Why Cataclysm 2?

[Datanazush]

You really feel the need to call someone out for saying “cunt” on the internet? Jesus, Bonevomit was 120% right about people being too easily offended here.

Some people just don’t like the word, mate. Unless you’re looking to start a fight, it’s better to make sure you’re using a word that won’t insult the target audience. That said, if you know these people are fine with the word, cunt away my good friend.

[Morrigi]

[quote=“Morrigi, post:80, topic:6219”]You really feel the need to call someone out for saying “cunt” on the internet? Jesus, Bonevomit was 120% right about people being too easily offended here.

Some people just don’t like the word, mate. Unless you’re looking to start a fight, it’s better to make sure you’re using a word that won’t insult the target audience. That said, if you know these people are fine with the word, cunt away my good friend.[/quote]
Sorry, but getting offended from cussing on the internet is like sticking one’s dick in a toaster. You get burned, and it tends to end badly.

[Datanazush]

[quote=“Datanazush, post:81, topic:6219”][quote=“Morrigi, post:80, topic:6219”]You really feel the need to call someone out for saying “cunt” on the internet? Jesus, Bonevomit was 120% right about people being too easily offended here.

Some people just don’t like the word, mate. Unless you’re looking to start a fight, it’s better to make sure you’re using a word that won’t insult the target audience. That said, if you know these people are fine with the word, cunt away my good friend.[/quote]
Sorry, but getting offended from cussing on the internet is like sticking one’s dick in a toaster. You get burned, and it tends to end badly.[/quote]

I am well aware that you shouldn’t bother getting offended by a fuck here, a cunt there, but I mean… It costs you nothing to be polite, if not civil.

[i2amroy]

-snip-

Indeed, late game content and scaling too fast is one of the bigger problems we currently have balance wise, and one that has had several possible methods to help solve it suggested. (Making things that are supposed to be rare actually rare, adding more late-game challenges, etc.).

[quote=“Datanazush, post:81, topic:6219”][quote=“Morrigi, post:80, topic:6219”]You really feel the need to call someone out for saying “cunt” on the internet? Jesus, Bonevomit was 120% right about people being too easily offended here.

Some people just don’t like the word, mate. Unless you’re looking to start a fight, it’s better to make sure you’re using a word that won’t insult the target audience. That said, if you know these people are fine with the word, cunt away my good friend.[/quote]
Sorry, but getting offended from cussing on the internet is like sticking one’s dick in a toaster. You get burned, and it tends to end badly.[/quote]
That’s like saying I shouldn’t get offended if someone bursts out swearing because I’m standing in a supermarket. (Not that I really do, but I’m generally fairly tolerant about that stuff.) IMO the location of your discussion shouldn’t change how polite you act. If you aren’t willing to swear in front of an old lady at a funeral you shouldn’t be doing it anywhere else (and even if you are it doesn’t mean it’s polite).

[Paquito]

I’d like to think we’re a bit more civilized than a youtube comment page.

[conductorbosh]

Quoth Whales: “Short answer, CDDA is a sandbox game with no goals beyond survival and a huge amount of content, some overpower and some very silly. C2 has a sandbox option, but the main focus is a well-crafted game with definitive goals (including side quests and player-defined goals) and a way to win. C2’s content is carefully manicured and balanced, and values quality over quantity for content.”

Shorter answer: he’d rather focus entirely on things like Z-levels and NPC implementation than on vibrators and goofy weapon duplicates.

Don’t yell at me, devs; just poking fun.
I like Cata DDA lots. It was actually my first roguelike, and I prefer the sandbox style to what Whales is planning anyway. Once late-game in DDA stops being absolutely piss-easy it’ll be a masterpiece.

[Khrysanth]

Picture your typical high school indoor basketball court/gymnasium. Let’s put a single basketball in the middle.

C2 is that situation, but with the specific “game” of basketball applied. There is a win condition, a lose condition, and specific ways everything must be done.

