Morale and Favourite Objects/Items/Foods

[Mikhail_Reign]

I think the addition a few more items and a few more variations of items would be great. I really dig that there are a bunch of different sodas and always kinda 'role play' a favorite. I could do the same happening with the chips (nothing crazy, 3 generic flavors would do; plain, salt and vinegar and bbq spring to mind), They dont need to have any real difference - in fact I feel its better if they are the same so you CAN pick one type over the other because 'you want to' and not be forced to min/max (if one gives you 5 and one give you 10, you take the 10. period. and thats not fun).

 

I think that there should a good 'noise' of items, none particularly common enough with a good enough buff to be 'the' item to carry, to make the world feel 'alive' and lived in and so that finding 'your' type is a common, but uncommon experince. Obviously there could be a few outlines that are always good to find (an energy drink, a commercial firelog, the firelighter) but I dont think that the rarer items should always be intrinsically 'better'. Being able to hold onto the last 'Xtrachew' candybar because you like that particular type, or repairing this wool beanie instead of letting it fall apart because you like its particular colour would add a lot of person choices to this game for not a whole lot of effort.

[Wastelander]

1 hour ago, Mikhail_Reign said:

Being able to hold onto the last 'Xtrachew' candybar because you like that particular type, or repairing this wool beanie instead of letting it fall apart because you like its particular colour would add a lot of person choices to this game for not a whole lot of effort.

That's a good point I hadn't considered yet, and I like it - reminds me a bit of Zombieland and it's relationship to Twinkies or the Skyrim character I once played who compulsively hoarded sweetrolls. The roleplaying aspect of 'item noise' as you put it (nice term btw, I need to remember that) is something that isn't explored enough.

[akodo1]

On 10/22/2016 at 11:15 AM, MarrowStone said:

I always wanted at least one soda to have caffeine. Just for the difference, or maybe a voice outtake saying "ahh, my favorite" for a specific flavor, depending on what the voice actors like.

fun variant.

Have multiple variants of soda, candy, chips.  Randomly generate 1 of each as the character's favorite.   Implement morale.  When your character eats his favorite of these, he makes some remark so you the player can identify it, and gets a morale boost when eating his favorite.

[ponyhidden]

On 10/23/2016 at 3:27 AM, Mikhail_Reign said:

or repairing this wool beanie instead of letting it fall apart because you like its particular colour would add a lot of person choices to this game for not a whole lot of effort.

I really, really like this concept. +1 for sure.

[MarrowStone]

3 hours ago, akodo1 said:

fun variant.

Have multiple variants of soda, candy, chips.  Randomly generate 1 of each as the character's favorite.   Implement morale.  When your character eats his favorite of these, he makes some remark so you the player can identify it, and gets a morale boost when eating his favorite.

Would you consider Summit soda as Mtn Dew, Sierra Mist, or Canada Dry Ginger Ale? 

Its kind of funny because mtn dew means the same thing as sierra mist, (siera/mtn dew/mist) and summit soda kinda follows suit. 

However, it taking place in canada, a Canada Dry ginger ale would make sense

Mayve they could make a soda called Glacier Ginger Ale and then Caffeinate the Summit Soda.

[cekivi]

13 hours ago, MarrowStone said:

However, it taking place in canada, a Canada Dry ginger ale would make sense

In my head cannon Summit Soda has always been Canada Dry, my favourite

[cekivi]

17 hours ago, akodo1 said:

fun variant.

Have multiple variants of soda, candy, chips.  Randomly generate 1 of each as the character's favorite.   Implement morale.  When your character eats his favorite of these, he makes some remark so you the player can identify it, and gets a morale boost when eating his favorite.

That would actually be a lot of fun. +1

[Dirmagnos]

Pls, not this morale stuff again. Its supposed to be about survival not visiting a Disney World. A good stake on an empty stomach will make me a lot happier than any soda or candy.

[Mikhail_Reign]

Yeah. But the point is you have neither.

 

What you do have is a can of warm spunk water, and you favourite can of Summit Soda. Your telling me that getting to drink your fav isn't going to have moral boost?

