Feat Proposal

[Ohbal]

Hey all,

I've managed to find some time to put on TLD this holidays and have a few points to share. I'll go one by one to not make a super massive post (and because I want to turn off the computer for the day )

On Feats I have a proposal aimed to adress, at least partially, the "custom mode" debate.

Ok, so custom difficulty is not planned, but since we have feats... I was wondering: why not create feats for some of the most requested "variations" in gameplay? For example:

- Reduced Wildlife spawn: player has to kill and completely harvest 1000 animals (it could be divided in two and sepparate wolves from deer).

- Temperature drop: get hypotermia 100 times

- Less loot: completely loot 1000 locations

This is just a quick draw of the idea. What do you guys think? Could this be a middle term solution? 

[MarrowStone]

I like it! 

I recently used a similar concept for the request for clothes to weigh less.

Cold weather Expeditionist: Worn clothes weigh 25% less. Travel 500 km in 10+ kg of clothing.

[Scyzara]

25 minutes ago, MarrowStone said:

Cold weather Expeditionist: Worn clothes weigh 25% less. Travel 500 km in 10+ kg of clothing.

That would be totally awesome to have. Definitely my first choice of all feats if something like this ever gets added.

[MarrowStone]

7 hours ago, Scyzara said:

That would be totally awesome to have. Definitely my first choice of all feats if something like this ever gets added.

Definitely. The crafted clothing weighs a lot!

As for @Ohbal, Id definitely kill and loot 500 wolves to lower their numbers permanently  muahahah. But itd definitely take longer than the firemaster badge... which I only have 30 percent done in 300 hours of gameplay...

[Ruruwawa]

I like the overall concept -- a lot!  It's tunable by the devs to fit into their concept for the game, and (hurray) creates more tradeoffs.  I have 2 or 3 slots to put feats into at the start of a game... do I pick firestarting 3 or less wildlife, hmmm?

Less weight for clothing, seems like a good feat.  But 25% seems like a gigantic number.  It would seriously trivialize the game IMO.

[MarrowStone]

4 hours ago, Ruruwawa said:

I like the overall concept -- a lot!  It's tunable by the devs to fit into their concept for the game, and (hurray) creates more tradeoffs.  I have 2 or 3 slots to put feats into at the start of a game... do I pick firestarting 3 or less wildlife, hmmm?

Less weight for clothing, seems like a good feat.  But 25% seems like a gigantic number.  It would seriously trivialize the game IMO.

25 is just a placeholder, it doesnt have to be that, thats the purpose of these forums, to build on each others ideas. Maybe 15-20 percent? What would you suggest?

[octavian]

Love the idea of feats for some of the most requested variations in gameplay.

But I see it differently.

I talked for the better part of the day with someone about this, trying to reach a common ground - and we kind of did. In the sense that we mainly agree the following is a good idea in principle but once you try to approach the particulars, how you'd go and do this, it becomes, well, very complicated.

A few things though.

0. For me personally – how feats currently work just doesn't captivate me enough to make me have a feeling about what I’m actually doing. Feels like a “thing” I get for just playing the game, regardless of which sandbox. Doesn't even seem all that; fair, to be honest.

A way which would be more entertaining - at the very least - to me, would work something like the following.

1. All feats you earn, you do so just for the particular sandbox you earned them in. They don't apply to any other sandbox. You have to earn them each sandbox you want them in.

2. There are requirements to be met to be eligible for a feat. Clearly stated like for current feats. More or less, do or don't do ABC within time interval. Some, you are likely to get just by playing. Some, never by just playing as usual, because they are the result of pushing really hard towards a certain form of gameplay. Regardless, everything is clearly stated and there is a fail-safe mechanism.

3. Once you are eligible for a feat, there is a fail-safe mechanism. You have a choice. Either do steps DEF within time interval, or feat becomes permanent for this current sandbox game. If you want it, then you don't have to do anything. But you can choose to not get it by doing DEF within time interval. This doesn't mean you can't get it later. If you don't already have it, whenever you do ABC within time interval, you become eligible for it. Day 15; day 47 or 470.

4. All feats have a pro and a con. This is where it starts to get complicated - and the main point of disagreement. What exactly constitutes a pro and a con. We'll just skip this for now.

