QueenGeeBee Posted June 26 Report Posted June 26 It would be a fun bit of gameplay if traders could buy certain glued clutter ruins items, so delving into dungeons could feel like hunting for artifacts and antiquities to sell, like a treasure hunter. Breaking down clutter items into resources that make sense would also be cool, like getting fibers and leather scraps and such. I agree that I dont think people really care about gluing the messed up clutter so it would be neat to add something to that. 1
LadyWYT Posted June 26 Author Report Posted June 26 2 hours ago, MKMoose said: The potential is there, but as it stands, the dungeons' value lies almost exclusively in easily accessible loot (which could easily be added with non-procedural dungeons as well), and we don't even know if there are any real plans to do anything more with them other than "ruins but procedural". The tiled dungeons don't really serve any purpose that couldn't be easily fulfilled by regular structures. I've heard rumors that the devs are experimenting with some puzzles and things. I don't think it's anything quite on the level of a story location, but I'd be surprised if they didn't add some puzzles, traps, and enemies to fight to some of the dungeons. 2 hours ago, MKMoose said: I do hope that these dungeons will eventually be properly unique and not just a gimmick. Traps and enemies are kinda neat, but we can already do that with regular, non-procedural dungeons, whereas coming up with things that procedural dungeons are uniquely well-suited for can be somewhat tricky. Having some unique NPC encounters or story quests would be cool, but there's also nothing that restricts these to procedural dungeons, and in fact it might be easier to do in a robust way using regular structures. The unique structures are reserved for story locations. Everything else is going to be more generic since it's what has to fill up the world, though some locations are a lot more rare than others and thus a little more special to find. 2 hours ago, MKMoose said: One of the main things that I would like to eventually see are sprawling tunnel and mine networks, and the tiled dungeon system is actually (probably) significantly better suited for it than the village system used for overground ruin clusters. It's not a ruin type I'd want to see too often, but it would be a neat one to find, especially if there was still some ore that you could loot/mine from the tunnels. 2 hours ago, MKMoose said: [1] This has sent me on a chase to find some of the rare vanilla ruins, and I've found that a lot of them just... don't generate. They can technically generate, but the requirements are so hilariously narrow that the chance for it to happen ends up being virtually zero. Did you know that the game sometimes generates city ruins with 10+ buildings including a large cathedral? I didn't, because I've never seen them, neither in my own gameplay nor on the internet. I wasn't even able to manually get the game to generate one to take a screenshot. Yeah I've seen those ruins a good handful of times. I think there's two different types of cathedral that can generate, as well as a couple of castle structures as well. They're pretty neat to stumble across even if they don't always much loot, simply because they are quite rare. I would say though, that instead of the unique ruins you mentioned above, there should just be a few more types of rare ruins that can occur. That way the player can have a slightly increased chances of running across one, as well as be more likely to find different types when they do find the rare ruins.
MKMoose Posted June 26 Report Posted June 26 35 minutes ago, LadyWYT said: Yeah I've seen those ruins a good handful of times. There's something like six of them. I've figured out that the reason I haven't been able to generate them is actually some kind of bug that I haven't managed to track down yet, whereas random generation does sometimes occur but I've apparently just had putrid luck or forgot that I've found any. It is arguably a bit misleading when you look at "10+ schematics" but a single schematic can actually just be a pile of cobblestone and not anything resembling a building, so there's a chance that I've found the "cities" a few times and just didn't realize it. Regardless, though, the broad point is that actually interesting ruins are rare, while the typical ruins (at least the surface ones) tend to have at best a couple cracked vessels and some bony soil, maybe a collapsed chest with a few low-value items if you're lucky. 1 hour ago, LadyWYT said: The unique structures are reserved for story locations. They are not in any way reserved for story locations if you simply interpret the word "unique" as anything other than "one of a kind". What I mean by making tiled dungeons "unique" is just to give them any kind of special characteristics that make each type of dungeon interesting in its own right to find, explore and potentially return to. This can be done in many different ways: different one-time rewards tied specifically to one type of dungeon each, for example: lore discovery (especially relevant if we ever get any laboratory-adjacent dungeons), item schematics or recipe unlocks (for the refinery, unlocking a schematic for a blast furnace would make quite a lot of sense, although in this case it could also be a bit too restrictive for how progression-critical it may end up being), possibly something like preserved seeds for plants that haven't survived on the surface, resources or other benefits exclusive to dungeons which can be obtained in limited quantity from each, but obtaining duplicates could still be equally valuable: exclusive Jonas parts or some kind of high-quality tools and components like watches or navigation tools (either new items, or just existing parts taken out of regular loot pools and exclusively placed in dungeons), special clothing, accessories, decorations, rare resources like gemstones, and so on - not something that will let the player skip progression, but also not just generic stuff obtainable quickly through regular survival gameplay, various kinds of clutter and artifacts which have to be restored before they can be used or sold (including items from the above two categories), repeatable challenges on each visit to a dungeon (with some limits, of course): gears, Jonas parts or other loot from some kind of respawning enemies or a mini-boss, loot which resets during every temporal storm (potentially can only be collected during a storm, or otherwise resets any puzzles, traps, enemies etc. as well, to serve as something like an actual challenge and not a biweekly fetch quest), possibly a combination of the two above, i.e. a high-value boss which spawns in the dungeon once during each temporal storm (and disappears when the storm ends), though it could