[Vulp]

I think that a possible moral buff would be a good addition to some sort of "well being" meter.

Also, having more item skins and more junk items that can be improvised into something else would be great! +1

[Dirmagnos]

4 hours ago, Mikhail_Reign said:

What you do have is a can of warm spunk water, and you favourite can of Summit Soda. Your telling me that getting to drink your fav isn't going to have moral boost?

Im saying that if i have no proper food and im hungry, then can of chemical piss wont do me any good, on any level. And if i care about my health at all, and there are no hospital anywhere near me, il go for a mug of warm stale water any day of the week instead of can of God knows what.

Plus, yet again, how exactly do you propose to determine favorite ? Randomly ? That would be the worse idea ever as it, yet again, forces player to play in some predetermined way that may have nothing to do with player view of the world, affecting game general immersion.

I hate sodas, they are probably on top of my to-avoid list. Alongside with chips, i occasionally indulge in those guilty pleasures, but every time after that i feel like crap for wasting both money and my health.

[Mikhail_Reign]

3 hours ago, Dirmagnos said:

Im saying that if i have no proper food and im hungry, then can of chemical piss wont do me any good, on any level. And if i care about my health at all, and there are no hospital anywhere near me, il go for a mug of warm stale water any day of the week instead of can of God knows what.

Plus, yet again, how exactly do you propose to determine favorite ? Randomly ? That would be the worse idea ever as it, yet again, forces player to play in some predetermined way that may have nothing to do with player view of the world, affecting game general immersion.

I hate sodas, they are probably on top of my to-avoid list. Alongside with chips, i occasionally indulge in those guilty pleasures, but every time after that i feel like crap for wasting both money and my health.

geeez your aggressive dude. chill down. YOU don't like soda - no worries. I'm not trying to make ya drink any, so calm the hell down. Maybe its you that needs the morale boost.

 

A: I don't really know how to address your first paragraph - obviously I'm comparing 'equal' sodas, one of which is a favorite. You don't get to got on a rant and pick a 3rd option

B: never said that there should be a actual favorite, just that there should be some variation of items so that YOU can personally have a favorite. But when others were discussing working it with morale (something I'm not actually a fan of) I put forward my idea of how it should work, which leads into:

C: How would you pick it? off the top of my head, you could easily pick your 'favorite' items before the game starts in some cool 'pre disaster' intro setting. but yeah thats just off the top of my head - there are a million ways it could be done. average over time of the ones you pick in game, random at the start of each game, picked before hand, picked during. What you are suggesting is a wall, isn't, even if you dont like the idea. There could be plenty of problems with the idea - this isn't one.

D: awesome dude. you don't like soda. yay?

[Dirmagnos]

5 hours ago, Wastelander said:

And other people do love soda. Not to mention that a familiar taste can give a feeling of home, of normalcy. What the whole discussion about soda has to do with the topic at hand is beyond me though.

Back toward money, should we consider coins a separate item or another form of scrap metal?

And how exactly do you propose to implement it then ? My whole point were regarding ingame implementation and tying it to morale, idea that i despise to begin with.

Considering that i already have parasites on the list of things that completely ruin game for me, i consider whole morale idea to be horrendous, an excellent way to reduce great and unique concept to a pile of generic casual features that one can see in every second game out there. In most cases things like morale just become another pointless need gauge to fill, that deal severe blow to protagonist personal preferences. Whole argument around soda was an example of exactly that.

Combined with the fact that devs are unreasonable stubborn in terms of giving players control over options regarding world creations, i personally dont want something that i consider to be completely out of place and ludicrous at best, given premise of the game.

@Mikhail_Reign My issue is with @akodo1 idea, not yours. If you like to roleplay it, i couldnt care less, its your choice. What i dont want is such feature to become mandatory for everyone else. As different people deal with different situations differently.

