I'm not understanding all these changes

Game Talk The Bunker
1

I download the game after yet another long break because the last couple times I played the changes I found were just making the game unfun.
So this time I check it out and it’s like whoever is changing things is doing their best to add as many awkward actions as possible.
Things like the rebinding of removal of keys that have been the same way and integrated into muscle memory for years now. There is also stuff like menus being switched to the other side of the screen. Picking up objects from tables now brings up a menu instead of just letting you grab the object and now pickings stuff up is connected to “g” and pick up at feet has been unbound entirely.

I’ll break it down with be trying to boil water just now.
Old style:
make fire next to water, bring up crafting screen, make clean water, DONE
If interrupted: fix issue and hit continue crafting till done
New style:
make fire next to water, bring up crafting screen, make clean water, asks a list of questions about shit you are holding, you now have a “project” item, continue crafting, done, now rearrange your items again because it made you change them
If interrupted: might have switch items if it’s a threat, juggle your project item with other stuff, if you hit crafting again you’ll create a second project item, free your hands and hold the project and activate it to continue working till done

It doesn’t SOUND like that much of a hassle but it makes every little action just that many more keystrokes. Not to mention all the other little things involved like your crafting menu now starts on a “favorites” page instead of an actual craft menu and that strolling through the menu was changed to TAB from < > which is something I have complained about several times and have not found a solution for or explanation for why it was changed and I am still not used to it because I played with < > for about 4 years.

Is the end game here to make this a full on simulation? Because I love some aspects like managing nutrition and food freezing and but a lot of this stuff is really stealing from the fun factor.

Also why were long sticks added? What do they add to the game in any way besides giving you an extra step to gain heavy sticks?

4 Likes
2

You aren’t using the system properly. You can build a crafting spot or stand by a table. Then the crafting item will be on the table while you work on it. If interuppted, fix the issue, examine the table and continue crafting. I’m not sure if it’s in yet, but you’ll be able to tell your NPC followers to go work on that project you started.

This lets you do things like easily begin a long project, stop half way through to relocate your base, and the continue it at the new location. I think if you experiment with it, you’ll find it has advantages.
As far as making this a simulator…Kevin has been favoring simulation realism over gameplay forever now, welcome to the party :slight_smile:

2 Likes
3

Well, I don’t even think Kevin really wants a fully realistic game too, I’ve definitely seen him talk about some changes that he didn’t like (“can’t use peddles to power vehicles” as an example) but it would be hard to voice an opinion on asking for progress and then getting progress. Even if that progress is ultimately more strenuous on the players.

Anyways, it is definitely both more realistic and easier to have the item in progress than have it either be made or not made, plus as Malkeus mentioned you just have a crafting table or “workbench”.

4

I’m finding it leads to a more spread out base. I set up multiple workbenchs, put specific ingredients at each one and craft as needed. Favorites menu is great too, saves me a bunch of time searching for things I don’t have all the ingredients on hand for, but want to know the ingredients of.

edit: It’s worth noting that I have less lag walking around and picking up items with advanced inventory now that I spread things out compared to my old style of ‘Pile it all up and start crafting’

1 Like
5

NPC crafting isnt in yet, but im working on it.

Thats why partial constructions, unfinished craft items and so on are essential to that.

the UI/UX aspects of these systems are not designed to annoy you, messing up your muscle memory is not a good reason to delay new features.

The features go into experimental, and then people ( hopefully ) contribute cool solutions to make the drawbacks of the new features better, if they are too annoying ( which im not convinced they are - im already used to them )

Feature first, polish later - it’s experimental version.

For example, the sidebar changes, yes the menus changed position, that was necessary to make it fit into a new completely user-customisable UI, which you now have, thats objectively a better feature than before. SOmetimes the new features require changes to the way things are laid out and presented.

This is not about adding tedium and ultra-realism, despite the tired meme that is always banded about.

So we’ve established that the unfinished craft item is a good thing, how would you handle the UX of it? would you make it so it auto-drops on the floor instead of prompting? what then if you want to resume it, you then have to pick it up, so either way, it involves more keypresses, and as others have said, it automatically gets placed on a nearby workbench if you have one.

Regarding the workbenches/tables, they will , at some point be a point where you can open a UI to set NPC crafting bills ( think like Rimworld ), so they need a UI.

This wasnt designed to add tedium to annoy you, and wasnt done without any thought at all, it all has a purpose, and while there is room for improvement, you are looking at a snapshot and not seeing the bigger picture.

