Balance Survey

[Luk]

Hey party people. It's been a couple updates since I made some gameplay changes. I'd like to hear what people think about the state of the game now. Is there anything you find frustrating? Wolves still got you down? How do you feel about food? What about night time? How often do you find dungeons/lore? At what point do you feel like you no longer have to worry about surviving? Any other complaints? Now's your chance to let me know and I'll do what I can to fix them! I know a lot of you guys play on modded servers too, so if you can just preface that beforehand that would be great. 

[Balduranne]

1 hour ago, Luk said:

Hey party people. It's been a couple updates since I made some gameplay changes. I'd like to hear what people think about the state of the game now. Is there anything you find frustrating? Wolves still got you down? How do you feel about food? What about night time? At what point do you feel like you no longer have to worry about surviving? Any other complaints? Now's your chance to let me know and I'll do what I can to fix them! I know a lot of you guys play on modded servers too, so if you can just preface that beforehand that would be great. 

• Is there anything you find frustrating?
  Drifters and how they're the only source of a spawn mover, caves being 90% stone and little else, tin being too rare, scarcity of storage space (Exacerbated by mods), bees being too difficult to spot and only in one biome. Still the same things honestly.
• How often do you find dungeons/lore?
  Not often. Lore is... still extremely rare for me.
• How do you feel about food?
  I like the balance now, but berries bushes are still way too frequent. I'm so stoked for cooking. And a stove... Firewood doesn't last nearly enough
• Wolves still got you down?
  Yes, but now that they have a hunger mechanic, it's more manageable. I play on Darkagecraft, so I think we have the damage reducer
• At what point do you feel like you no longer have to worry about surviving?
  As soon as I have a fence tbh. Food is ridiculously plentiful in vanilla game, unless you're in a snow biome.
• Any other complaints?
  No use for some items/blocks rendering them pointless until further notice (Salt, rope), game being very beginner unfriendly (Especially with lack of an inventory and no crafting recipes ingame), portable containers are ridiculously small IMHO (Especially compared against the backpack and how easy it is to make), fuel in general lasts too short (Making smithing anxiety inducing to me), the club is utterly useless. There's more, but it's past 9PM and I want to wrap it up for now.

[Stroam]

I find locating small discs of ore and stack temperature reset in the fire pit fustrating.

I feel food is too abundant. Wild crops and berries fill you up too quickly.

Night is dark beautiful and drifters make it annoying. That's the only differences from day.

Lore is scarce. Wish there was something like,"I have been stashing things in the wall behind the ladder for X reason. Tomorrow if I survive X I am going to take it and leave." Or "There's another group in a nearby spot about 200 yards East by south east I saw with an owl chest. I wonder what they have locked up in that."

I rarely worry about survival.

I would like occasional flavor text from found items. "This table has many scratches on it from continual use. You can see where a candle use to be from the spilt wax long ago. Looks like something carved a crude star into one of the table legs."

[Balduranne]

Oh yeah, and sticks feel a little scarce. You should have a low chance to get them from regular leaves too.

[Draconicrose]

• Is there anything you find frustrating?
  Fuel. I do not like the heating up mechanic for anything other than flavor. It's basically impossible to know how much of a fuel I will need for an operation. It's pretty frustrating to have to use say 1 more charcoal just to get the last temperature tick.
• Wolves still got you down?
  Nah, I like the predators. I don't even mind the Drifters.
• How do you feel about food?
  Super important resource until it just becomes a non-issue. Hoping the cooking system will bring more importance to crops and wild food.
• What about night time?
  I enjoy night time. It's dangerous but not overwhelming.
• At what point do you feel like you no longer have to worry about surviving?
  I haven't reached that point yet, but I assume it's when I have a defensible position, with plenty of food, and decent weaponry.
• Any other complaints?
  I need an inventory sort option and for shift-click to prioritize open in-world containers like baskets and chests.