5. You have a number of feat slots for each sandbox game - say three, and you can have any combination you want. None, one, all three, permanent, pending. Whichever you want and whenever you want, however you want. Except once locked you have it forever, in this particular sandbox.

6. Once a feat becomes permanent it can be elevated late game. Basically the ABCs for it to be eligible are way harder to complete, and required over a way longer time-span. We're talking tens or hundreds of days. Again, same rules apply. If you fail to get it you can simply try again the ABCs over the required time-span. These are huge feats in the true sense of the word, and you are rewarded with something that is not otherwise possible in sandbox.

The idea behind them is split in two parts - if you want them, obviously.

First, to get your foot in a particular gameplay door at the start of a sandbox - or whenever you want to. Because for the first level of a feat, time intervals required are small. 5-15 days. Second, to elevate a feat, is to make late-game very, very different than anything else you ever - or could otherwise - experience in sandbox.

Perhaps most important, it's not necessarily about what one feat you have, but which pair, or trio. How well they work together. How, beautifully you can make them work together.

What's a common request. Less wolves, reduced spawns, lower temperatures, less loot? I don't think dragging a slider down or up, checking or unchecking a box at the start of sandbox would ever work. Your wish would be granted to you - rather, you'd do it yourself - and it would be both a blessing and a curse.

[Ruruwawa]

14 hours ago, octavian said:

1. All feats you earn, you do so just for the particular sandbox you earned them in. They don't apply to any other sandbox. You have to earn them each sandbox you want them in.

You have it wrong.  Feats you just earned can't be applied to existing sandboxes.  You slot them in for new sandboxes.  (Maybe you are thinking of skills?)

[octavian]

When I said,

15 hours ago, octavian said:

the following is a good idea in principle

I meant "what I'm about to say and describe next", as in, a new way for feats to work which I'm going to describe in general. And in this new way, all feats you would earn you'd do so just for the particular sandbox you earned them in and wouldn't apply to any other sandbox; and you have to earn them in each sandbox you want them in.

[Ohbal]

Glad you guys liked the idea. I'd appreciate though if the topic sticks to tuning the original proposal rather than flowing into a revamp of the feat mechanic as a whole  

The weight reduce in clothes is a great idea! What other popular wishes could apply to feats?

 

[Ruruwawa]

22 hours ago, MarrowStone said:

25 is just a placeholder, it doesnt have to be that, thats the purpose of these forums, to build on each others ideas. Maybe 15-20 percent? What would you suggest?

I'd say 10% is the upper limit for a feat with "100% uptime."   If that's not enough then perhaps actual bug fixing or balancing still needs to happen for the new clothing system.  (Seems likely, since the devs have mostly been on vacation the clothing feature was added.)  

 

1 hour ago, Ohbal said:

What other popular wishes could apply to feats?

In-your-face wind decreases your walking speed by N% less.  God that drives me nuts.  Immersion breaking too, since it gives me too much time to think.  First I think "this is so BORING!" to "these must be 75kph winds to slow me down so much" to trying to math how far off the windchill is for 75 kph winds to wondering "maybe my character is shaped like a sail?"  Bottom line, it has very little impact on the course of my game except to inspire me to shut TLD off and play a different game.  

[Ohbal]

4 hours ago, Ruruwawa said:

In-your-face wind decreases your walking speed by N% less.  God that drives me nuts.  Immersion breaking too, since it gives me too much time to think.  First I think "this is so BORING!" to "these must be 75kph winds to slow me down so much" to trying to math how far off the windchill is for 75 kph winds to wondering "maybe my character is shaped like a sail?"  Bottom line, it has very little impact on the course of my game except to inspire me to shut TLD off and play a different game.  

You are not alone! Do you guys have the feeling the game knows where you want to go and throws a deadly in-your-face wind everytime you are "on a mission"?  

[Scyzara]

9 hours ago, Ohbal said:

You are not alone! Do you guys have the feeling the game knows where you want to go and throws a deadly in-your-face wind everytime you are "on a mission"?  

Yeah, I often feel this way. But that has just psychological reasons. The more you're upset about something, the more you remember it.

So even if the game gives you a perfectly equal number of tailwind and headwind hours, you will always remember it gave you more headwinds. And you will especially remember that these headwinds often disturbed your well-wrought expedition plans. ^^

[cekivi]

+1