The other things you mention like TAB and backtab, again, your muscle memory is not a valid reason to avoid changes, but it is actually more consistent with UI conventions in general to have tab and backtab navigate through… tabs of a UI, the clue is in the name of the key.

( also, the realism over gameplay argument is tired, ofc Kevin and the devs appreciate gameplay mechanics, realism is favoured where it can be used without heavily sacrificing gameplay, its not black and white, its a sliding scale )

6 Likes
6

That’s still not a reason to change the menu navigation. What was there worked, everyone knew how to use it, and then it was different. Your reason is just that the menu has tabs so it should use the TAB key? That’s weird dude. Before it was essentially just left and right but now it’s tab or shift+tab. Instead of a button combo for each direction it’s a single button for one way or two buttons for the other.

The crafting changes whatever the reason or future plans is making the crafting take more keystrokes and making it more tedious. Everything from picking up items to foraging is getting minutia added to it and it’s feeling bloated.

I don’t believe unfinished craft items are a good thing and again I have played this for years. Never ever had an issue with the crafting system. At one point I played nothing else but cata for around 4 months downloading a new version every few days. Sometimes it would be totally broken like the version where all the text went wacky or back when throwing sticks could kill basically anything with 0 skill and base stats. But the changes have never been like this it’s like in the last like year or so it’s started to become and entirely different game like a few new people jumped into the game out of no where and decided to reshape it to what they liked better.

1 Like
7

Crafting/inventory favorites are some of the best QoL features in the game.

4 Likes
8

Just get used to it man. Not that big of a deal.

2 Likes
9

Yes and I’m sure Skyrim was simpler and easier to work with before they added an inventory to the code, and Grand Theft Auto was simpler and less keys had to be pressed before they coded the ability to enter cars by opening the doors.
Perhaps RImworld was simpler before animal taming was added, its just more clicks now.

You see where im going with this?

The fact you got used to the game that is a constant work in progress is not ever a reason to consider removing or not adding new features, if that was the case then nothing would ever get done.

The benefits of the new features and the opportunities they open are clear to the devs and a lot of the playerbase, yaknow tht when we changed the turn time to 1-second, immediately afterwards the performance of the game suffered hugely, and people said why did you push it to experimental, its terrible now! its unplayable!.

Remember : features first, polish later.

If a feature adds more keypresses and “tedium”, its not a big deal, its not designed to be that way deliberately, its an experiment in the experimental version, and anyone can contribute any cool solution they can think of to make the UX better.

You are welcome to propose any changes that you feel could make it better, given the situation that these new features are staying because they are part of the games future goals.

10 Likes
10

It took some getting used to, but I do like the change honestly. It’s especially a godsend for those long crafts that take several hours. I’ll take some slight UI and muscle memory retraining if it means I don’t have to spend four hours crafting something only for it to magically poof away because I needed a sandwich and didn’t hit the underscore key fast enough.

1 Like
12

You said “nothing wrong with disagreeing”

then you say someone is a dick, and rude if they disagree with the person who says theres a problem. lol, see the inconsistency there?

Anyway, I covered what you are saying in my previous posts, I wonder if you even read them, nobodies changing anything arbitrarily, and this isnt a finished game, this is a work in progress, especially the experimental version, and new features disrupt things.

“Keep messin with stuff that everyone is cool with” - Youve missed the point again.

We arent changing hunger, or the sidebar, or crafting just to mess with things cos we think its broken, or we are bored, there are plenty of long-term plans, read the github projects, we are adding new features that open up lots of areas to expand gameplay, and for this to happen, we need to disrupt things.

Keep playing your old version, and we’ll page you when the games finished ok?

3 Likes
13

Honestly I’d like there to be a tag some some recipes to be unable to have an incomplete version, like clean water in progress as an item or liquids in general in progress that aren’t in a container? seems silly.

Is there a way to destroy or cancel incomplete items at a low percentage to recover materials or at least get rid of the bloat if I changed my mind without literally burning the incomplete item?

I also think when one opens the crafting menu, nearby incomplete items should appear at the top of any category, I should not have to activate the item in order to continue crafting, the ‘-’ key should also continue last craft instead of creating a new one.

These would more or less fix my complaints with the system, having a bunch of incomplete items because I am used to just using ‘-’ to complete whatever craft was interrupted and not have to go through like 4 extra keypresses of effort to continue something that should no double be easier than crafting a new thing, it’s a pain.

