6+ months of agonizing "realism" nerfs have ruined this game

[Litppunk]

does that mean that there needs to be less going on in the early game? or that mid-late game needs to be expanded to have more Stuff happening… and if so how? Granted the Early game SHOULD have a more desperate grasping desperately for what is needed for survival… but shouldn’t that be more long term then it is now?

Maybe Z blood should toxify the ground in the immediate area and make it useless for crops? Would make a horde attack that much more terrible and could cause player to be forced to move. Maybe some other buffs that make long term survival a longer transition than it currently is? Or is it, that it only seems this way because after having a few runs through early game you know what is needed and what is not (cheating the situation through knowledge of mechanics)?

Early game bloated is an interesting take, though an understandable one.d

[mugling]

More content does need moving or writing for the midgame and especially the endgame

[SpadeDraco]

[quote=“Litppunk, post:161, topic:12504”]does that mean that there needs to be less going on in the early game? or that mid-late game needs to be expanded to have more Stuff happening… and if so how? Granted the Early game SHOULD have a more desperate grasping desperately for what is needed for survival… but shouldn’t that be more long term then it is now?

Maybe Z blood should toxify the ground in the immediate area and make it useless for crops? Would make a horde attack that much more terrible and could cause player to be forced to move. Maybe some other buffs that make long term survival a longer transition than it currently is? Or is it, that it only seems this way because after having a few runs through early game you know what is needed and what is not (cheating the situation through knowledge of mechanics)?

Early game bloated is an interesting take, though an understandable one.d[/quote]

When I say its bloated I mean it in the “bloated compared to the rest of the game”. I don’t believe that the early game needs the developmental equivalent of liposuction, I just believe that attempting to make the early game more complex at this point is an exercise in futility. Cata is a knowledge based game. Absolutely all of the challenge comes from learning it. The new guy that doesn’t know what he needs or where to get it struggles and suffers. The veteran player who can see that the things he needs are all around him and knows what he can make out of them breezes through quickly. This doesn’t change when you add a bunch of new meters to manage (Nutrition) or a new obnoxious step you have to go through to get your gear working (Filthy Clothes). It just makes the learning curve for the noobs steeper and the routine for the vets more involved (which is meaningless because they’ve already overcome the challenges that require thought and creativity).

Do you know what the biggest tragedy of all in this mess is? There is a sizable chunk of the fanbase that genuinely think that Cataclysm is a game about “survival”. Seriously I hear things like this all the time from people on both sides of the realism debate. “Nutrition is good because cataclysm is a game about survival and survival stopped being a focus once people built up enough food.” You just made a suggestion along these lines yourself.

Granted the Early game SHOULD have a more desperate grasping desperately for what is needed for survival… but shouldn’t that be more long term then it is now?

The answer to that is no. Because Cataclysm isn’t a game about survival. It’s a game about Survival, Growth, Influence, and Transcendence (seriously people read the design document, it’s stickied and free for everyone). Survival is supposed to be a defeatable obstacle that makes up about 25% of the game. People treat it like it’s the only meaningful aspect because right now it is. It’s swollen up and eclipsed every other stage of the game to the point that they might as well be invisible.

Or is it, that it only seems this way because after having a few runs through early game you know what is needed and what is not (cheating the situation through knowledge of mechanics)?

This is the case. It’s not cheating, and it’s unavoidable. As I said earlier Cataclysm is a knowledge based game, and that makes metagaming impossible to prevent. Ostensibly the other 75% of the game is supposed to make up for this, but in practice nobody’s bothering to make any content for the non “survival” phases.

Hopefully this clarifies my position on “bloat” for you.

[Valpo]

What i am mostly interested in at the moment is work on mutations and endgame locations/enemies/items.
Also the spread of the various nether factions and the z lvl development.

[Litppunk]

Do you know what the biggest tragedy of all in this mess is? There is a sizable chunk of the fanbase that genuinely think that Cataclysm is a game about "survival". Seriously I hear things like this all the time from people on both sides of the realism debate. "Nutrition is good because cataclysm is a game about survival and survival stopped being a focus once people built up enough food." You just made a suggestion along these lines yourself.

