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Other => FOnline:2238 Forum => Archives => General Game Discussion => Topic started by: BubbaBrown on February 02, 2010, 10:50:44 pm
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After staying away from the game for a couple months, I decided to give it an honest try, again. And yet again, despite my best efforts, I just can't get into the game. The FOnline engine is great. Unfortunately, the gameplay seems to only suit the elite few on the server. Namely, anyone wearing combat armor and carrying around a big gun.
I understand the notion that game is suppose to be merciless and unforgiving. I played EVE Online for over a year in 0.0 space. I'm used to the cruel and unusual. FOnline: 2238 on the other hand seems to go about this with a series of cheap shots, brute force, and counter-productive measures. Those that play this game right now, have higher level characters, and know to work the system in place will enjoy it for quite some time. Unfortunately, it will be at the expense of new players.
There are a number of facets of the game that will prevent a good influx of new players: Time sinks, Requirements, Economy, and Mechanics.
- Time Sinks -
Quite simply the game has TOO MANY time sinks. Extended cool-downs typically should only be used on abilities or powers, which were intended to be used a very limited amount due to their powerful nature. In the case of FOnline, they seem to be present everywhere. I understand there is a need to balance and prevent overuse, but putting a limitation on the player's ability to perform simple actions is a very heavy handed approach that excessively punishes the player for doing things they have to do.
Gathering is one of this situations. To have ANYTHING in the game, you must gather. Gathering despite the cooldown is a very time consuming process at times. I understand the goal is to limit the amount of material goods coming into the economy. (Though, there are other issues will discuss later on.) Instead of placing a cooldown for the player, why not just place a cooldown for the resource? Then add in a percentage chance of successfully finding the resource, based partially on a proper skill.
Other annoying time sinks are the First Aid and Doctor skills. These skills are very powerful in their current form. But with a rework they could be made not only more sensible and realistic in nature, but more useful. Instead the long cool downs, introduce a HP heal limit and chance of failure based on the skill level of the character. They could try multiple times to use First Aid on themselves, with diminishing returns and greater opportunity for undoing the good they have done. This would not only make getting travel worthy and semi-functional a less painful matter, but it does so in such a way to give no more power to the skill and even increases the value of higher skilled characters.
Crafting cool downs are pretty unnecessary for the amount of work that has to be gone through to create even the most basic weapons and armors. When you have an economy based on player generated products, the last thing you need to do is to stymie the production process. For players in established organizations that have multiple crafters, alts, and other such facilities in place, the crafting process is workable. For everyone else, it is quite painful and generally fruitless. This is especially true when you consider how easy it is to lose everything.
The Stealing cool down seems unnecessary as this only brings up the theft dialog. The act of stealing an item already has a percentage chance associated with it. This cooldown was probably done to prevent excessive steal attempts. The better way is to put a certain amount of risk associate with initiating the theft attempt. There could be a percentage chance of failing the attempt and a certain percentage of horribly failing and alerting the target. You can only try to reach inside someone's pocket so many times before they're going to notice you fumbling around in there.
The Weaken state, need to go. It doesn't do anything. There is some shoddy justification for it, but all it does is slow down the game even more. You can't heal yourself, you can't fix limbs, or do much else. All it is a unneeded time sink. You don't keep your equipment when you die. The game is HEAVILY based on equipment. You don't have the gear, you can't do anything. I've tried making characters that are monk like and don't need equipment. It's not possible. A SMG blast pretty much overrides everything.
I cannot comment on the other skills as I've had very little chance (despite my best efforts) to attempt to use them effectively. But, certainly an extrapolation of what I've mentioned above could be applied to those skills.
- Requirements -
Requirements for many aspects of the game are pretty stiff. Most things shouldn't be trivial in nature. The problem lies with when the requirements exceed a certain point that starts to breed overspecialization. This is what is happening. You cannot currently expect a gunsmith to go into combat with his creations and expect that great of a fighter. Players HAVE to HAVE alts in order to be somewhat effective in the game. The majority of your skill points will end up towards gaining the next level of a profession. These requirements aren't simply skill point based, but have an odd requirement for stat points, too. This means for a character to EVER be an expert in a profession, they must be designed from the start with that in mind.
It's not wrong to go this route, but players will be forced to either be a the mercy of people or be at the mercy of other people. The requirements for crafting could be loosened up and even have professions done away with for more item specific skill requirements. The cost of high skill levels is very expensive already, so this alone could be used as the requirements for creation of certain items. It is safe to say that someone that has a 180% proficiency in a skill has a profession implicitly defined. So instead of having to do professions, they just rather be educated in the creation of particular items. This gives players some flexibility in their character designs without sacrificing the need of specialization for more exclusive items.
The requirements for basic facilities in the game is very steep. 10 bramhin hides for a tent? When the average bramhin hide sells for 100 to starting players with nothing focused into bater or charisma, it's pretty difficult. This need for a tent to have a place to store equipment, also slows down character development. The towns are fairly large in theory, why can I not rent an apartment or building? A few towns are fairly safe to players, and provide more than enough protection. So, instead of having to spend a majority of the time trying to get enough brahmin hides in once place to have a tent for even the ability to have a safe storage spot, just allow people to rent apartments or houses. Makes much more sense, keeps players within an area to allow for more communication, and would allow more economic growth since it reduces the risk of materials lost in transit from production of goods.
Some would be quick to point out that that is what bases are for. Sure. That is great for a group of people able to effectively pool a few ten thousand caps without getting robbed or dying. There needs to be something for the starting character or even the mid level character. The cost of death is pretty steep, which is fine if facilities are in place to give good transit back to fighting strength again.
- Economy -
Where? There is no economic flow as it stands right now. Now this may be resolved by reduction of time sinks and increase of products into the system. As it stands right now the only means of income is shit shoveling and junk pawning. Those alone are developer gimmes in attempt to give starting players some kind of chance. This is similar to Ship Insurance in EVE Online; it makes no sense other than to make sure the player isn't left penniless. 10 caps a turd or 10-25 per piece of junk? There should more valid routes of getting income. Like what? Maybe have a system in place of random encounters that are locations containing resources or raw materials of interest to certain individuals in cities? Whenever you find a location, your character makes note of it, you look around for bits of junk, scrap, and parts, and head into the city to report the location for a cap reward. Not the best idea around, but it would certainly breakup the monotony of traveling with something other than "death around the corner". Also, if you don't make it back with the loot, you at least are able to report the location for caps.