[Erik]

• Is there anything you find frustrating? 
  Storage in the early game. And wolves, but they are not nearly as bad as they once were.
• How often do you find dungeons/lore?
  Rarely, as the current storage/inventory system discourages exploration.
• How do you feel about food?
  The current balance is good, it will obviously become better with nutrition, seasons and decay.
• Wolves still got you down? 
  Their spawn could should be reduced, but else they seem fine.
• At what point do you feel like you no longer have to worry about surviving?
   When I have sufficient storage, as I can then store all food I found. 
• Any other complaints?
  It feels like flint and stone is significantly rarer in snowy climates.

 

[MammaJamma]

• Is there anything you find frustrating? 
  things that are only available in creative or in mods (chisel!) Reset on heat, fires should maintain their heat as long as they are given fuel but I really love how the campfire itself cools down slowly rather than resetting when it runs out of fuel.
• How often do you find dungeons/lore?
  Depends on the world, feels very unbalanced between different seeds
• How do you feel about food?
  Looking forward to more options both in variety of ingredients and recipes, early game is undoable if your seed is not near bushes
• Wolves still got you down? 
  Nope, love that there is something scary but... I do feel like they should only attack if you aren't near a fire and maybe if there aren't prey animals around
• At what point do you feel like you no longer have to worry about surviving?
  Once I have my spawn set  and that isn't really surviving just not so salty if I do die.  Some seeds I just abandon if there is no chance because no food.  All biomes should have an early game food.
• Any other complaints?
  backpacks being the only thing you can make with leather (one of the most useful primitive material ever in real life) floating land chunks, can we implement gravity just for non-supported things?

[ToAsgaard]

• Is there anything you find frustrating? 
  Nothing that I can say I find frustrating atm really.  Naturally I would love to see more dangerous creatures and a bit more danger, currently locust swarms are the only thing really scary which is super exciting running in fear from them.  Wish wolves were a bit more dangerous since after finding the power of sprint fighting and dodging they go down without too much effort as is true for all mobs except locusts.
• How often do you find dungeons/lore?
  I haven't done a ton of exploring yet, but so far they seem fairly balanced from what ive seen.
• How do you feel about food?
  I enjoy the food as it is atm.  Does seem fairly plentiful, but still takes some effort to maintain without being over the top.  Very excited for cooking and more expansive food stuff.
• Wolves still got you down? 
  Not at all, I wish they were more dangerous, perhaps having a larger health pool, spawning more in packs, or attacking faster so that sprint fighting cannot be used against them.  They did get me a couple times at the start before I got used to fighting them though.
• At what point do you feel like you no longer have to worry about surviving?
  I'd say pretty early in tbh.  Once you get a few berry bushes and tools to expand your search and setup a temp home your pretty well set once you get used to the combat and as long as your somewhat careful about holes and watch your back.
• Any other complaints?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Not really, most of the things I am looking for are simply things that will come as the game develops.  More decorative items and features, so nothing I can think of to complain about :p  So far I am very happy with the game tbh.

[Ari]

• Is there anything you find frustrating? 
  Fire pits resetting the temperature between items is probably the most frustrating thing. Stone and copper tools break much too quickly. Metal tools disintegrate when they break instead of giving you something back. Wolves are totally unrealistic. The prospecting pick is absurdly unrealistic and tedious to use, and yet finding metals for bronze feels very difficult and solely based on luck. (I mod several of these things for single player, but that prevents me from playing multiplayer.)
• How often do you find dungeons/lore?
  While exploring, I go long periods of time finding nothing, then I seem to find several in a row. So I guess it's fairly balanced. 
• How do you feel about food?
  I'm really looking forward to cooking. I love the immersion of having more variety of food. As long as it's not too difficult to survive, I'm not bothered by whether food is abundant or relatively scarce. I just enjoy in-game cooking and food.
• Wolves still got you down? 
  I have to mod them, or I wouldn't be able to play. I dislike the unrealistic "wolves are monsters that will hunt you down from 20 blocks away" system. A single wolf would never attack a larger creature like a human unless desperate. I mod it so they only attack if "cornered" (you're within 3 blocks of them). I'm fine with them being dangerous when they do attack though.
• At what point do you feel like you no longer have to worry about surviving?
   When I have a saw. Then I can make chests for storage, wooden houses, fences, a door, etc. Before that, it's a constant slog of inventory management and cowering in dirt huts all night.
• Any other complaints?
  I've put up a suggestions thread for progression, metals/ore, and prospecting. I also laid out a suggested system for the fire pits on Discord - might make a thread for that so it's easier to find. Mostly I love the game to bits, and I love how easy it is to adjust things by tweaking the game files. I'm looking forward to when there are more game modes to choose from, so that such extensive tweaks won't be necessary. 
  Oh, and survival mode chisel please! PLEEEEEAAAASE!!!  We builders could do so much with it, and I prefer not to have to cheat it in or use a mod to add a recipe.