DDA just gives you the court and ball. You can ignore the baskets at the ends and instead play dodgeball. Or cut the ball into strips and make it into something else. Maybe you want to climb the baskets.

Honestly? I am tired of “games”. No matter how well crafted they might be, the simple fact of the matter is that they have a definitive end. After that point, I no longer care about them.

There’s a reason I’m drawn to sandbox games more and more. Rimworld, Starbound, Dwarf Fortress, Dark Days Ahead, and many of Bethesda’s games (the story of Morrowind, Oblivion, or Skyrim might end, but the “game” doesn’t.)

Give me the sandbox and the toys. I’m smart enough to play my own game with them, I don’t need somebody else dictating and hand-holding me on the “One True Path.”

[conductorbosh]

Honestly? I am tired of “games”. No matter how well crafted they might be, the simple fact of the matter is that they have a definitive end. After that point, I no longer care about them.

I’m pretty much with you on that. I spent years ignore roguelikes because I was sure I could just never get used to ASCII or even tiles. But Cata helped change that when I saw how much freedom I had. “Wait, I can break a window and go into a house that way? Any window?”

The example I always give people when explaining the game is that in Cata DDA, you have the ability to unload your gun and throw the ammo at your opponent. Sure, it wouldn’t really do anything. But you can do it anyway. Simply magical

[Creamy_Goodness]

[quote=“TheOperator”]FTL, which features spectacular balance between its moving components; boarding ships feel as tense and as fun to play as weapons platforms. FTL has many valid playstyles, and is a richer game for it; DDA has nerfed its opening variations, with the result that every game feels the same.

Way to go, devteam. Champion job there.[/quote]

The fact that you said FTL is a richer game than cataclysm makes me want to vomit my balls through my nose

[Fniff]

snip

I’d trust your criticisms a lot more if this wasn’t the first post you made ever. Seems a little odd for a newbie to have complete knowledge of the faults of the game and the faults in the community. And yes, there are definitely faults and I do agree with you on some points.

[Khrysanth]

1.) Because the DDA devteam wouldn’t know game design, balance, principles of modern coding, or quality if it shot them in the face.

Stop. DDA is based on Cataclysm. By Whales. You know, the same person who is making C2. Your criticisms automatically apply to the original developer. Your point is invalid.

Next.

... and they built a JSON importer.

Because no professional devteam would ever make tools which makes adding or adjusting content easier.

... fact...

Your opinion is not fact. My opinion is not fact. Nobody's opinion becomes fact.

You should, however, go read some of Richard Bartle’s game theories. Especially the ones about player personalities.

Moving on…

because it's a sandbox

Good, meaningful games are about creating a narrative -- hero descends into dungeon, hero overcomes adversity, hero escapes.

Wait, first you claim its a sandbox, then you say it's a bad game.

To this, I say: No kidding.
Dwarf Fortress is a sandbox. There is no narrative.
Minecraft is a sandbox. There is no narrative.
Starbound is a sandbox. There is no narrative.
Rimworld is a sandbox. There is no narrative.

Mass Effect is a game. There is narrative. There is definite end.
Baldur’s Gate is a game. There is narrative. There is definite end.

Unreal Tournament is a game. There is NO NARRATIVE. But there is definite end.

Skyrim is a hybrid sandbox game. There is narrative. There is no definite end.

You know what all of the above have in common though? They’re all popular. People play all of them. By your standards the only ones that should have any popularity in that list are Mass Effect, Baldur’s Gate and Skyrim. Because the rest have no “crafted narrative”.

2.) Every critique is an opportunity for fresh new DevTeam butthurt.

This point serves only as trollbait. Moving on.

3.) Because the DevTeam is in love with a certain playstyle, and refuse to nerf it because that is their special way of playing the game.

Vehicles have gotten nerfed because they’re too good. So have firearms, starting loot, everything that would allow a playstyle other than “craft wooden spear, run into wilderness.” Bows, however, have not been nerfed; neither have survival or tailoring, not in the nine iterations they’ve had. The DevTeam has their pet skills, which they’re not willing to nerf because then the game will not be fun for them, without realizing that they are making the game unfun for people with different play styles.