Right now the economy is sluggish. Many would argue there is one, but to the starting player there really isn't anything to work with. Players mostly sell to others in a faction or to other higher level players, since no starting player can even afford the basics. Sure, you can wonder around aimlessly and hope to find someone buying what you need, but you are wasting a majority of your time doing so. Also there's a risk of the insane player killer, the suicide bomber, and plain old thieves. But in the end, all this takes time away from other needed activities. A far better solution would be to implement selling and buying agents in towns. These NPC's or places would sell player made and found items for particular prices. These are similar to the auction houses, contract systems, or player shops in other games. They are quite essential for a player run economy. If you are concerned with making use of skills, just make the maximum number of items that can be sold or bought at any time be based on a the Barter skill. Also, a higher barter skill would reduce the tax the buying or selling agent takes. You could just sell to merchants, but with the silly time limit on transactions and limit to how many people can use a single merchant... this just serves to be more annoying. It seems the developers forgot how long it actual takes to make sure you are getting a good deal using Fallout's trade window.
Also another issue is that even raw material gathering and mining has required equipment. Equipment of this nature should be easy to obtain. For the most part it somewhat is, but because of various cooldowns and other issues this is a very slow and painful process. It should't be trivial, but basic goods need to be relatively easy to get access to. You already can die easily during gathering, mining, and even crafting... there's enough that can go wrong as it is without other arbitrary limits.
- Mechanics -
Pick either Turn-Based or Realtime. Pick one now and stick with it. Keeping these two contrasting systems in the game will only serve to cause problems and issues. For the purposes of a multiplayer game, having both of them doesn't make sense. They attract different kinds of players, but are not equal in the end. A fully turn-based game is very possible, but it would probably make a majority of the elite players far happier to have realtime as it matches the twitch reflex and taking advantage of player latency and load times they enjoy.
The AI needs an overhaul. If turn-based is going to be kept, the AI needs to have methods and logic in place to relinquish their turn when they aren't going to do anything. Right now, they wait for a time out. This is really annoying. Also, AI needs to understand the idea of accidental fire as to not flag you as hostile so easily. On top of that, a majority of tougher enemies shouldn't really bother wasting the ammo on lower level players who have nothing. A bunch of New Reno gangsters aren't going to bother with a Level 1 twerp and will go on their way. Not every critter should be immediately hostile to a player. Fallout 2 had many neutral critters and NPC's and they should be used. We already have economically inept player killing morons that waste ammunition and time killing low level players for no reason apart from fulfilling a psychological inadequacy and vain attempts at justifying their existence. Do we really need everything out there operating in such a simplistic in nature?
Once combat starts in a random encounter area, it needs to be locked out from any new players entering the area. Starting players and recently killed players have enough problems without another unknown element being added to the mix. After combat is done, new players can enter the area and cause havoc, but not before. Also, these new entries always seem to throw off the flow of the game. Quite frankly, new combatants mid battle does not add anything to the game.
With the fact you can lose all your equipment so easily, there should be mechanics in place to allow dedicated players to make characters that are less reliant on equipment. Rather than lose my guns, armor, and drugs each time I die. I'd rather save up for implants, cybernetics, and mutations. Since Unarmed, Melee, and Sneak are completely useless in the game entirely... there needs to be something else. The cycle of working your ass off to gain equipment to only lose it in a second gets old real quick. Not many people like the idea of starting a square one because of one idiot. I was actually hoping the dermal and thermal implants would be in the game for this reason. Make a Doctor/Monk whose sole goal is to become more a mutated, cybernetically enhanced freak of nature.
Sneak needs to be redone. A good sneak would actually give some gathering and crafters a chance to get out of harms way before they get bitten by the twitch driven realtime combat player killing senseless morons. Sneak is critical to make Melee and Unarmed combat useful and open up opportunities for people to become scouts and infiltration specialists.
The higher level and elite players would argue that the facilities in place are fine. Of course, they are for those that know how to work them and are lucky enough. In order to attract new players and interest them, there needs to be something for them other than long, painfully boring, and work heavy tasks. This is a game. When many people play the game, they expect to play a game. As it stands right now, the game is all about "hurry up and wait" and "hope you don't chance run into one moron that ruins everything you've worked hard for". I'm used to many tasks taking large amounts of time to accomplish. I've had production runs and blueprint research set for days at a time in EVE Online, along with Level 5 skill training taking close to a month in real world time. I also used to losing my ship, implants, and money. But, there were other things I could do in the mean time while getting back on my feet. FOnline is lacking this. Hmm, maybe I should go out there and explore? I don't have a weapon. Hmm. I'll make one. Dammit! I need tools for gathering. Gathered the raw materials for the tools to gather more. Damn! The cool down for gathering the raw materials takes forever. Crap! Crafting in the intermediate parts put a cool down on my crafting. Finally! I have a gun. Now I needed ammunition. SHIT! Now I have to wait for my craft and gathering to cool down before I can make ammo. (An hour later) I have a gun and ammo. Cool! Lets go out beat up some scorps or cows. FUcK! I almost killed all those scorps, then some jackasses dropped into combat and killed me. Now my cool downs are maxed for an hour, I lost all my resources to get resources, and didn't even get enough XP to even make the painful venture worthwhile.
- Summary -
This game has an audience. It seems like a selected few, but it does have an audience. The problem is it seems more like the French Aristocracy. You have the rich, powerful elite and everyone else. The system is designed to exclusively favor them. If you are part of this elite, the game is cool and fun. Everyone else? Not so much.
A game of this undertaking is hard. I've got a masters in computer science and the amount of effort required to design, implement, and maintain such a system is pretty rough and adventurous. So, my hat is off to the developers. Though, it could be made easier on the developers. If the developers don't have plans to sell or make money off this game, think about open sourcing it. There are many licenses out there and one will fit your needs. http://www.opensource.org/licenses/category This way, you can not only maintain the control of the direction of the system in place, but take advantage of the knowledge in the masses. This would open up the possibility of clones and other people opening their own servers. Some would see this as bad, but many would be grateful. This would allow more people to use the game engine to produce a game fit to their needs, increase the exposure the system gets, and further establish it as an amazing engine and mod. Also the developers can continue having the game their way, get the advantages of bug fixes and imrpovements from other servers, and be able to properly tell anyone who doesn't like how they are running their game to fuck off and go to another server. In way, if the source was released and available, my gripes would be moot. Everyone then would be able to find the cake they like and eat it, too.