[Rastrick]

Is there anything you find frustrating?

1.       Individual spawn point: I should have the ability to choose where I would like to respawn upon death, within reason, or be able to attain the means that doesn’t involve RNG. It’s a crafting game, give me the ability to craft a spawn setting item, a particularly expensive bed for example. Put a cool down on placement so I’m not carting said bed with me to the mines or future implemented dungeon crawls. Not having a way to control where I respawn discourages me from ranging more than a couple thousand blocks without fear of losing my gear and loot by not being able to get back to my “corpse” in time.

2.       Map: More dramatic waypoint indicators. They’re almost invisible on the map especially if you choose your color poorly. The waypoints should also be editable. Allow a waypoint to show a beacon in the world or a unique visual cue of your choosing, I large star or something, that I can point myself in that direction and go.

3.       I also think temperature resets are infuriating and really interrupts play flow.  

How often do you find dungeons/lore?

Surface ruins are pretty good frequency, I’ve travelled over 20,000 blocks in several directions on the multiplayer server. I’ve encountered many. They’re particularly nice to harvest as a brand-new player and bypass the “hidey hole” one typically has to create when starting out. I’ve only encountered two subterranean ruins, but I found both awesome. Bookshelves, tables, the record player sound box thingy, I was excited! Got me wondering all kinds of things, who put these things here, where are they now, how can I find more elaborate locations or places like this? I dream of abandoned subterranean cities….dungeons……

How do you feel about food?

Cooking as it now, I can’t really say. I don’t have a need for it in alpha.  Berries while not amazing are doing it enough for me due to frequency, and the amount that I roam around. I never have to wait for them local bushes to be harvestable. I plan to start exploring the farming portion of the content soon. Cooking can be a fun feature, especially if it involves min/maxing of benefits. i.e. A highly sustaining food that has complicated cooking steps and expensive ingredients, or making berry juices that bestow really short bonuses like 10 sec sprinting, strength or regen etc.

Wolves still got you down?

Wolves are fine, once you have a spear or a copper sword and learn to bob and weave. Wolves could have more fear factor. Say, when they aggro’d the player, they yelp and any wolves in X amount of blocks come to their assistance. That’d be a fun mechanic.

One thing is screwy, I can outrun wolves on land, yet if I get in the water they outswim me. That’s puzzling and I’m sure not intended. If anything it should be the opposite. They should be able to run me down on land, and I escape if I make it to water.

At what point do you feel like you no longer have to worry about surviving?

I’d say once I get a full assortment of copper tools and have 4 walls I’m feeling pretty confident that I’m probably only going to die if I’m taking stupid risks, not paying attention or something really off the wall happens

Any other complaints?

No complaints really. Impatience more like it. I want more more more and I want it now. In order of importance.

More biomes, sub biomes

More blocks

Mechanical power, keep it simple and offer passive energy solutions like wind and water.

Easy mod updater, ability to have profiles to easily switch between modded and unmodded gameplay

Storage upgrades, double chests or incremental size kits from the smithing tiers.