While your point has no point, it is amusing that you lack the creativity to do anything more than “craft spear, run into wilderness” and be successful. This is not a devteam failure, this is yours.

Going back to another of your statements:

because loot is the only meaningful metric of character advancement in DDA

While your definition of "meaningful" is already on unsteady ground which you seem intent on breaking apart beneath yourself with a jackhammer, I will point out that "stuff" is the only "meaningful" metric of advancement in the real world.

But your unwillingness to see possibilities in Factions beyond “I don’t need them because I can tailor myself stuff” is your own fault. Possibility: Your own faction. Now you have a group. Ever play Zafehouse Diaries? How about State of Decay?

I will end this by saying: If you have that much of an issue with this, go away. Don’t go to another community, not even 4chan needs your toxic attitudes hanging around. Isolate yourself in your small-minded world.

[kevin.granade]

Obvious sockpuppet is obvious. if you want to troll annonymously, go to 4chan.

[Rivet]

[quote=“TheOperator”]Why Cata2, you say?

1.) Because the DDA devteam wouldn’t know game design, balance, principles of modern coding, or quality if it shot them in the face.[/quote]

Opening your statement with implied violence. Butthurt much?

There is pretty consistent whining from the DevTeam about how hard it is to work in Whales’ codebase.

You keep using that word ‘whining’. I do not think it means what you think it means. Please review your own post for many fine examples.

Well, the DevTeam had a golden opportunity to refactor the codebase root and branch with Kickstarter money, allowing them to replace all of the weird special cases for cutting and hammering with a real object system; to implement Z-levels and intelligent NPC behavior on a well-maintained, well-documented codebase, and just completely transitioning away from the original Cata code… and they built a JSON importer.

The tool quality system you speak of? We’ve got that. You may want to play the game before criticizing it for lacking features that it already has. As for completely rewriting the code from scratch, there’s plenty of good reasons not to.

The Devteam also whines whenever anybody brings up the fact that the difficulty curve is, frankly, broken, and that most major features have added no value to the game. There is a definite trend towards fake difficulty; ice labs, zombears, moose attacks, hordes and random nether spawns around overworld loot add literally nothing to the game, because it’s a sandbox. There is no reason to ever dive an ice lab, because the same loot can just be found in the lab a few miles down the street, in the lab that won’t kill you from frostbite on Z level -4. Zombears instakill unprepared players, and aren’t a challenge to prepared players… all they add is frustration and annoyance, when a bear that goes down in two or three melee hits smashes all of your carefully constructed windows that took in-game months to construct. Hordes add extra zombies… so just move or drive around them. Random nether spawns and zombie scientists with manhacks instakill early game characters, and all they do is keep players from getting good loot early enough. Every major feature promoted by the devs has added no variety in gameplay; the biggest change in playstyle since 0.6 has come from vehicle-mounted floodlights.

If monsters are ‘fake difficulty’ then why are you playing a conflict-driven game in the first place? That’s why videogames have monsters; to add difficulty.

[quote=“TheOperator”]Compare with Crawl, where keys to open the endgame are present in dungeon branches; branches change up gameplay, and provide interesting challenges with meaningful rewards. None of that here.

And the fix the DevTeam is promoting – Factions – won’t fix this problem, because loot is the only meaningful metric of character advancement in DDA, and factions won’t have any meaningful loot that you won’t be able to just build yourself with 12 Tailoring… so there won’t be any reason to interact with them.

What would solve the problem is adding an endgame – some goal that each character is aspiring to, even if they are approaching it in different ways in this open sandbox. Good, meaningful games are about creating a narrative – hero descends into dungeon, hero overcomes adversity, hero escapes.[/quote]

As you’ve already stated, DDA is a sandbox game. The overall plot is up to you to construct, and nothing in the game is forcing you to play a particular style or follow a particular path. Criticizing a sandbox game for lacking a scripted plot is like complaining that a game about jigsaw puzzles doesn’t have enough gunplay.