Also, wouldn’t incomplete items having weight and volume allow making 0% complete items and using them as some form of infinite fire wood?

3 Likes
14

Some good points.

Some are planned.

Like improving the incomplete items for some things that perhaps arent logically covered by intermediate crafting stages.

And destroy or cancel incomplete items.

“I also think when one opens the crafting menu, nearby incomplete items should appear at the top of any category, I should not have to activate the item in order to continue crafting, the ‘-’ key should also continue last craft instead of creating a new one.”

^ that is a good idea, thanks.

I do not think incomplete items are marked as useable for fuel.

The main person who did all the in-progress crafting stuff and a whole lot of cool work on item_colony structures is currently away for a few more days/weeks I believe, so any fixes will have to wait until then, unless someone else wants to wade through that very complex stuff and try and refine it.

3 Likes
16

Thought it was a bit too much " let’s repeat something that’s been rebutted countless times by the devs just to try and wind them up a bit "

2 Likes
17

Your arguments don’t make sense. In your skyrim example you say the game would have been simpler before they added inventory. Sure? I guess.
But more accurate example for my complaint is Skyrim has already been out for four years it already has a working inventory system and then one day they update it and now to access your inventory you have to press alt+g instead of like TAB. And then instead of an inventory screen coming up your character sets down a backpack and you need to take items out of it one by one to see what you’re carrying.

In the GTA example it would be more like they finally drop an expansion and they made changes in it where when you attempt to open a car door you need to wiggle the right thumbstick for four seconds to simulate getting the key to turn in the car door.

Then for rimworld, another game I play religiously by the way, sure they add taming. Taming is an optional thing you can do which requires you to click an icon or press a button while an an animal is selected. It doesn’t really add more button presses to anything but itself and you never HAVE to do it.
Now how about if I went to play Rimworld right now and when I order my colonists to gather/mine/etc I find out they don’t respond. So I look into it and realize out that after a patch a colonist can no longer gather berries or do any work in fact if they are holding a weapon because their hands aren’t free. So now I have to manually have them store and grab their weapons before every task or danger.
That is an example that adds more button presses and tedium to a system that already works.

2 Likes
18

No.

A more apt example, would be that you were allowed to play the alpha branch of an early WIP of Skryim with a very basic inventory system, and then it got updated in their experimental alpha branch, and you were still playing it.

This game has not been “out” for years. It is an open-source volunteer-contributed game, and thus has a completely different way of development than any game you buy in a finished state.

The way we do things is say " this feature would be cool because it can lead to x, y and, z, we’ll put it into the experimental version , as neatened up as we can make it, and see what shakes out of it, and see what can be improved as time goes on, and hopefully people will contribute to continue development on that feature"

You are missing the entire point of what I was saying.

The game is under constant development, you are playing a snapshot of that continuous development, there will be changes, there will be constant changes, don’t get used to anything.

The old versions still exist, play them.

When all the new features are fully fleshed out and tidied up and the UX/UI is all neatened up, we’ll send you a message to let you know the game is “out” by those sort of standards ok? ( it might be a few years )

And when the game is “finished” , and all of its systems and elements are considered exactly what we want them to be, then, perhaps then, you can feel safe getting used to how it works.

2 Likes
22

I agree with TheZoneWizard. And the only issues I have with some of the changes were the implementation of them. What was worked for was to add an additional layer of depth, but the results IMO come across as uneeded complication and tedium, with very little benefit.

Much like why our characters don’t need to relieve themselves or use a toilet. Uneeded tedium that would fail to add to the experience in a positive manner.

This was my take on it.

2 Likes
24

I understand ya dude

I should’ve separated my agreement with you from my opinion on the changes themselves. I added my opinion on the forum topic in an effort to “point positive” the forum discussion.

1 Like
25

What is going on with these hidden posts? Mine was hidden within seconds and the message I got claimed that it was because multiple people flagged it. Yet the post stats themselves said it was only even viewed once. Then the last two posts by TheZoneWizard have absolutely nothing offensive in them and they are both hidden.

1 Like
26

Your post wandered from discussing the issue to argument for the sake of argument. Not surprisingly, people don’t find ranting to be topical or worth reading, so they flagged it as getting out of line.

ZoneWizard isn’t even posting in the same thread as the rest of us, his posts are about an unrelated issue that is off-topic here, so his posts were similarly marked as off-topic and hidden.