If you read this far, I congradulate your attention span. This a lot of writing, but I had to do something in between waiting to be able to do something else in FOnline, so eventually I would be able to play the rest of the game. In theory... Understandably, maybe my perceptions are completely wrong and I just got off to a bad start. But after trying multiple character build and attempting everything from crafting, to hunting, to stealing, and trying to be a friendly doctor... The just doesn't flow well. For the elite few, you have your game, enjoy it while it lasts. Maybe things will change again in few months. I might give it another try then. Maybe the third time will be the charm to get me to appreciate the game. Good luck.
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The economy breaks when there is too much stuff on the server. Currently the problem is the flood of stuff from encounters, before these were reinstated in the current form the economy flowed much better.
Related to this is the absolute and essential need for timeouts. If these are, as now, simple timeouts ... or faux timeouts created by putting them on resources or failures. The end result must be a growing of the material wealth of the server at a certain rate. Timeouts are the simplest way and will remain how we do it.
It would be good if timeouts were able to just be final item timeouts, so players wouldn't have to bother gathering so often, we could put a nice big timeout on something and there'd be no waiting around. What destroys this is alts. There is no effective way to control alts, so gathering must remain under the anti alt system's time or the economy would be flooded and ruined.
Crafting timeouts are needed to stop gangs using one member to craft everything they need and using the rest as pure combat chars.
Weaken is there to provide a use for Doctors and a punishment for dying.
Stealing/FA/Whatever else functions in the same way as the original, no real need to change it.
Requirements are not particularly high. You can easily be a level 3 crafter and combat capable, even at I5.
The major problem with the economy is that its too easy, outside of the new person who doesn't know what they are doing. Everyone has masses of whatever they need, so nobody needs to do anything.
Mining equipment is very easy to obtain.
Real time is the main thing we use, turn based is just an option for those who want it, to use at their own risk.
As for the game being mostly about waiting, well, yes ... we develop as we go, so outside of a semi-implemented TC mechanic and the odd quest here and there the majority of things are yet to be done.
In summary, the learning curve is tough, but we have the advantage of not being a commercial enterprise, by the very nature of the project, so its not necessarily a problem for us. Hopefully the waiting becomes less of a problem when the technical side of the economy is ready and more content is added.
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@cooldown on resource - every encoutner is separatly generated , so it means everytime one would enter enocutner he has new resource with no CD.
@FA - the reason FA is like that is to cope with game power - 3 AP that would heal not more then 50hp is quite useless in combat unless you have empty AP at the end of turn (unexisting in RT)
Also dminishing would need a reset timer right ? that would wirtually have same effect as having cooldown now just instead of using it once and heal for 150 you would use it 4 times and heal for same ...
i dont say your idea is bad , but its not realy better then what we have no either.
@crafting cooldowns - it was already stated that due to exp givien by crafting cooldown is to prevent rushing players /alts in big factiosn by flooding them with crafting
its also to keep worth on high tier items without making them use ridiculous amount of mats...
@stealing - no idea but i guess the reason is so one person with super high steal cant just go in and steal everyone down in a minute ...
also it gives exp so ....
@loosing items - there are games where you loos equp there are games where you dont - one's choice..
@Requirements - in here you oculd call it specialisation. IT prevents players from having all same stats and spec (tags)
You are totaly wrong sayign that crafter cant be good fighter ... sure you wont be "as good" as pure fighter but you still can be good ... this game is not about duels rly...
@Tent - 10 hides arnt realy much a gun and you have 10 hides no problem... or yo ucan spend few mins on crafting and buy hides ~10-20 mins of geathering mats depands what you collect and price on hides...
@Rent Room - i read some patch ntoes abotu renting i think its in game ...
@selling minerals to NPC - might be good .As for cash its like this -> get weapon level up get better weapon , kill humanoids with weapons = cash. or sell crafts to players
@MEchanicts - its being woked on and subject of testing
Summary:
This is not MMO its not aimed to suit the most. While its hella annoying to be killed with no reason its also quite nice to play with this much freedom ;]
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Also came here from EVE looking for a "downtime game" that I and my 3 or 4 pubbie friends could play. We quite enjoyed the game before the last wipe - the brutal pvp mechanics and unrelenting grind for tiny scraps of resources were quite enjoyable, even to our group of new characters. In the end however we weren't able to bridge the gap between leather armour and pistols and combat armour w/ laser rifles. Still, a good time was had by all and we decided to come back after the next wipe to try and gain a more even footing.
Cooldowns. Ohgod. Look, I see the reasoning, I see the logic, I understand the game needs them. But we aren't going to play it until they go - it's as simple as that. Best of luck to you guys working on balancing out the economy - and I hope you get it implemented soon - we'd like to have another crack at 2238 when it everything doesn't have a 5 minute wait time.
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That was very insightful. There's a lot worth considering there.
Telling him why every one of his points is wrong isn't going to change anything. We can tell people crafting timeouts are a necessary evil until the cows come home, it doesn't change the fact people find them boring and restricting. We can say the game is a beta and that combat is a work in progress, but it doesn't change the fact combat hasn't been changed in any noticeable way since open started.
I just figure the project has got bogged down. I don't think people are interested in playing an online Fallout for a player driven economy or a crafting system. They're nice extras, but they seem to have become the sole focus of the game. I just wish the combat system or PvP or quests were given anywhere near as much as the incredible focus as the economy has received.
EDIT: In summary, the learning curve is tough, but we have the advantage of not being a commercial enterprise, by the very nature of the project, so its not necessarily a problem for us.
I'd say the non-commercial thing is both beneficial and dangerous in equal measure. You've got the creative freedom, but you're also 'free to make bad decisions', if you will. You can let players get frustrated and bored, because you don't need their money.
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Timeouts will always be there because without them the game breaks.
The problem comes from the fact that you should be gathering for crafting while you do something else and "playing" while your final item cooldown ticks down ... or using crafting to supplement other means of income.
Even as it is now, its perfectly possible to play for extended periods without having to craft anything at all, but hopefully the focus will shift away from it as a "main" feature as more gets added in and it occupies the secondary role it should do.
