Give us a way to deal with midges already

[shubla]

getting punished for absolutely nothing is complete bullshit and feels terrible whenever it happens.

You are not punished for anything, its part of the game and adds nice depth. Never had problem with midgets in my base.
If it really threatens to kill your characters in your base maybe something should be done to prevent that, but outside of the base there is nothing wrong with them. But I doubt that such thing could occur too often, because as I said, never had any problems with them in my bases.

[Apocoreo]

What depth, beyond being annoying. Literally added just to bother players, no challenge, no reward, just light damage for no reason. Extra pain in the ass if they get you after you've been KO'd (rare occurrence) or if the rumors are true and they do indeed spread swamp fever.

[MadeofMeat]

@shubla, your home must not be near a forest, or you would know what we are talking about.

Again though, I can live with the midge attacks if they are helping to control botting.

[shubla]

What depth, beyond being annoying. Literally added just to bother players, no challenge, no reward, just light damage for no reason. Extra pain in the ass if they get you after you've been KO'd (rare occurrence) or if the rumors are true and they do indeed spread swamp fever.

I have said it 1000 times, have you been to forest? There are all kinds of things that try to sting you, that is the depth. It makes it feel like you are in some real forest with midgets and all.

Not everything in this game should have a reward.

For example what is reward from cliffs? They are just annoying and on the way - delete them!
How about height differences in general? They are just annoying and add work to terraform them - delete them too!

If you delete all "annoying" things all you have left is game with big button and a text "you won" that appears in the screen after you click the button.

Midgets are maybe the most least annoying thing in the game and you should campaign for the other more important things.

So far from what I've understood your only good argument for midgets being bad is that sometimes they come in your village and bite you until your characters die, except if you log out. That is bad I can agree, but the minor annoyance is not.

[VDZ]

I like the idea of a midge repellent for game flavor, and personally yes it is annoying to get attacked in my own front yard... but midge attacks probably hurt botters more than they hurt me. In the long run, bot-based economy will ruin the game for most players. Something that's a nuisance to a human player but fatal to a bot may be good for the game overall.

They do not harm botters more than they harm you. Bot characters are by definition disposable. Midges could cause Wretched Gore and it still wouldn't be a real problem for botters because who cares if a throwaway alt gets wounded? Wounds are only a problem on important characters, especially your main.

Besides, even if it were true (which it isn't), 'it sucks for me but it sucks even worse for people I dislike' is a horrible argument. Other people being harmed does not improve your gameplay, and even if somehow it did (spoiler: bots are, and always have been, seriously involved in the economy, but most players barely notice any of that), the mechanic itself still makes the game less fun for you.

You are not punished for anything, its part of the game and adds nice depth.

If it's not meant as a punishment, randomly getting stacks of -10 STR and -10 AGI and/or becoming unable to perform basic actions without getting punished with such debuffs is an even more bullshit design.

if the rumors are true and they do indeed spread swamp fever.

They do, but to my knowledge there haven't been any reports of this happening outside of swamps.

For example what is reward from cliffs?

• Cliffs allow you to corner animals, allowing you to chase them down with much less effort.
• Conversely, cliffs allow you to get more distance from animals, as hearthlings can climb cliffs while animals cannot.
• Cliffs act as natural walls, and can be utilized in combination with construction to fence off areas.
• Cliffs provide an interesting gameplay choice in that you can choose to go around them or climb up/jump down them, which may have different advantages in different scenarios.

cliffs? They are just annoying and on the way - delete them!

But you can. The game has terraforming features which allow you to remove cliffs among other things. This is in contrast to midges, which you cannot prevent from spawning, which you cannot keep out of your base, which you cannot chase away and the damage of which you cannot prevent while doing certain activities that involve little movement, other than by ceasing the activity entirely. In addition to midges being a purely negative element, there is zero interaction or counterplay involved. It's not even a risk lacking a reward - it's not even a risk because that would imply there is any player agency involved. Midges are simply a 'fuck you' event that happens to you which you can do nothing about.

How about height differences in general? They are just annoying and add work to terraform them - delete them too!

If you are advocating for more meaningful impact of height differences, such as adjusting the player's walking speed or providing advantages/disadvantages based on height differences e.g. in combat, I'd totally be okay with that. Height differences currently indeed have little significance, only affecting the amount of ground resource you can dig up (which is notable particularly for acre clay) and terraforming difficulty (a challenge to overcome and something that differentiates different areas for settling, with some locations being easier to settle and others harder), but it does have advantages and interaction, both things midges are missing entirely.

Midgets are maybe the most least annoying thing in the game and you should campaign for the other more important things.