Its one thing when were dealing with universal needs, like hunger or thirst, and its completely another when player is forced to be "scared" of a frozen corpse, as morale system suggests, even if irl he couldtn give a flying pencil about them due to specifics of his personality or choices and experiences that he made in life. It shallows player experience from the game, breaking immersion. I really would prefer to avoid getting another absurd feature as parasites are.

[Ohbal]

An important note I try to keep in mind when I come here and discuss: we, the players, are not DRIVING this development, we are just contributing to the brainstorming process and giving feedback on existing features, as "testers".

A morale system, whether @Dirmagnos likes it or despites it (and I believe we all know his opinion on the matter ), is on the roadmap. And until the devs show their cards about how they are going to handle it, I don't think assuming that is going to be implemented in the worst way possible is something I would recomend... I mean, why worrying before time?  

I think the morale system could definitely get some benefits from small things like the favorite soda. I'd like to be able to chose it, maybe at a character creation screen. Even your favorite hour of the day, your favorite color, your favorite food. Why not? It would contribute to roleplaying to those who like it and add another management layer to everybody. 

 

 

[cekivi]

5 minutes ago, Ohbal said:

I think the morale system could definitely get some benefits from small things like the favorite soda. I'd like to be able to chose it, maybe at a character creation screen. Even your favorite hour of the day, your favorite color, your favorite food. Why not? It would contribute to roleplaying to those who like it and add another management layer to everybody. 

 

 

And it can always be ignored by those who don't want to play with such a system

[June]

Speaking of varieties, I remember my daughter saying a most interesting thing when she watched me play TLD. She said: "why do you pick up the same stick over and over?" Only then I realised that there´s only one single model for the sticks ^^ Maybe there could be room for variations, too

[Dirmagnos]

2 hours ago, Ohbal said:

An important note I try to keep in mind when I come here and discuss: we, the players, are not DRIVING this development, we are just contributing to the brainstorming process and giving feedback on existing features, as "testers".

A morale system, whether @Dirmagnos likes it or despites it (and I believe we all know his opinion on the matter ), is on the roadmap. And until the devs show their cards about how they are going to handle it, I don't think assuming that is going to be implemented in the worst way possible is something I would recomend... I mean, why worrying before time?  

I think the morale system could definitely get some benefits from small things like the favorite soda. I'd like to be able to chose it, maybe at a character creation screen. Even your favorite hour of the day, your favorite color, your favorite food. Why not? It would contribute to roleplaying to those who like it and add another management layer to everybody. 

Actually players are ones that drive development of games, at least those who are in early stages of development. As games are made for players, not devs just come together and decide "lets spend couple hundred thousands euros for no particular reason" to practice a bit in our programming or drawing skills. Personally i consider that both parties have fairly even say on the matter - while developers(and publisher) technically have full control over game, they wont be able to achieve much without player base to support them.

As a simple example id like to bring game called Ghost Recon Phantoms(formerly Ghost Recon Online). I played this game from start to open beta to spring of last year. And now its been announced that Ubisoft is shutting down servers at the years end. This is it could have been THE next gen f2p tactical team-based fps. Until nutwits from Ubisoft completely blew it. They were marinating game in beta state for like 2 years and then finally made "full release", without actually adding anything to it.

Game started great, better than great, it had an excellent basis in closed beta and early open beta. Good idea, good implementation and promising future plans. But then Ubisoft happened. Without completing game Usoft went completely bananas in attempt to milk maximum while doing absolute minimum. 9 out of 10 updates were dedicated to milking money. Fixes were slow and far between(gamebreaking fsb bug, that allowed player to speed up everything, like fire rate or running speed, by changing cpu rates while game was running, took 2 years, despite constant complains and proposed solutions from community). New content non-existing(take old gun, reskin it and sell as a new gun, they literally removed 3 lower tiers of weapons somewhere mid-beta and then added them, with boosted stats, on top - resulting in those "exclusive" old guns losing any value, as power progression was completely linear, while making players paying yet again for something that one man could have done in couple of hours). Constant lying(and i mean lying, not exaggerations or misinterpretation). Draconian censorship(resulting in people who disagreed or called out blatant lies to be simply banned on a completely ridiculous charges). Lack of anything even remotely resembling support or cheating/abuse control(people waited fro months for their tickets to be answered, often without any response coming; hack programs being updated and fully operational within hours of new build released, usually till next build release, that often took months; paying customers having free reign in terms of bug abuse and often cheating if he spent enough on the game - hell, at some point Ubisoft officially recognized wallglitching, eg glitching thru texture joint points to get where player shouldnt be, as feature). Etc. There was practically zero interactions between developers(if there even were any, judging by development progress in second part of open beta, i have my doubts) and players, even tho Ubisoft kept on going about how community is important to them and how they listen to them, etc.