Pre-static spawn Cata had that – hero sprints into town, hero grabs whatever he can find, hero runs out to wilderness to eke out a miserable existence, hero comes back to cleanse the town. Post-static spawn has… hero smashes up starting shelter, hero crafts wooden spear, hero dominates game. There is literally no other way to survive the early game without startscumming. But the devteam is insistent that they won’t add an endgame, which leads to point 2:

You can use dynamic spawn right now, and there’s a LOT of options in how to begin your game. Personally, I rarely use a nailboard or wooden spear; why limit yourself to a single tactic when there’s literally unlimited choices?

[quote=“TheOperator”]2.) Every critique is an opportunity for fresh new DevTeam butthurt.

Off the top of my head, people the mods have tantrumed about:

–People who prefer dynamic spawn to static spawn
–People who ask about where the kickstarter money went.
–People who express concerns about the lack of endgame. (DF fortresses die from framerate, something that Tarn Adams keeps trying to address and the devteam just completely fails to understand.)
–People who express concern over how bows and throwing consistently outperform firearms.
–People who believe that elves do not belong in a science-fictional setting.
–People who express frustration about how vehicles should not come to a complete stop when impacting a bush (that was as much on Bay12 as here)[/quote]

I’m not even going to bother refuting this beyond stating that this is exaggerations, lies, and seriously out of date information.

[quote=“TheOperator”]Threads get shut down over this shit. Compare, say, the Crawl development community, which is still responsive to criticism while remaining a fun game and an interesting place to go for roguelike design insights. So why doesn’t DDA have that? My theory, below, is:

3.) Because the DevTeam is in love with a certain playstyle, and refuse to nerf it because that is their special way of playing the game.

Vehicles have gotten nerfed because they’re too good. So have firearms, starting loot, everything that would allow a playstyle other than “craft wooden spear, run into wilderness.” Bows, however, have not been nerfed; neither have survival or tailoring, not in the nine iterations they’ve had. The DevTeam has their pet skills, which they’re not willing to nerf because then the game will not be fun for them, without realizing that they are making the game unfun for people with different play styles.[/quote]

Projecting much? You’re faced with unlimited choices, yet you’re only capable of seeing one, so you blame the contributors and envision a conspiracy to force you to play a particular style. Not only is this wrong, but it’s wrong in every possible way.

Compare Nethack, which has at least three reasonable openings (slash through the dungeon, protection racket, dig for victory), or FTL, which features spectacular balance between its moving components; boarding ships feel as tense and as fun to play as weapons platforms. FTL has many valid playstyles, and is a richer game for it; DDA has nerfed its opening variations, with the result that every game feels the same.

Blaming the game for your lack of imagination and creativity. Champion job there.

Way to go, devteam. Champion job there.

You’re welcome.

[hr]

Everyone who likes DDA, please enjoy the game. For those of you who cannot, I’m sorry that we’re not your cup of tea. Maybe one day we’ll have whatever it takes to draw you in.

For those of you who have criticisms or suggestions, please let us know what we can do to make the game better.

For those of you who are butthurt trolls looking to start trouble, we’ll happily provide simple truths to disprove your statements and defuse your tantrums for however long you stick around prior to getting yourselves banned.

[John_Candlebury]

But hey the operator made a single good point about zombie animals. They will insta murder you if you start in winter, but if you start in spring, they are nothing but an annoyance by the time they start coming.

And they are a real annoyance, the only damage they do is breaking my windows/solar panels while I sleep which I find really infuriating.

[conductorbosh]

I agree that operator made some bullshit points but deleting his post is too far. You guys have to be willing to take criticism, that’s the point of an open-source project. You can’t just get grumpy and stomp around the room deleting things like a certain dev I know whenever somebody tries to nerf armor

It’s simply not okay to decide that someone is “trolling” whenever they have a long list of complaints. Sure, he only had one post, but given how easy it is to get a ban around these parts I can’t really blame him.

inb4 everybody assumes it was me

[Datanazush]

INB4 Inb4.