Also, I think its a bit of an exageration to call it our main focus, one of the main moaning points of some players, perhaps, but only a small proportion of total time worked on the game I think ;)
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I'd venture that a majority of timeouts aren't needed, but instead a diminishing returns system could be put into place.
Example setup for diminishing returns: For each instance of an item made, the experience received is a percentage of the base experience. This percentage is reduced for each instance of that item. This makes realistic sense, since a smith wouldn't gain as much from making the first incarnation of an item as they would the 10th and so forth. Also, it would not only encourage variety in production, but would deter characters for sole production as they'd get burnt out and unable to progress by simple production after a certain point. In an organization, would means that the master crafter would be encouraged to take on harder production, while the secondary and lower crafters would still be encouraged to take on the less items.
Also, a chance of crafting failure could be introduced that would increase with consecutive production over a period of time with a recovery rate for time away from crafting. This way you are never completely out of options, but might have a few false starts or wasted materials if you really need that extra item. This crafting failure could be expanded to make getting higher levels of skill more useful and logical.
This chance of failure could easily balance out any surge of raw materials that would be gotten from elimination of cool downs on gathering. If needed, more advanced items could have greater material requirements and more intermediate items and steps to take advantage of the failure rate. This way, producing a single item doesn't suffer a penalty, but mass production suffers the same problems of mass production in real life such as waste and inefficiencies.
With gathering resources, despite the maps being instanced on a random draw, there are ways to prevent over-production. The world map is already divided into sections areas that influence the types of maps that are instanced. What could be done is to apply resource counters and content statistics to each of these areas. As gatherers remove resources from the area, these counters will go down. Over time, they'll recover at a set rate depending on the regions. Areas suffering depletion will generate maps with less resources or objects that will not generate resources when a gather attempt is made. This encourages people to brave the wastes to find better gathering grounds, but also brings up the mechanic of groups and factions maintaining territory and patrol it to keep "the rabbits out of the garden". Also, the weight of raw materials is pretty hefty and with travel times (and opportunity for an ill fated death), the amount flowing in isn't going to be that fast that quickly.
One points mentioned is that gangs would have one guy be the crafter and everyone else be combat orientated. That actually makes sense. Even in realistic terms, most towns and organizations usually have their master crafters working for them to keep the rest of the group supplied. This might not be for everyone, but some people actual like to dynamics of a good crafting system and the puzzle of management that comes with it. Also, this might make more advanced and dedicated crafters respected. For example, Ragnarok Online has a system in place where the most skilled craftsmen on the server received bonuses on any items they made. This not only made their items highly desired, but made sure they no one pissed them off. This is probably ridiculous overkill for FOnline, but it is something to keep in mind during the design process.
FOnline is about PVP everywhere and anytime in the end, but for this to work you need to have a good infrastructure to support it all. Never discount the variety of economics in any given system. Economics isn't limited to monetary or goods. Time budgeting is a big thing to consider in any game, too. The problem with cool downs is that they are a very stiff penalty for actions of any kind. The goal of cool downs is to limit the average usefulness of any skill or ability. The best practice by many other games is to apply cool downs on skills that are fairly binary in nature: Resurrections, Simple Buffs, etc.. These are usually abilities that can't be broken down into more granular bits.
But, this average usefulness limitation could be done in other ways. With First Aid, I made mentioning of limiting the usefulness and introducing a possibility of failure as a means of replacing the cool down. With the proper tweaking, both ways can be equal routes to reducing the average usefulness of the First Aid skill. I'd argue the route without the cool down would be less frustrating and with players more willing to accept the limited rates of heal and possibly of accidentally injuring themselves. Now, some would point out that if could be a means of generating XP by injuring and heal yourself or everything getting together for big sadomasochistic group healing sessions. This is could be negated by introducing temporary diminishing returns of XP and increased failure rates for overuse in a time period.
This is of course my opinion and I come from the game mastering school of "Let them try, but let them take the consequences, too." I would much rather have the ability limited in effectiveness, rather by an arbitrary time limit. This is why Weakening needs to be reworked or reconsidered. The cost of losing your items, being respawned in a random area, having minimal HP, and then having to brave the wastes without the proper equipment.... That's a pretty harsh penalty and will slow down even the best players for a bit. Taking away the abilities you have spent time and effort in honing to help yourself get back to fighting strength again is too much. I would much rather have less effective skills and taking a risk by using them then not having anything at all. There's a certain gambler's appeal to be had by taking your life into your own hands at whether you end up accidentally killing yourself or gaining enough HP to make the trip back to a town.
"Always give them a chance to take their chances." The problem with cool downs you are stuck more often than not with nothing to do. There are arguments that you can do other things while you wait. That is true to a certain point. Unfortunately, you are apt to run into more cool downs. No equipment for killing? Go craft. Can't craft? Go gather. Can't gather? Go shovel shit. No shit? Shit outta luck. It's quite easy to have your game experience interrupted consistently 2 to 5 minutes at a time. This can actually result with actually having less than 15 minutes of actual active game play per hour spent. I have worked in Information Technology and it is all about "hurry up and wait." It's not exactly a fun experience when you only are repairing one computer or server. For those that suggest watching a movie to pass the time between cool downs... I want to the PLAY the game not wait to play it. Now, if that the type of game play FOnline is shooting for, then more power to you all... It's not for me.
Since this is a non-commercial project, I would again urge the developers to take advantage of open source licensing or some exposure of the code to the public. I've got a masters in computer science with experience in parallel processing, OS design, networks, and databases. This project interests me and wouldn't mind looking over the code to see how it all works. Also, I'm a jobless bum right now, so I'm bored out of my mind at the moment. Anyway, there are plenty of untapped human resources that could be made use of if the project was more open. Imagine all the bored systems admins with access to servers and network bandwidth, the professors needing a new project to toy with in between semesters, and the senior software developers with years of industry experience who need a break from the mundane office applications they are stuck programming right now. Of course, this is thinking a little too idealistic, but gaining the attention of the obsessive experts for a little while can aid a project greatly.
If anything, having people make their own servers will allow for greater testing of ideas and methods of running the game. Instead of conjecture, you'll be able to cite examples of ideas gone bad and why they aren't on the main server. Also, questionable concepts would be allowed the ability to grow and develop with the good concepts being adopted by everyone else. I can almost see something similar to the golden age of the MUD's, MOO's, MUSH's, and MUCK's. It would be an interesting experiment to say the least.