Brewing, composting for farming boosts, leather and cloth crafting.

More aggressive/passive mobs

                Lions, tigers, and bears OH MY!

Drifters that are more advanced than simple mindless wandering pests, smarter AI, stealthy versions perhaps.

Drifter brutes, 2x size slow but hit hard, maybe they can destroy blocks if given enough time to whittle away at your base. “They have a cave troll..”

Boats

Dungeons

World customization screen: I want to be able to pick things like:

-Post apocalyptic wasteland, survive with minimal resources and struggle to bring the world  back from destruction.

-Drowned planet – nothing but tiny islands in a vast world ocean.

*edited for spelling and grammarizations

[Saraty]

• Is there anything you find frustrating? 
  - Current drifter spawning mechanic and frequency makes them very annoying. I see them as very low thread mobs that require a constant sword swinging. For me personally, they fail the task that they were designed for, which is to scare me.
  - Encouraged / low effort animal killing. I live besides temperate plains where tons of wild boars and sheep are spawning on regular basis. One round of killing leaves me with few stacks of meat and I don't need to worry about food for a long time. Works really well with hyenas too once I've mastered my tactics. So, looking forward the day, where animal killing becomes meaningful (more complex AI + butchering mechanics), takes a *lot* more effort, but therefore provides player with adequate rewards. 
• How often do you find dungeons/lore?
  After last tweak was done, I've found decent amount of dungeons. I've got one and a half chest filled with lore. Approximately half a chest I left behind in ruins for other players to find.
• How do you feel about food?
  - The scarcity of food is largely determined by the climate that player spawns in. A lack of better animal AI makes food hacks possible. One example would be to take two dirt blocks and a stick, find a wolf swarm, then pile up 2 blocks, sit down, relax and kill. 
  - Veggie balance seems ok right now. I find farming a bit too grindy for my taste, and so I'm gladly trading them in for ores in multiplayer.
• Wolves still got you down? 
  Nope.
• At what point do you feel like you no longer have to worry about surviving?
  Considering the gazillion times I've started a new world for testing... Pretty much right at the beginning!
• Any other complaints?               
  Haha, yea... I complain every day about the lack of features and incomplete mechanics! 

[Rufkut]

• Is there anything you find frustrating? 
  How quiet it is. There is a severe lack of environmental sounds to create depth and atmosphere. Something like the  Matmos mod is needed to immerse the player. Howling winds in open areas, echoes in caves, underwater sounds, crickets by water, or just something to fill your ears at nights. Speaking of sounds, the mining sound with the pickaxe is too sharp, hurts my ears. No spawn protection from drifters. Also why doesn't my avatar need water, is hydration, fresh and salt water planned? 
• Wolves still got you down? 
  No, they are good and besides eventual ai improved as others suggested I'd like to see more animals - small, medium and large  carnivor and herbivore
• Savanna - wilds dogs packs and lion prides, not just hyenas. African Buffalo, warthogs, and Antelope. 
• Temperate areas - fox and wolves are nice but I'd like to be brown bears. For herbivores,  deer, and aurochs. 
• Tropical area - boa snake, wild dogs, leopard. Maybe a small deer or we could work with chickens but add Tapir and Gaur
• Frigid area - fox with white coat, snow leopard. Muskox, pronghorn
• Rare legendary creatures like in Red Dead Redemption and not fictional ones. Maybe you could tie it in with your lore and add something unique to the game? Anyways - short faced bear, gastornis, hogzilla, velociraptor, giant anaconda, dodo, etc
• Water animals - crocodiles for tropics and savanna, great white shark for ocean
• How do you feel about food?
  Berries are too common and as Saraty said the animal ai isnt developed yet so they can be exploited for food. I too would like to see more realistic hunting. 

