The Feedback Thread

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by Bluddy

Shadow would you consider patching it so that expedition points can't go negative? I think this is a critical thing, because going negative completely ruins one's experience (especially for a newbie) -- the NPCs become chronically upset and rebel.

Well the reasoning behind this is to let the player have the freedom to send out expeditions even when it is going to make everyone upset. It is up to them if the expedition is worth the price.

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by Shadow

Well the reasoning behind this is to let the player have the freedom to send out expeditions even when it is going to make everyone upset. It is up to them if the expedition is worth the price.

The problem is that expedition points recover slowly; you may not be aware of the cost of going negative (I assumed that I wouldn't be allowed to go negative, as I think most people would); and the effect of going negative is excessive, artificially making your people unhappy to the point of all of them rioting, despite you doing anything you can to make them happy. I can see many people having the same experience as myself and not understanding why their people are rioting no matter what -- there's not enough feedback to warn about the severe consequences of such a move.

An immediate -10 happiness penalty would be preferable and more reasonable, I think. So the way it'd work would be to bottom out at 0, and then another click would have some kind of warning about a -10 happiness penalty for all your people, or at least the ones who have been sent (why would the other ones be unhappy?). For example, I went -178 on my expedition points, dooming my game with barely a warning anywhere.

There's not even a clear connection between happiness and expedition points. It's too abstract of a concept (a boardgame-like mechanic) vs happiness simulation, which is fairly realistic. Some other penalty would probably be better (though I don't know what -- perhaps the chance of your people dying on an expedition goes much higher).

[Bluddy]

Just to give another example, I played another session tonight. I ditched my old world -- with -170 expedition points, it was beyond saving. It's crazy though just the thought that there are attractive-looking buttons in the game that, if clicked one too many times, will doom your game. Big UI problem there.

Anyway, in my new world with the same character, I started with -68 expedition points. I don't know why. I had a great time, but it was in spite of expedition points. In 2 hours of playing, I never once got to actually send an expedition. I was just dealing with the effects of negative points. All my NPCs were fully fed and I donated to them whenever I could, and still, there was nothing I could do to make them happier because of that expedition deficit. All I could do was wait... and wait... I eventually got to -13 points. It's crazy. The rest of the game was great, but this part is nuts and will lead many people to give up on the game (without even knowing why their NPCs are so unhappy.)

I really think it should be capped at 0. Nobody would willingly subject themselves to hours of negative influence and unhappy, rebellious NPCs. It's never worth it.

[Mithur]

I think that the expeditions points in the game should stay as is.Because they represent the willingness of the population to go on an expedition,and if the player himself sends expedition before to accumulate the necessary points,it is completely the fault of the player that people are dissatisfied.As an option to join the clan needed professionals with various expeditionary skills, so you can send lesser expedition with more result,with no need to go in minus expeditions point(and negative population happiness).

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by Mithur

I think that the expeditions points in the game should stay as is.Because they represent the willingness of the population to go on an expedition,and if the player himself sends expedition before to accumulate the necessary points,it is completely the fault of the player that people are dissatisfied.As an option to join the clan needed professionals with various expeditionary skills, so you can send lesser expedition with more result,with no need to go in minus expeditions point(and negative population happiness).

Interesting -- I didn't know expeditionary skills had that effect.

I think it makes sense to have some penalty, but that penalty can't be that your NPCs are unhappy for hours and impossible to please until they rebel, and that if you click a button more than once you've doomed your world.

What are expedition points meant to represent? I believe they're supposed to represent how prepared the expedition is. If so, sending an expedition without the sufficient points will cause the expedition to be unprepared. There should be a much higher chance of the NPC dying or getting hurt, and the NPC who's sent should be pissed off. You don't need to go into the negative to do that -- just indicate that if you send an expedition without enough points, it'll suffer major penalties with a lower chance of success and the NPC sent will become unhappy. That's enough. You shouldn't then have to wait for more than 2 real world hours for your points to recharge in order for your NPCs not to rebel.

Aside from the design issue, I again think this will drive people trying out the game and not aware of the nuances to dislike it.

[Shadow]

I'm not sure this is directly in the game, but I've always thought of it more as a "how willing your clan is to go on another dangerous outing" kind of thing.

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by Shadow

I'm not sure this is directly in the game, but I've always thought of it more as a "how willing your clan is to go on another dangerous outing" kind of thing.

OK, but why is it making them miserable continuously, even if I don't do it? I think the problem is

1. It's too easy to get into negative points, especially for people just trying out the game. Even in a new world you start out with 0 points despite the fact that you see these buttons and the mechanics are explained in a tutorial.
2. The punishment for going negative is too severe, and god-forbid you start another expedition again, because now you're not getting out of that point deficit and your people are guaranteed to be unhappy -- even if you recruit new people who weren't even there when the original expedition happened!

It's far more logical to make the people going on the expedition take an immediate unhappiness penalty if you go negative, and to give the whole expedition major penalties: it has only a small chance of succeeding and more chance of killing your people. The people who didn't go on the expedition shouldn't even be involved, aside from mourning later if someone died on the expedition.

[Shadow]

It might very well be the case that I should tweak it some so it's not quite so punishing.

[Bluddy]

For what it's worth, it may have been better to model this as a fatigue stat that every NPC has. Sending an NPC on an expedition would add 50 fatigue (unless perhaps the NPC has the skill for that type of expedition, in which case it may be less). Fatigue over 75 would cause unhappiness and a perhaps even a 'tired' status effect, penalizing combat. Fatigue decreases slowly on normal NPC mode, and rapidly on R&R mode.

This would mean that expedition fatigue is NPC-specific, that small expeditions would have less fatigue impact than large ones (which isn't the case currently).

If you wanted, you could even have the fatigue build up over time during the expedition, so that pulling the expedition early would leave the NPCs less fatigued.

You could then even have fatigue slowly build up when an NPC is in your party, making it so you'd want to let them rest, and making you think some more about taking that NPC along.

[Bluddy]

It appears that expedition points are tracked in your character save rather than in the world. As a result, starting a new world (even in a new region) with a point defecit keeps that defecit, making it near impossible to play any more games with that character.

Shadow, the simplest solution is probably to cap the points at, say, -50 (since you wanted the ability to go into the negative), and to move storage to the world rather than the character.