Yes, I want to get rid of the cool downs. And yes, simply getting rid of cool downs would break the game. What I am suggesting is to replace them with a different system that would be more finesse and subtle, but effectively limits the same as the cool downs without the psychological annoyance and game play stuttering effects. What would you rather see as the usual conversations?
Dude 1: "Made a laser pistol."
Dude 2: "Cool. How long do you have to wait for the next one or ammo?"
Dude 1: "65 minutes."
Dude 2: "Sucks."
OR?
Dude 1: "Damn, got done making a batch of laser pistols."
Dude 2: "How'd it go?"
Dude 1: "Made about 3 or so before I started fucking up left and right. I pissed away too many parts trying to push myself it."
Dude 2: "If you are going to seriously craft that stuff, you really need to get your skills up first."
Dude 1: "I know. I even had to travel halfway to Broken Hills from NCR to find a place with enough Ore to even make the metal parts."
I know the focus of the posts seems to be on crafting, the economy, and skills.... but you need all those in good working order to allow for rest of the game to flow well. You can't have decent combat without good armor, weapons, and drugs. You'll still have combat, but it'll be comparable to the aristocrats keeping the lowly peasants from even getting a foothold to fight back and taking what pittance they have managed to gather for themselves. I guess the best way to explain it is there is a significant disparity between the classes of players right now. When equipment determines whether or not you'll even survive the simplest random encounter, you need to make sure people can at least get the basic materials quickly enough. Otherwise, they'll be stuck in towns, dying constantly while they try to get everything together, and only to lose it all again... and have to repeat again. If the process doesn't flow well, it get more annoying each time.
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Dude 1(after leveling his skill up to a point where failure is rare): "Ok, got done making a batch of laser pistols."
Dude 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10: Ok, now give em to us, we're going hunting.
Dude 1: Sure, take them all, I'll make others in no time.
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Dev 1: "Why are there so many Laser Pistols on the server?"
As I say, timeouts are needed, however you want to dress them up, the end result is the same.
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what about a cd reduction for lone wanderers i mean you could make a perk you earn automatically when you hit lvl 10 or so and are not in a faction yet and lose it if you join a faction and are not able to get it if you've been part of one.
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Then gang members create an alt, dont join a faction and use that to craft. Plus lone wanderers choose their own path, theres no need to reward them.
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I promise this is my last plea before I shut up and leave you people be. I appreciate the chance make my pleas without being run out of the town. I can see that the decision has been made for quite some time and I'm trying to the piss up a rope, but I've just got to get it out my system. Given from what I've gathered from reading and talking to people, the FOnline server system very dynamic and configurable, so I look forward to seeing if it ever gets released to the public and playing with it. Hey, I may just prove myself wrong then when I try to setup the system I've been yammering about.
So, let's take the example I've been using. And see what the times presently are for creating a mass amount of an item:
10 Laser Pistols needs
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10 Wood
10 Metal Parts -> 20 Ore
10 Junk
10 Electronics
Gather Times with current cooldowns
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5 x wood = 2 minutes
2 X Junk = 2 minutes
1 X Electronic parts = 2 minutes
5 x Ore = 5 minutes
Gather Times for batch construction with current cool downs
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10 x Wood = 4 minutes (Can be had in town)
20 x Junk + 10 Electronic Parts = 20 Minutes (Can be had in town)
20 x ore = 20 minute + Travel time due to weight restrictions (est. 5 minutes) (Chance of loss due to death)
Total Time spent gathering materials
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About 1 hour at the very least. This is given no inefficiencies, death, or other issues.
Cool down after making some parts and Pistol = 65 minutes
I don't know the exact time, I know that after making enough metal parts and the pistol the cool down goes to 65 minutes.
Assuming there's a optimal possibility to create 2 pistols per long cool down.
Time to construct laser pistol batch given two per cool down period = 5 x 65 minutes = 5.5 hours given no inefficiencies.
Total optimal time for construction with no issues or inefficiencies: 6.5 hours
So, for a new "cool down"less system to be satisfactory, there needs to be no way someone with the bare minium skills for Laser Pistol production can get more than 10 pistols in a 6.5 hours peroid or more than 1.5 laser pistols an hour.
Given the portiton of the time spent on gathering, we'll focus on that first.
As it stands right now, Junk and Electronic parts are simply gimmes. There's presently no chance of failure once you got the minimum skill requirement. Also, barrels never run dry. Period. This would need to change. Barrels would have to stats to keep track of supply and depletion. When a barrel or junk source (the sources could be expanded), they stop giving out junk. This would cause towns to quickly deplete and force player to have to scourge elsewhere. Characters with lower skill levels would also be affected by a reduced chance of finding anything useful out of a junk container. This would also make higher skill levels useful as some players would only be able to find the "easy" resources, while more skilled players could find the "harder" resources. Since players need a minimum of a 40% Repair skill to even start finding junk, it would be a good to have a chance of failure when trying to tap a resource source. Coupled with depletion and overuse penalties, players would be forced to wander around looking for sources that weren tapped.
This would be a good opportunity to not only expand what could provide junk, but to introduce new random maps or city scapes that have lots of things that could provide junk. Junk is junk, it can come from various sources. Given the searching required and travel times, the old cool down time could not only be simulated but extended without the psychological stigma of waiting. Also, the chance takers would be driven to be adventurous and look for the proverbial mother-lode in untapped and less traveled areas.
Another way of still maintaining a limit on incoming resources is to unmarry junk and electronic parts. Some things will only provide junk, while others maybe provide electronic parts. Broken robots, consoles, Nuka Cola machines, etc... could provide electronic parts. With new random maps, abandoned city areas could provide the highest chance of finding electronic parts. This would make certain dead areas in the world more appealing due to their location.
Wood gathered in an attempt is too fixed. 5 bundles of wood from each tree is a bit much... especially given how sickly the average tree is. Certain types of tries should have limits on what they'll produce with the outdoorsman skill determining a chance of failure in providing sufficiently useful lumber.
As mentioned in a previous post, ore could be subject depletion and even chances of failure based on the outdoorsman/science/etc skills.