Considering that game, in its core, was damn good. 3 different classes, each with their own weapon sets and abilities. Rather good maps(2 few of them ,but they were good). Significant attention to tactical aspect and teamplay, allowing for numbers of completely different tactics. Moderate number of customizations, exp and cash gain, etc. Extremely good basis to build upon a successful game.

And then Ubisoft happened. Lead developer got changes early in open beta and after that things went to shit. Development stalled, as practically nothing new was being added. No support, no communication, no balance, no control. 90% of "events" were about premium currency sales. 9% of remaining 10% were about sales of "new amazing" equipment packs, that were mostly reskins with better stats than regular stuff and cost in premium currency 3 times less in comparison to regular credits.

Greed and stupidity killed game that could be by now one(if not the) best tactical shooters on the f2p market. Now they are shutting down servers in december. There are no players, cheaters reign supreme, p2w is overwhelming.

Anyways. Well-being system is on a roadmap, not morale. And i truly hope that it wont be one of those shitty generic morale features. Gathering flowers to get +5 morale may work in Dont Starve, but tLD is far more immersive, allowing for far better personal experience as it does not force player to act of certain way that may contradict person personal belief system. In Story mode, ok, fine, we are playing as established characters, with their own world views. But i truly hope that they wont implement some shitty energy bar that depletes every time i walk by the corpse or restores every time i drink a can of chemical piss.

Why im aggressive and pessimistic ? Im paranoid by nature, its a requirement. Plus... parasites.

Quote

It would contribute to roleplaying to those who like it

What about those who dont ? If its optional feature, i couldnt care less, but what if its mandatory  for everyone ? Devs are rather resistant to idea of new game conditions customization.

[Ohbal]

2 minutes ago, Dirmagnos said:

Actually players are ones that drive development of games, at least those who are in early stages of development. As games are made for players, not devs just come together and decide "lets spend couple hundred thousands euros for no particular reason" to practice a bit in our programming or drawing skills. Personally i consider that both parties have fairly even say on the matter - while developers(and publisher) technically have full control over game, they wont be able to achieve much without player base to support them.

 

Anyways. Well-being system is on a roadmap, not morale. And i truly hope that it wont be one of those shitty generic morale features. Gathering flowers to get +5 morale may work in Dont Starve, but tLD is far more immersive, allowing for far better personal experience as it does not force player to act of certain way that may contradict person personal belief system. In Story mode, ok, fine, we are playing as established characters, with their own world views. But i truly hope that they wont implement some shitty energy bar that depletes every time i walk by the corpse or restores every time i drink a can of chemical piss.

While I respect your opinion, you have to remember that we are on Hinterland's forums, and they have stated several times that while we can have an influence on things, this is their game and we don't drive development. Which is good since there is rarely a consensous among us (the community) even on the smallest things. It would be literally impossible to change the texture of a tree  

That being said, you are right about the well-being system. We are not even entirely sure about if that means "morale". But either way, I'd rather wait to see what it really is before jumping into negativity. 

Even if just for the brainstorming, I think it is only positive that people throw their opinions about this possible feature. Take it as a "what if" game.  

"IF" well being / morale system was implemented, what could ifluence on it?