be difficult to implement, it could be interesting to completely re-randomize the dungeon layout under some conditions, potentially also during storms (though it would likely require a large land claim) the dungeon could also rotate between a few variants, so that changes in the structure are not removed permanently, blocks or multiblocks which can be repaired and used but likely cannot be moved: special Jonas devices or other advanced tech fit the bill very naturally, and Jonas devices can be given nearly arbitrary gameplay functions to fit many different design goals, the blast furnace would make a lot of sense in the refinery (and again, could also be deemed a bit too restrictive if it's strictly exclusive to the dungeon - if it's just cheaper to repair than to build anew, then that's fine, but also not as meaningful in gameplay). Note that not all dungeons of the same type have to do the same thing, and some functions can be dependent on subsections of a dungeon which may or may not generate. Some restrictions would be useful to keep things more defined and not just random with no rhyme or reason, but there's a lot of freedom to give each dungeon its own twist. And as I've mentioned: all of the above can also be done perfectly fine with regular, one-piece structures, and tiled dungeons have never been a prerequisite to any of this, which is why I've always been skeptical of the benefits that the tiled dungeons could actually bring. Some ideas like lore and decorations exclusive to specific structures have even already been in the game for a long time in some capacity. 2
LadyWYT Posted June 27 Author Report Posted June 27 1 hour ago, MKMoose said: What I mean by making tiled dungeons "unique" is just to give them any kind of special characteristics that make each type of dungeon interesting in its own right to find, explore and potentially return to. This can be done in many different ways: Okay yeah that makes more sense. 2 hours ago, MKMoose said: repeatable challenges on each visit to a dungeon (with some limits, of course): gears, Jonas parts or other loot from some kind of respawning enemies or a mini-boss, loot which resets during every temporal storm (potentially can only be collected during a storm, or otherwise resets any puzzles, traps, enemies etc. as well, to serve as something like an actual challenge and not a biweekly fetch quest), possibly a combination of the two above, i.e. a high-value boss which spawns in the dungeon once during each temporal storm (and disappears when the storm ends), though it could be difficult to implement, it could be interesting to completely re-randomize the dungeon layout under some conditions, potentially also during storms (though it would likely require a large land claim) the dungeon could also rotate between a few variants, so that changes in the structure are not removed permanently, I could see repeatable monster fights, since the respawning could be under the premise that such locations are attractive to monsters and new ones move in after enough time has passed. That would also work rather well as a source of "renewable loot", though respawning monsters means that it's going to potentially be tough for the player to make that their base, if they so choose, or that the player otherwise has incentive to try to turn it into a mob grinder. I don't know about re-randomizing the dungeon though. It's an interesting premise, and definitely prevents the location from being turned into a mob grinder, but it does offer the same problem of...the player can't decide to clean it up and use it as a base. Not to mention that the player could turn it into a different kind of loot farm by just harvesting the valuable stuff from these dungeons and then selling it to NPCs, selling it to other players, or otherwise using it as a convenient way to avoid the effort of crafting more rare blocks. 2
CastIronFabric Posted June 27 Report Posted June 27 (edited) 10 hours ago, LadyWYT said: Okay yeah that makes more sense. I could see repeatable monster fights, since the respawning could be under the premise that such locations are attractive to monsters and new ones move in after enough time has passed. That would also work rather well as a source of "renewable loot", though respawning monsters means that it's going to potentially be tough for the player to make that their base, if they so choose, or that the player otherwise has incentive to try to turn it into a mob grinder. I don't know about re-randomizing the dungeon though. It's an interesting premise, and definitely prevents the location from being turned into a mob grinder, but it does offer the same problem of...the player can't decide to clean it up and use it as a base. Not to mention that the player could turn it into a different kind of loot farm by just harvesting the valuable stuff from these dungeons and then selling it to NPCs, selling it to other players, or otherwise using it as a convenient way to avoid the effort of crafting more rare blocks. I think the solution for dungeons is the same as it is for traders. I know some do not agree with this but here goes anyway. The loot table. We went into a dungeon and came out effectively with nothing. It would also be nice to be able to use more of the items found. As a side note to traders, in addition to a loot table I would add reputation so that some quality/useful times show up more consistently when you have a good reputation with a trader or trader type. Disclaimer: I am not changing my mind on this opinion, stubborn? perhaps or I just know I am right either way I am not debating it just sharing it. When two of us dedicate some time to go into a dungeon and come out with less than a ruin, one tends to have a solidified opinion on that. (Firewood? not really helpful, 40 or so Firebrick blocks? yes useful) Edited June 27 by CastIronFabric
Professor Dragon Posted July 3 Report Posted July 3 On Ruins and Clutter . . . it has previously been mentioned that it would be good if you could use Glue and Tools to "repair" Clutter into their functional equivalents. A ruined shelf becomes an aged shelf, for example. Currently, the only use for Clutter is decoration . . . and given the sorry state of it, mostly decoration for broken down barns, junk piles, abandoned sheds and the like. Since the Glue bug (probably fixed by now?), I have turned on the "pick up clutter" option and have never regretted it. If I see something that looks decorative, I snag it and ignore that I was meant to spend effort cooking up glue. It has already cost me time and effort to find a ruin and loot it - making hot glue for an odd piece is just unwarranted punishment as far as I'm concerned at that point. Not without a rework of the glue mechanic. /End slightly off topic thoughts.
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