To me, midges are the biggest single problem with this game right now. My enjoyment takes a nosedive whenever they appear near my base. Factions may at any time be up to all kinds of abusive shit that will long-term ruin the world's economy, but even when that goes completely unchecked, it still affects me less than midges do. You complain about global pools, which are certainly shitty, but the absence of pearls and glimmers do not affect me too much - it just means a reduction of how many trade goods I acquire (and they are completely replaceable). Meanwhile, midges are relatively common and affect my enjoyment far more often than any forageable could. I have been campaigning for the removal of midges for all this time because I genuinely feel there is no thing more important to campaign for to improve this game. The introduction of midges are the worst decision the devs have ever made for this game, possibly second only to the world 8 subscription model which had a risk of slowly killing the playerbase (though the w8 population was still enough to make the game fun). I'd rather have shit like the tri-quality system, having to waste energy to eat or having to idle for hours to get to max learning ability back than suffer from midges entering my base.

[springyb]

But the wound itself is also significant because

Yarrow is easy to find and grow and cures bites instantly, making allergic reactions from midges largely irrelevant. (Yarrow is great against other allergy wounds too) Outside of swamps, midges are uncommon, seasonal, and active at night. As you've said, you can go inside for a few minutes to avoid them, or you can venture away from your base for a moment. Saying there's nothing you can do about it is not the case and making midges seem like something that prevents you from playing the game is extreme. Midges are just really annoying.

I think there's a good argument to be made about ways to keep them from getting inside your base, but it needs to require enough resources that settling in swamps doesn't become easier. A repelling burner fueled by sage would be theme appropriate but also balanced by it's difficulty to gather.

Also do yourself a favor and don't mind Shubla, he's not actually contributing to the discussion and is trying to intentionally annoy you.

[Apocoreo]

I have said it 1000 times, have you been to forest? There are all kinds of things that try to sting you, that is the depth. It makes it feel like you are in some real forest with midgets and all.

Not everything in this game should have a reward.

For example what is reward from cliffs? They are just annoying and on the way - delete them!
How about height differences in general? They are just annoying and add work to terraform them - delete them too!

If you delete all "annoying" things all you have left is game with big button and a text "you won" that appears in the screen after you click the button.

Midgets are maybe the most least annoying thing in the game and you should campaign for the other more important things.

So far from what I've understood your only good argument for midgets being bad is that sometimes they come in your village and bite you until your characters die, except if you log out. That is bad I can agree, but the minor annoyance is not.

Realism is not depth. I swat mosquitoes and black flies the same way, that I have encountered both these species, rather than one has not made my life more challenging or rewarding.

Cliffs are rewarding. Last world I used one to juke a player and steal their boat. They're used for add depth to combat/fleeing tactics.

As for terraform, you're now talking about removing LITERAL DEPTH, what fuck does the creative aspect of the game have to do with the challenge aspect?

I am not annoyed by challenged. I am annoyed by midges. If you struggle to grasp that, I recommend trying the game Sekiro, it's quite challenging. There is nothing interesting to overcome with midges.

People have discussed whether or not Shubla is troll lately and this post certainly qualifies for that discussion, notice the use one the word "midgets" constantly. By god he got me good but fuck it, I'm writing this hoping J&L will read it. Depth in terms of game design is something H&H already has a lot of, but it's important not to confuse content bloat with depth.

cliffs? They are just annoying and on the way - delete them!

But you can.

This post gave me serotonin. Thanks.

[shubla]

As long as your problems are getting killed by midgets at your base I agree that it should be fixed. But otherwise they are good as they are now. Im not sure if you misunderstood my points in purpose or not.

[VDZ]

As you've said, you can go inside for a few minutes to avoid them, or you can venture away from your base for a moment.

That's precisely it. The only 'counterplay' is to stop playing. When a midge swarm attacks you, your only option is to stop whatever you were doing because suddenly you're not allowed to do it anymore. If you persist in trying to play anyways, you'll continue getting tiny wounds until you die.

Yarrow is easy to find

Only in certain regions. No yarrow grows anywhere near my base; all my yarrow comes from whirlpool travels.

Yarrow is easy to find and grow and cures bites instantly, making allergic reactions from midges largely irrelevant. (Yarrow is great against other allergy wounds too)

This still does not solve the problem that you get shredded by midges unless you stop playing for 20 minutes. And do you expect me to use one of my limited supply of Yarrow literally every single time I get midge bites or antcid burns (one yarrow per wound, beestings are not healed by yarrow)?

Outside of swamps, midges are uncommon, seasonal, and active at night.

The second part requires waiting for literal weeks for them to away, the third part waiting for several hours. And it only happening every now and then does not make it not a problem; it's fucking terrible every time it does happen.

Also do yourself a favor and don't mind Shubla, he's not actually contributing to the discussion and is trying to intentionally annoy you.

That would be an option if the devs also ignored Shubla, which they don't. If Shubla says midges are fine and they should actually just cause literal cancer, chances are next week we'll get a patch where midges cause cancer because nobody disagreed with Shubla and Jorb feels it's fine because it adds immersion and is not problematic because it doesn't happen that often and your character still has plenty of time to live after getting cancer. Just last week we got a patch adding malaria because people complained that they wanted to die from visiting swamps.

[abt79]

ain no midges in caves

then again, add flyswatter u fricks