I think the main reason it got deleted was because he was being a fuckhead, criticism’s all well and good, but he was being wanker about it. If he hadn’t have been nearly as much of a jerk about it, the post would’ve probably stayed. We’d have still arced up at it, but it would’ve stayed.

[Bonevomit]

he actually made a few good points, luckily though they were dispatched with a few simple truths until he was banned.

Seriously, not even 4chan needs these toxic attitudes. If you don’t like the game then just go away already. We don’t need any trouble makers around here.

And to all you would-be trolls out there, don’t even think of blatantly insulting our game, that’s just not going to fly. If you want to make a critque, remember to be civil and polite, like this model poster:

Shorter answer: he'd rather focus entirely on things like Z-levels and NPC implementation than on vibrators and goofy weapon duplicates.

Don’t yell at me, devs; just poking fun.
I like Cata DDA lots. It was actually my first roguelike, and I prefer the sandbox style to what Whales is planning anyway. Once late-game in DDA stops being absolutely piss-easy it’ll be a masterpiece.

This is out of hand. I know it’s a sockpuppet and whatever, but you don’t need to be this defensive. And if it really was a troll and not just some disgruntled person, you would have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.

Kevin you asked me eariler for examples of this, here you go.

[conductorbosh]

[quote=“Bonevomit, post:97, topic:6219”]And to all you would-be trolls out there, don’t even think of blatantly insulting our game, that’s just not going to fly. If you want to make a critque, remember to be civil and polite, like this model poster:

Shorter answer: he'd rather focus entirely on things like Z-levels and NPC implementation than on vibrators and goofy weapon duplicates.

Don’t yell at me, devs; just poking fun.
I like Cata DDA lots. It was actually my first roguelike, and I prefer the sandbox style to what Whales is planning anyway. Once late-game in DDA stops being absolutely piss-easy it’ll be a masterpiece.

This is out of hand. I know it’s a sockpuppet and whatever, but you don’t need to be this defensive. And if it really was a troll and not just some disgruntled person, you would have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.

Kevin you asked me eariler for examples of this, here you go.[/quote]

I may be misunderstanding the context in which you quoted me, but just in case I’m not: that wasn’t a troll post at all, I really have been playing Cata avidly for years, and I look forward to every update. I just don’t post on the forums particularly often. I know Z-Levels and everything are in the works and I was just poking fun at the recent vibrator controversy. Nothing wrong about any of that. If I’ve misinterpreted your post and you weren’t actually accusing me of trolling, disregard this.

[quote=“Datanazush, post:96, topic:6219”]INB4 Inb4.

I think the main reason it got deleted was because he was being a fuckhead, criticism’s all well and good, but he was being wanker about it. If he hadn’t have been nearly as much of a jerk about it, the post would’ve probably stayed. We’d have still arced up at it, but it would’ve stayed.[/quote]

Okay, that’s legit then. I read the post right after I’d woken up so I probably forgot aspects of it. Complaints are well and good but one shouldn’t be needlessly antagonistic. So I guess basically I believe that you should be allowed to criticize all you want, as long as you at least maintain a veneer of respect and constructiveness around it.

[Datanazush]

I think bone’s words got misconstrued a little there, he seemed to have been going for the “If you’re going to give criticism, do it right” path with that quote.

Also yeah, criticize away peeps, just remember that your criticism should be constructive and/or polite.

[conductorbosh]

[quote=“Datanazush, post:99, topic:6219”]I think bone’s words got misconstrued a little there, he seemed to have been going for the “If you’re going to give criticism, do it right” path with that quote.

Also yeah, criticize away peeps, just remember that your criticism should be constructive and/or polite.[/quote]

I couldn’t tell if the “model poster” bit was 100% straight-faced or if he meant it was a model post for would-be trolls. Regardless, I’m gonna go back to staring at my computer, unable to decide whether to play Cata, Infra Arcana, or Dorf Fort until it becomes too late to play any of them.