Overall, with the increased risk, uncertainty, and time it would take to acquire resources... Gathering of this nature would be worth of getting XP. This would make the process of gathering not only less of an idle time sink, but an adventurous task. This could open up a market of players with high outdoorsman, repair, and sneak to create characters similar to stalkers from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Pepper certain riskier zones with higher quality or rarer items (required for the premium items), and you'll actually start to have parties arranged to get the needed goods from the "zones".
With all this, there are no cool downs and it's far more interesting and riskier. You could find the motherload and be unable to carry it all... or be so far into enemy or bad territory... you may not be able to make it back. This opens up the opportunity for radio use by calling in a few friends to help carry or salvage parts and defend each other on the way back.
With crafting, the skill level of the player comes into play. Removing Profession levels from the mix and instead requiring varying degrees to skill proficiencies, you could make use of the chance of failure based on the skill level. These failure can vary from false starts to destroying raw materials. Failure rates could increase quickly after the first production of an item, along with reduced XP for creation of the item, and so forth. This would make it too wasteful to produce certain items after a certain point for players with a low skill level, but wouldn't stop them from trying if they need to chance making that next item.
With the right skill level requirements and failure rates, you could easily get the same average production rate, but with a less perceived limitation and expanded options for game play.
Another option for reduction of usable items in the game is to make durability based on the skill of the creator. Less skilled players make less durable items This would reduce the usable stock of items despite the possibility of increased production, as the cheaper made items would tend to just break and fall apart... which actually imitates real life with shoddy mass production.
In the end... Your game, your rules, and I need to just get over myself. Fair enough. Good luck.
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Well, you are imagining players will play how you want them to. If there is one thing that can be relied upon its that they will not :)
Players will get one gang member to be a crafter and pump resources at him, they will then produce at maximum efficiency (whilst the majority of them being able to go as pure combat chars) and anyone not in this system will be miles off it.
Also, the psychological effect of timeouts would be equal to the effect of wasted effort when they fail - instead of waiting, they had to go and gather stuff to be wasted ... and also the max efficiency would have to be matched to our current speed, with the majority working at a much reduced rate.
A couple of things I agree with though, making gathering itself more interesting (hopefully something a long these lines in the future for the higher level stuff, at least) and getting Electronic parts away from junk, which I wanted doing when we wiped :P
Professions are good for a number of reasons, resource drain, limiting what one char can do, equalizing the capabilities of gangs and soloists, giving factions a flavour.
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let's not forget the GM's on a power trip
Deleted big unneeded quote. /Lexx
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Oh come on. Cooldowns are in no way mandatory to the economy. Slowdowns are. Cooldowns are just the most blunt and I'm sorry to say that, stupid way to make player slow down. And most annoying. Yeah, if you could do something else while cooling down it's ok. But here, it just doesn't work that way. Travelling is dangerous so you want to get as many stuff from one place as you can. So you are pinned to a gathering spot until you got enough. And then to another gathering spot. And to another, then to crafting table. And you have to do it all over again every time you die. Or you need to dedicate a whole day to produce enough equipment to get enough and store it in a tent [which sadly can disapear now, I only hope it doesnt when you log off from it].
-Alts-
Yeah, you say that people should play some other part of the game while waiting for the cooldown to go down. How can I if some jackass killed me while I was waiting for my gather cooldown to fall down and (to make gun and ammo you sadly have to gather ore and minerals [separate cooldown here could fix it]) now I failed doctor check [there is not enough sp even with int of 10 to cover sufficiently figthing, fa, repair, science, outdoorsman and doctor until very high levels at which it is more sense to kill noobs for that stuff then to gather it myself] and am unequiped, far from civilisation and basicly cannot in any way play the game until weakened or doctor cooldown ticks to 0. That is practicly forcing me to log off or sit numblessly. I cannot use him in that time or I have 95% chance of dieing again before getting back to any equipment. And I lost all my gathered stuff. So I need to do them again and it sucks big time. People say I should even still be crippled if the jackass shoot my legs to cripled state just for the sick lulz. Before I can get to a player doctor I am dead at least 10 times again because I can't run away from morons on a noob killing spree. I could invest in outdoorsman but where to get even more sp for that?
The lack of the means to be self supplier is encouraging alting way more then the cooldowns. Not everyone want to be in a group especially in this game. It's hard to think how a game could disencourage player to player trust any more then 2238. And yet you either are in a group or have alts. Don;t be surprised why so many choose the latter.
So if the game is alt friendly (this one sadly is) it is only natural that it encourages alts and specialization and disencourage general single player builds. You don't need to control alts. You just need to disencourage using them so nobody will want to alt. And if you disencourage alts enough you can just announce alting as a bannable offence and it will wipe off last alts.
Professions are good for a number of reasons, resource drain, limiting what one char can do, equalizing the capabilities of gangs and soloists, giving factions a flavour.
Resource drain ok, limiting capabilities of one character... strange but ok, it's not like there is enough sp to fill reqs for most of them anyway. Now how does this equilize the capabilities of gangs and soloists exactly? It does give a major bonus to gangs and disencourage soloists if anything. And how this give factions a flavour? Oh, you can;t join a gang if there's a player from hostile faction in it, ok, it's cool then. And you have to craft top tier equip in the facion base, so you can't quite leave it. That could work.
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I must play a completely different game to you. I crafted over 100k worth of stuff in a couple of weeks without being in danger once ... playing solo :-\ Tents disappear if you don't visit them for 7 days, not that harsh a restriction
To Allow one char to do everything will hardly encourage an economy where players rely on each other, nor particularly encourage player interaction.
There are more than enough skill points, even at I5, to be a crafter and a fighter.
Now how does this equilize the capabilities of gangs and soloists exactly? It does give a major bonus to gangs and disencourage soloists if anything
Because one person can only use up so much per unit time. If a person could use as many materials as his gang could gather, it allows one person to craft at essentially the same rate as all people who will gather for him combined. These "gatherers" can then gain the benefits of the crafters ability exactly as if they had them. This is not the case in this system, so those players, considered as a whole, will have to give up similar percentages of their combat SP to craft at a similar rate to the solo player.
And you have to craft top tier equip in the facion base, so you can't quite leave it. That could work.
8)
Its important to keep in mind that many features will be built over the basic system we have in place now, we can't get everything ready all at once.
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@Tent - 10 hides arnt realy much a gun and you have 10 hides no problem... or yo ucan spend few mins on crafting and buy hides ~10-20 mins of geathering mats depands what you collect and price on hides...