[cekivi]

28 minutes ago, Dirmagnos said:

And then Ubisoft happened. Lead developer got changes early in open beta and after that things went to shit. Development stalled, as practically nothing new was being added. No support, no communication, no balance, no control. 90% of "events" were about premium currency sales. 9% of remaining 10% were about sales of "new amazing" equipment packs, that were mostly reskins with better stats than regular stuff and cost in premium currency 3 times less in comparison to regular credits.

Aside from parasites and cabin fever I feel that on a whole hinterlands has managed to avoid doing anything close to this bad. Be critical @Dirmagnos but wait until the mechanics of the feature are announced at least before being too critical.

[Mikhail_Reign]

12 hours ago, Dirmagnos said:

Actually players are ones that drive development of games, at least those who are in early stages of development. As games are made for players, not devs just come together and decide "lets spend couple hundred thousands euros for no particular reason" to practice a bit in our programming or drawing skills. Personally i consider that both parties have fairly even say on the matter - while developers(and publisher) technically have full control over game, they wont be able to achieve much without player base to support them.

Not they don't. Players have no input. Dev's announce their vision and we can choose to support it or not. They are free to accept influence from the player base, but they have no obligation too. It is THEIR vision. Our 'say' on the matter is if we pay them or not. Period.

[Dirmagnos]

11 hours ago, Ohbal said:

"IF" well being / morale system was implemented, what could ifluence on it?

Depends on implementation. How deep it would be. If i were to write how i would see it, it would be a huge wall of text. Unless there is any particular interest, im not really up to digging thru all my notes and putting it all together into something legible.

11 hours ago, cekivi said:

Aside from parasites and cabin fever I feel that on a whole hinterlands has managed to avoid doing anything close to this bad. Be critical @Dirmagnos but wait until the mechanics of the feature are announced at least before being too critical.

To be entirely honest, even tho i have never contracted cabin fever(im always doing something or running somewhere, simply dont have time to get depressed), i find whole idea to be fairly crude. Why person would develop sudden phobia of being inside man-made buildings(apparently caves and cars are completely ok) doesnt really make much sense to me. I understand that it was made to prevent people hibernating(and obtaining high score board places), but rly, this was the best they could come up with(simplest solution would be to remove whole "days survived" score board and make some general score that is calculated based on every variable present in game, with amount of sleep having minuscule impact compared to actual activities) ?

And exactly same situation is with parasites. Wolves are weak, lets add new condition(that doesnt make much sense from any point of view), instead of simply fixing wolves.

14 minutes ago, Mikhail_Reign said:

Not they don't. Players have no input. Dev's announce their vision and we can choose to support it or not. They are free to accept influence from the player base, but they have no obligation too. It is THEIR vision. Our 'say' on the matter is if we pay them or not. Period.

Players do have input. Especially if we are not talking about big companies that can afford scuttling a game. If people do not like game, then they dont buy it. With services like Steam players can either promote or completely trash game with ease. And if game dont sell and have negative reviews, then devs may not even break even, not to mention making next game. As it is basic rule of economics, you do not make product that will not sell(unless youre SJW, but those crazies belong to the nuthouse to begin with).

While forumers represent only tiny fraction of all gamers that play this particular game, its best there is as far as it goes. Unless game companies start embedding questionnaires, instead of various garbage like mandatory launchers or anti-tampering/drm crap(that usually benefits publisher at expense of gamers, as it results in unstable games and increaed requirements)  that nobody wants, into their games, forums are cheapest and easiest way to collect feedback and track player moods.

And yes, you are right, developers have no obligations to do anything. Its one of the freedoms and also problems of modern gaming industry - developers have no obligations or responsibilities whatsoever before their customers. Its particularly ironic considering how pirating is being portraited as severe as capital crime. Selling game without any obligation of providing quality or not decreasing its price once enough copies has been sold(when profit exceeds development costs) is normal; while making copies of it and sharing between people that have no intention to buy that game to begin with is theft and income loss.

However, the fact that its their vision doesnt mean that other people may not express their opinion as well. Especially if those are people who have invested into this game, eg find it interesting enough to vote for it with their wallet. People who are interested in this game to become better, that in turn increase sales and results in win/win situation. Where both players get good game and developers get financial satisfaction, that also may result in further games, either sequels or even new ips, that, yet again, continue on the same road where everyone get what they want.