• What about night time?
  Its good, very dark though.... I wish there was a way to turn up gamma in survival.  The drifters are annoying, spawn protection at your base like in tfc is welcome. I'd like to see nocturnal animals or atleast night sounds. 
• At what point do you feel like you no longer have to worry about surviving?
  18 hours in my first playthtough and learning, I've yet to come to that point. 
• Any other complaints? I don't like drifters or maybe how they spawn, spawn protection is needed 

Edit - 25 hours in

Wolf's are a touch too strong and aggressive. 

I don't like fool healing you and it makes berries exploitable, I literally don't have a need for anything other food besides collecting them and planting them for decoration. Health regeneration should be like TFC, that you can't force and forces the player to be cautious in their adventures. The current implementation is unrealistic, and unsatisfying.  

Minus the core TFC features - more diversity with regards to plants and natural resources, weather, temperature, good decay, system that push survivalism, etc - the game is phenomenonal and promising. What's even more impressive is the debs willingness to listen to the player base, good stuff. 

[Exscorbizorb]

I only have about 12 hours of gameplay in VS, but I'll submit my feedback for whatever it's worth.  I was an avid TFC player before, so I'm not quite representative of a complete newbie experience.

• Is there anything you find frustrating?
  These &#@%ing bullet points, lol.
•  
• Wolves still got you down?
  Because of their reputation I am very cautious.  I know they hang around a certain forest, and stay vigilant when I have to go there for wood, or am passing by.  I appreciate that they usually howl, but a couple times (in the exact same location) I didn't see or hear their approach until one was running straight at me, barking.  All three times I got back to base and killed them from my wall.  Two of them only took one hit to kill, which I found strange.  They are similar to TFC bears in their risk and reward, just more common.
•  
• How do you feel about food?
  Food is very plentiful.  I have found all the grains and all the berries within a short distance from where I set up camp.  The place I spawned didn't have much.
•  
• What about night time?
• I'm in favor of nighttime being very deeply dark, but I know most players will change their settings to undermine that design choice, so it doesn't make a lot of sense from a multiplayer standpoint.  It just means everyone will have to change those settings to keep things fair, and new players will be at a disadvantage because they don't know.  Drifters seem a bit too common of an annoyance.  I'd rather have fewer but scarier enemies.  Perhaps something that spawned far less often, but would actively stalk and hunt the player.
•  
• At what point do you feel like you no longer have to worry about surviving?

• In terms of having enough food, and not feeling very threatened by mobs, just a few hours in.  Seasons where crops don't grow will certainly change the former.
•  
• Any other complaints?
• Drifters groaning all night long gets annoying.  I can hear them even when I can't see any (which is seldom).

[Olinoob Snail]

• Is there anything you find frustrating? 

Temperature reset when smelting ores etc. Map resetting. But most importantly: prospecting. It's so counterintuitive, I just can't find ores and get so frustrated. I had to cheat them in.

 

• How often do you find dungeons/lore?

Fairly frequently when I go exploring, though the lack of armour makes caving very dangerous, and thus I don't go too often. The fact that the map resets also really bugs me, I don't have the incentive to go exploring because I don't know where I've already been.
 

• How do you feel about food?

It's great, I wish it was more fleshed out and that we had more options. I love cooking in games.
 

• Wolves still got you down? 

No, but they are scary enough that I run really fast when I hear them. Armour would also help with that, but I'm fine with wolves as dangerous as they are.
 

• At what point do you feel like you no longer have to worry about surviving?

When I have a starter house to hinde into at night, and possibly copper tools.
 

• Any other complaints?

Prospecting would be the main one. I feel a system like TFC would be easier. Or simply add more ores in the generation.

[redram]

On 10/27/2018 at 1:39 PM, Exscorbizorb said:

• a couple times (in the exact same location)...Two of them only took one hit to kill, which I found strange. 

Where there any cliffs nearby?  If animals spawn atop cliffs, they'll walk off and get damaged.

[Exscorbizorb]

That could have been it.  There is basically a giant tower not too far away, as well as some smaller pits.  I'm sure they couldn't survive a fall from the top, but there are probably ledges part way down that they might have spawned on.