Its real easy to kill 10 brahmins, get their hides and make a tent and not die even once. The problem is: I assume that brahmins are near-extinct race in FOnline 2238. Well, who cares anyway, we can always use dog pelts....
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I must play a completely different game to you.
Seems so. Experienced player always plays a diffrent game. So diffrent you may even don;t understand the basic problems a new player can have.
To Allow one char to do everything will hardly encourage an economy where players rely on each other, nor particularly encourage player interaction.
The game is written in a way that a player should avoid relying on any other as much as he can. In every possible situation it's better to run from another player or shoot him, is that the interaction you are trying to imply?. Even if that wasn't basic design the culture (lack of actually) of play and feasible harrasment and griefing did that.
There are more than enough skill points, even at I5, to be a crafter and a fighter.
And a doctor and a medic and a outdoorsman? No, there isn't.
Because one person can only use up so much per unit time. If a person could use as many materials as his gang could gather, it allows one person to craft at essentially the same rate as all people who will gather for him combined. These "gatherers" can then gain the benefits of the crafters ability exactly as if they had them. This is not the case in this system, so those players, considered as a whole, will have to give up similar percentages of their combat SP to craft at a similar rate to the solo player.
What this have to do with proffesions? If anything it's a cooldown thing not a proffesion thing. And a group of people can more easily have all proffesions taken then a single player obviously. And for the cooldown thing. That can only work if the system is alt free or at least not as openly alt-friendly. It's way easier for groups to level 5 crafting alts then for a single player to do so. There are better ways to slow down people then cooldowns and ones not as easily alt avoided.
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The game is written in a way that a player should avoid relying on any other as much as he can. In every possible situation it's better to run from another player or shoot him, is that the interaction you are trying to imply?. Even if that wasn't basic design the culture (lack of actually) of play and feasible harrasment and griefing did that.
Currently, that may be the case. But we are a game in development:
Its important to keep in mind that many features will be built over the basic system we have in place now, we can't get everything ready all at once.
And a doctor and a medic and a outdoorsman? No, there isn't.
Correct. But you can be combat capable and be any one of those things, or even two of those things as well - which is more than enough.
What this have to do with proffesions? If anything it's a cooldown thing not a proffesion thing. And a group of people can more easily have all proffesions taken then a single player obviously. And for the cooldown thing. That can only work if the system is alt free or at least not as openly alt-friendly. It's way easier for groups to level 5 crafting alts then for a single player to do so. There are better ways to slow down people then cooldowns and ones not as easily alt avoided.
Ah, yes, I went off on my usual rant about single player vs groups instead of the actual question :)
Let's try this one instead. Professions allow us to set relatively low requirements to craft the best stuff (so people can be multi role chars [see above]) but still limit what they can do
Playing solo is a player choice, it will obviously have disadvantages - though the countdowns still help stop gangs using one crafting alt to allow the others to go as combat alts, so hopefully it equalizes the difference a bit more.
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Let's try this one instead. Professions allow us to set relatively low requirements to craft the best stuff (so people can be multi role chars [see above]) but still limit what they can do
I'd say that would be true if it weren't for the stat requirements. But needing 9 INT to be a level 3 doctor just means that people have their crafter build and their main. The crafter build is the one that fulfils the profession requirements, while the main is the character they actually want to play. Do you really think everyone who wants to be a master doctor also has 9 INT? Or everyone who wants to be a level 3 armourer has 7 ST?
The high stat requirements discourage players from crafting with their main, because in order to craft their build has to be totally skewed in one direction. I understand there should be basic stat requirements so people don't make a 1 ST 10 INT 10 LK skilled build and just craft with that. But needing 7 Agility to craft small guns just ensures people have a crafting alt, and so we actually see less diversity in character builds because their 'main' can just be combat orientated.
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You can't have a cooperation based game in a enviroment where a bullet in the head is the best greeting. It's not a matter of development :) It's a matter of design choice. I'm not saying I want to limit PvP. Yeah, wastelands are cruel. But I would gladly limit the amount of reliance one must have on other players [every single one of them can screw you over if you trust them, and if you treat the current game as a test, you see that players will act as jackasses if they have the possibility of no punishment and what's worse the reward of screwing someone who did trusted you, its just human nature] or ones alts.
I would rather see limitations of crafting based on factions then on proffesions. You can't beat VC med labs with healing powder. You can't make plasma rifles from junk found in NCR, but you don't expect Enclave technology to be as cheap and easy to make. And you have to join the Enclave in the first place. And they don't welcome mutants [you are not a human in their eyes wastelander] with open arms.
And to clarify. I love the game :) Great job. But there are things that migth not work as planned sadly. And it's our job [the testers] to point them out.
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The crafter build is the one that fulfils the profession requirements, while the main is the character they actually want to play. Do you really think everyone who wants to be a master doctor also has 9 INT?
Speak for yourself. I combined a smallguns burster build that was quite effective into a Doc 3 char and that was my main for the longest time. The only reason he was nerfed was because of the Reputation system. And if not for that, he would still be my main, making buffout in VC so he could later carry the loot of people he shot.
And don't sell all new players short. I've guided several, and one got to lvl 21 with a sniper/SG3 char pretty fast. Surprised me (o.O) He ground out those high lvl weapons like it was nobodies business, lol. And he did it all solo down in NCR and his tent.
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Do you really think everyone who wants to be a master doctor also has 9 INT? Or everyone who wants to be a level 3 armourer has 7 ST?
Well, I was talking about skills more than SPECIAL, SPECIAL can just use drugs anyway - so I just disregard it in most cases.
I would rather see limitations of crafting based on factions then on proffesions.
I would rather both.
As for new players, some are idiots and can't play, some are veteran gamers who will pick it up in minutes.
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I was wondering what the chances are of ever seeing some of these ideas tested ingame?
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I was wondering what the chances are of ever seeing some of these ideas tested ingame?
Suggestions: 2782 Posts in 258 Topics
Slim.
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"Some" not "All" ;)
Its hard to put a timescale on things, since we all work in our spare time, but I have no doubt we will keep steadily chugging a long with things.