While voting with a wallet is indication of approval or disapproval, voicing opinions of forum is a way of showing why. And if devs dont know why, then how they can they make things better.

[Mikhail_Reign]

The game has sold 3/4 of a million copies - these servers have a handful of people on them. They are in no was a statistical representation of the player base - hence there is no reason at all for the devs to take anything here seriously.

if I'd sold a million of anything and 40 people told me it was shit - I would laugh all the way to the bank. if one of those 40 people had a great idea - I might use it - but in no way would I be driven by their comments.

[Dirmagnos]

18 hours ago, Mikhail_Reign said:

The game has sold 3/4 of a million copies - these servers have a handful of people on them. They are in no was a statistical representation of the player base - hence there is no reason at all for the devs to take anything here seriously.

if I'd sold a million of anything and 40 people told me it was shit - I would laugh all the way to the bank. if one of those 40 people had a great idea - I might use it - but in no way would I be driven by their comments.

Actually they are. Considering that there is no other means, as already mentioned, of collecting feedback information from players, forums are as close as it gets to getting playerbase opinion. Its not much, but its still more than nothing. Especially considering that forumers represent "the other side", eg game consumers, not just some schmucks from NoName Town, Nebraska.

Let me tell you a story about a game... lets call it... hmm... No Guys Heaven, for example. That it was so hyped to prior to its release, with so many promises, and huge pre-orders and sales upon initial release. And then it caved, badly. As it turned out game had extremely little content in comparison to what was promised and actually shown in promotional material, with a lot missing. To the point that developer has been sued.

Now, granted, that game made huge sales due to this hype and developer and publisher have filled their pockets. However, here comes the bad part. The higher you climb, the harder you fall. As this developer promised a lot more than it delivered and with rather high hype rates, many many many gamers know about this game. But with extremely negative reviews from players it will have significant negative impact in the future. First, it means that future sales of this particular title will tank. Meaning that if developer intended to add features in the future they will may be more reluctant to do so, as there is just no money in it. So, already weakened title receives yet another blow, putting it in even worse situation. As result, many players will remember who made this game and who published it, and not in a good way. Meaning that next game that this developer will release will have fairly cold reception to begin with. And if public is by default against you then making a positive impression will require a tremendous amount of work, eg their next game must be really really good to make it thru. Otherwise it will be booed down, even if its fairly decent game.

Its one thing when you fail at something due to reasons that are out of your control, fully or partially(like NWC with their ill-fated M&M9), and still deliver something. Players can forget one failure, especially if you have a good rap sheet. But if you intentionally mislead them, especially multiple times, then youre fking dead. There are several mediocre games, made by companies(even if they are named differently, disbanded and recreated) who pulled those stuns, usually several times, that are literally bottom-feeders. Players simply run away from them.

Another one just came to mind, Division. Started upon launch with 100+ k players. Now, less that a year after its release, it cant even get 10k regular players. And most of those players wont be coming back, because its not the first time Ubisoft screwed their customers. There are rumors that Division already operates at near-zero profitability.

When i chose a new game i look for 2 things: do i trust this developer and, if second is inconclusive, i look for steam reviews(most of gaming site reviews are not worth even time spend on writing them, eg they are garbage mostly). For example, my latest is Tyranny - i didnt even had to look for reviews, its not my first dance with Obsidian and those guys make superb games and rarely disappoint. But i were to look at games made/published by Ubisoft or Bethesda, il think ten times, before(if) i would invest. There is plenty of fish in the sea, so im not really into spending my coin on some *a lot of illegible chatter* pricks. Especially if i know that they are screwing with both players and developers who games they publish.

[oh god a wolf]

am i the only one that wants to customize items and put googly eyes on a lantern that i use a lot.

[Mortan1234]

2 hours ago, oh god a wolf said:

am i the only one that wants to customize items and put googly eyes on a lantern

no, but collectively we are not in large numbers.