to be a map local thing, rather than a server wide event, but that is a bigger project. Eternal summer? Let us know what you think.

I actually really like winter, especially since it was shortened. A few days of playing with your sleds every once in a while is fun. Also no complaints about fall, the leaves everywhere are pretty and mushrooms are nice. Honestly I think it's just spring that sucks. Get rid of the shitty parts of spring and it'd be fine. (no seeds, no critters spawning, splotchy patches of ice that take forever to melt and leave rivers unusable, etc)

Seconded. Winter is somewhat useful for questing, exploring thingwalls etc., though it could use some more content. But spring is simply painful.

[Tammer]

I like seasons and would be sad to see them go. It's nice to have a longer term rhythm to the game instead of just the same thing eternally. In fall you prepare for winter and make sure you have enough food for the animals. Plus the leaf piles are kind of fun. Then in winter you get a break from farming and have snow and ice to play in, and reindeer and ermine to hunt. Winter is short and fun! In spring you can go to the swamps without midges.

Spring would be better if you let trees regenerate their seeds earlier. Or you could add something else unique to spring... maybe a quality bonus to lambs born in spring? or more types of flowers and change flower bouquets to be like bug collections and give a bonus to using different types of flowers?

[loftar]

Relatively small mechanic possibly, but getting discoveries after your character dies is maybe worst part of the death, as its hard to remember which ones you are still missing and which not to unlock the crafts. So you should reconsider adding the prayer with or without the separating discovery LP.

Will consider, for sure. It's not like we've decided finally against it or anything, but it was controversial enough for us that we put it off until we had the first set of these kinds of prayers.

[bmjclark]

If seeds on trees regrew instantly or near instantly in the spring it'd be a lot less awful tbh.

[loftar]

Seconded. Winter is somewhat useful for questing, exploring thingwalls etc., though it could use some more content. But spring is simply painful.

I'd like to believe you, but the user-number graphs speak rather strongly for the fact that that's not the majority opinion of winters.

[TheUltimateC]

Great options. But if you want to prevent noobs from quitting after they died, you will need to make ancestral prayers less obscure. They need to know the option exists before they dropped the game.

[DonVelD]

How about adding Memories of Discovery or something which restores all discoveries of items.

We considered that, but honestly thought that enough people would prefer the extra LP gained from rediscovering everything that it might just be a noob trap.

They could just avoid using that prayer, so both sides would be satisfied in that case.