~snip~

The answer to that is no. Because Cataclysm isn’t a game about survival. It’s a game about Survival, Growth, Influence, and Transcendence (seriously people read the design document, it’s stickied and free for everyone). Survival is supposed to be a defeatable obstacle that makes up about 25% of the game. People treat it like it’s the only meaningful aspect because right now it is. It’s swollen up and eclipsed every other stage of the game to the point that they might as well be invisible.

Early game, it is about survival. That is what it is, survival to thrive-opoly. Struggling to survive, is arguably the most exciting part of the game, and the part most players see. Its understandable that it gets fleshed out the most, but I can definitely agree that is a poor reason to not flesh out the rest of the game.

I take the viewpoint that just because the point of the game is to eventually overcome and thrive, that doesn’t mean that it should not be a more drawn out process to climb that precipise (note that doesn’t mean more tedium to lengthen the stage real or in-game time, Great 5 min playtime is better than good 20 or ok hour.) I also think that just because you ARE thriving does not mean you can’t STILL struggle to survive in one fashion or another.
\

So you’ve got enough food to feed an army for 40 years? Enough guns & ammo to solo fight that army? AND such high tech/magic that pre-cataclysm world rulers would drool? Doesn’t that mean that ALL the starving predators, desperate scavenger’s willing to fight for protection and alternate dimensional armies consider you the current biggest “threat” to their forces??? (respectively…more or less)

Thriving can be its own risk/reward system within the game, and make mid-late game play just as interesting as Early game, though in a different fashion

Or is it, that it only seems this way ~snip~

This is the case. It’s not cheating, and it’s unavoidable. As I said earlier Cataclysm is a knowledge based game, and that makes metagaming impossible to prevent. Ostensibly the other 75% of the game is supposed to make up for this, but in practice nobody’s bothering to make any content for the non “survival” phases.

Hopefully this clarifies my position on “bloat” for you.

Sorry I meant to have “air quotes” in there around cheating. I meant Cheating from a realism point of view, and knew it more or less impossible to erase in entirety. I was pointing more to the same thing you were with “pros” vs “noobs” in that knowledge curve of the game, controls and what is/isn’t possible in-game, as well as what the ACTUAL dangers are that you are facing.

I have heard plans to expand the other dimensions and such, (portal travel end game)

[Zilenan91]

We already have a decent amount of content in terms of getting past the survival stage. In my opinion the survival stage is over once you’ve got a water purifier and funnel set up. At that point getting food & water becomes trivial and not a problem for most survivors.

Going beyond that, survivors beginning to raid military bases and labs is the logical step. They’ve likely already gotten into gun stores and started to raise some other skills like mechanics and tailoring, so they’ll start acquiring more guns and armor through the military and supplies to mutate themselves in labs to gain additional power.

This gain of power via mutations and CBMs is a very fun and imaginative part of the game. However, once the player has mutated themselves and has built their car and has gotten very powerful weapons, there’s not really anything else for them to do beyond that right now. They just keep going down the path of acquiring more power, or if they’re playing PRM they go find a Hell Castle and blow it the fuck up with all their guns and explosives (very fun).

Ideally at this stage the NPC system will have taken a forefront. Bands of marauding bandits in giant tricked out bulldozers with flamethrowers mounted on top, roving tribes of cannibal bikers, government forces attempting to regain control of military bases, or maybe even tribes of mutants arising a year or two after the Cataclysm hits like a group of trilobite-men making a home in the sewers and only coming out at night to prey on the dead and hunting the most dangerous game, or a tribe of lizard mutants setting up shop at a ranch or hunting for food in the forests.

NPCs wouldn’t have enough omnipresence to make them the ENTIRE game at that point, but they’d have enough variance to make the hunt for gear and additional challenge much much more interesting.

[Litppunk]

Yea, and alot of work has gone, and continues to go into making the NPC’s ever better. Which definitely helps with the mid-late game content.

[StopSignal]

You should be able to kill an npc with no armor of a few shots though, usually it’s like trying to kill a bear.
I had this idea for an ultra endgame zone. Is there a way we can make procedural parts of the map like cities but surrounded by map tile wide concrete barriers that the parts of the military set up before the cataclysm, and the city inside would have lots of military equipment and open laboratories, and of course, you’d have a serious pack of all kinds of zombies there, because even with all defenses the virus creeped inside of the fort, and lots of tanks or turrets. It would be a mess. Also in this fortified city there should be a huge building that would have most of the loot and maybe some lore, and who knows what else. I just found this idea of an endgame zone a bunch of map tiles long awesome. Maybe no zombies and turrets because that would be a never-ending fight inside, but maybe zombies everywhere and tank drones and turrets waiting inside of special buildings?

The barrier surrounding the place would have a few fortified doors with turrets in them, and maybe a tank drone. That would mean that if you can pass that well you can pass whatever is inside, so new players would know that.

[Random_dragon]

Welp. Someone was going to add a touch of realism that’d actually make the game less shitty. Blame Mugling for this: http://smf.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?topic=13306.0

[Coolthulhu]

Welp. Someone was going to add a touch of realism that’d actually make the game less shitty. Blame Mugling for this: http://smf.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?topic=13306.0

I now fully remember why Kevin wanted you out. You’re doing the exact same thing now as you were back then.
Do you have Asperger’s that’s making you not realize that bringing up “someone disagreed with me, what a bitch” in unrelated threads is shitty behavior?
It’s not even talking back to someone, just going around and saying “you know that dude? he sucks”.

[Litppunk]

I don’t see it. Maybe I’m missing something. But I don’t see anyone doing anything wrong in either thread.

[pisskop]

Muglings suggestion of planning out the mining and stone ore additions is a tangential matter to this thread.

The idea is that in addition to attacking the person, it wasnt over a related issue to ‘realism sux and is too focus for me’; the topic of this thread.

[Random_dragon]

I have no problem with Mugling’s reasoning behind not implementing it, as that’s not my problem to worry about. But there are legitimate questions the contributor asked that Mugling danced around in a way that pissed me off.

[pisskop]

I have stayed out of it.

I think that, at the least, some variation in stone couldnt hurt. Well, except for generation purposes.

[mightyagrippa]

Every time Random_dragon plops another steaming post onto the forums, I like Mugling a little more.

[Lazy_lizard]

Let’s not build glass houses and get into stone throwing contests here. We can all be friends.

[SpadeDraco]

Every time Random_dragon plops another steaming post onto the forums, I like Mugling a little more.

My friend, I have a bit of reading here that is relevant to your sentiment. I strongly believe that it would be a great benefit to both you and the rest of us here on the forums if you were to read through this page carefully and contemplate the implications of what you just said in relation to it.

Hypocrisy

[Random_dragon]

And look, the main point of that post was to highlight that yes, there are realism changes being thought up that actually make the game better.

[Voqar]

Here we go again. Woohoo!

Why were the “healthy” vehicle part colors changed…what does this gain other than confusion? Why?! Now I feel like my whole vehicle is almost repaired but not quite. Arrrggghh…

But even worse. Why were repair times made so utterly/stupidly/ UNFUCKING FUN long?

This is a game. Whoever works on this should repeat that mantra to themselves regularly. The game is FULL of things that aren’t remotely realistic. Adding selective realism that makes the game immensely annoying and unfun is moronic. Yes, in reality, it takes hours to repair simple things on vehicles, especially when your dealership mechanic is charging $250/hr to jerk off. But that doesn’t make for fun gameplay.

As of this post, it takes longer to repair a single solar panel or piece of military composite than it does to remove an engine from a vehicle, remove the engine from your vehicle, and mount the new engine in your vehicle.

I’m literally going to end up depleting two cities of food and every animal I can find to butcher just to build and fully repair a death mobile because it takes 4 hours to do anything. Attach a heavy frame. 4 hours. Repair anything. 4 hours.

It is not fun to sit and watch the time go by as your repair for hour after hour after hour after hour after hour after hour after hour after hour after hour after hour after hour after hour after hour. That is NOT good gameplay. It actually totally fucking sucks.

Is there zero thought or editorial control over what nonsense gets built into this game?

PS - thanks for making filthy clothes a mod. The no gun clips mod is only so-so because it doesn’t fully restore guns to before the disaster (some mods don’t exist like extended clips, or didn’t last I tried it). I think canned food contents (unloaded) were changed back in a way to work with cooking again too, which is good considering you need a years worth of food to repair a vehicle now.

[Valpo]

I didn t notice such a huge spike in repair time.
The part colouring happened befor because of a bug . So i would asume its not intended and will be fixed.