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Removed it to this one.
http://fodev.net/forum/index.php?topic=1686.new#new
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Hello. I have found much the same things as the original poster. I have also given this a try, again- and there simply is no entrance curve to welcome new players. I played for an extended period at the beginning of this continuing beta launch. I've done a considerable amount of playing. This is not simply an issue of quests to help new players or learning to survive. It is the nature of the game at its core despite all else and the small, stagnant, exclusive elite that remain the focus. Overspecialized characters and abundance of timeouts are certainly an issue- it is never fun to wait on a timer, and I think it is important to remember that fun should be a primary focus in regards to a game. More creative limitations and slowdowns to crafting economy, or to keep pace between gamespeed and worldspeed(FA, Doc, weakness timeouts, etc.), are a dire need. As for overspecialization of characters- or perhaps under? Either way, a crafter is best as an alt as the requirements are simply so high, and in the best case, alts piloted by your buddies. They are much less an in-character character as an out of character machine at any rate, and I do not think that was the original intent behind encouraging specialization to encourage working together.
Finally, the issue, or at least feeling to players like myself, is the elite clubs that seem to be the focus of the game that a new player has simply no access to. Levelling is slow, and without skills you have little to offer. I am not one to welcome the idea of grinding solo on the wasteland out of a tent a combat character to offer limited skills either. Not with my previous, earlier experience in FOnline either, when it was a little rougher and newer and exploring the wastes with an equally clueless bunch was fun in of itself- surviving a friendly molotov that hit a little too close or spending one of my few precious shotgun shells to save my buddy with an uncanny resemblance to Tor from a Brahmin he managed to piss off. In fact I have little desire to be a part of those elite gangs in the first place, for from the outside it seems just like a bunch of community circle-jerking. Appearance of power tripping GMs and the delivering or collecting of "ultimate" level items do not help in the least.
Wait.
Why do I not find others like myself to work together with? Because despite everything, we are not encouraged to do so. The logical, efficient thing to do is indeed grind the wasteland out of a tent- befriending someone out of town is as much as a potential liability as it is a boon and between death timers, cooldown timers, weakness timers, and walking the wastelands, having time to look around for just the right individuals in town is not easy. Thank god you have made the towns safer, at least. What I want to say is: there should be something, some PvE activity really, that changes this. Encounters, especially if these encounters involve more than just combat. Scavenging, perhaps? You can make new encounter maps; then make MANY more encounter maps, that have many skill and special checks to be impossible under one man.
Reading my post, I'm afraid I might not quite be getting home just what is a problem. So I will attempt to describe the experience.
I am pretty damn familiar with the crafting and the combat in this game. I laboriously create a new character. I try to make him interesting in design for a bit of non-obvious roleplay. Annoyingly I can't get too creative, because such a limited number of things really "work". I have to be ABSOLUTELY SURE that he is planned out right all the way to level 21, with perks and skill points. When I start, with a lot of "luck", patience, and foreknowledge of location and the skill checks involved, I boost myself up with quest xp and items. Then I hunt for brahmin hides. If I die at any point here, with penalties more designed for limitation of high-level play with gangs of support, it will only take a couple of times before I and many others with worse patience to feel discouraged and simply quit, not even looking back at what they might be missing. There is a tent, and then what? It is not AS bad when I die now. I scrape encounters for xp, either with the determination of a monk to eat dirt in melee at regular intervals, or under expensive ammo and gun consumption that forces you to roll a crafter alt- a heavy and boring timesink. I still find no entertaining interaction with others, town hubs are not a good enough meeting place(even trading and bartering between players is done on a scale and level done under the activity of many alts, giving me no place in the system), and accidental death of even one I might work with quickly brings any collaboration to a halt. Most likely, a critical chance one way or another will happen eventually and lose me time and push my patience too far. Then I'm gone and don't look back and the game continues to revolve around those in their own elite groups, attentioned a little too much by GMs and the work done by the devs.
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I think the Original Poster and "Miguel" are right in everything they have said.
Timers are just plain bad, there are good suggestions for alternatives to cooldown timers here. Why are the DEVs so determined to keep them? Cooldown timers encounrage ALTs. There are better and more subtle ways.
At the vest least please make this game Open Source. If nothing else, as stated, it will let programmers and so on jump in and help you when they are bored.
Nothing more I can say really, I think everything has been covered and Miguel's description of what happens is pretty much bang on what happened when I first started playing. I was a solo guy on my own ater a while I nearly just deleted the game and moved on.
I do love FOnline but I think there are a few features of it which need to be fixed. One of the major ones is "ALTs". There are some easy ways to stop major alting:
1: Email address required per character set (say 3 chars per email with set timers for switching between them).
2: IP tracking for logins.
3: Get rid of timers and make the character build system more evenly spread to discourage ALTs in the first place.
Yeah it wont stop all the ALTers, there are always a few who slip throughthe nets but right now ALTing is blatent and everyone does it.
Also, its wrong what you say about being able to have a crafter and a combat character. In PVP, anyone who has a character not 100% designed around PVP doesnt stand a chance of survival. Yeah there are the odd occasions where the dice and circumstances favour the underdog but in general pure PVP chars have the real kick in a fight.
In my personal experiance you can send as many "balenced" or Crafter type characters at a gang of Sniper and Big Gun PVPers and its no surprise who will come out on top.
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I think the Original Poster and "Miguel" are right in everything they have said.
Timers are just plain bad, there are good suggestions for alternatives to cooldown timers here. Why are the DEVs so determined to keep them? Cooldown timers encounrage ALTs. There are better and more subtle ways.
At the vest least please make this game Open Source. If nothing else, as stated, it will let programmers and so on jump in and help you when they are bored.
Nothing more I can say really, I think everything has been covered and Miguel's description of what happens is pretty much bang on what happened when I first started playing. I was a solo guy on my own ater a while I nearly just deleted the game and moved on.
I do love FOnline but I think there are a few features of it which need to be fixed. One of the major ones is "ALTs". There are some easy ways to stop major alting:
1: Email address required per character set (say 3 chars per email with set timers for switching between them).
2: IP tracking for logins.
3: Get rid of timers and make the character build system more evenly spread to discourage ALTs in the first place.
Yeah it wont stop all the ALTers, there are always a few who slip throughthe nets but right now ALTing is blatent and everyone does it.
Also, its wrong what you say about being able to have a crafter and a combat character. In PVP, anyone who has a character not 100% designed around PVP doesnt stand a chance of survival. Yeah there are the odd occasions where the dice and circumstances favour the underdog but in general pure PVP chars have the real kick in a fight.
In my personal experiance you can send as many "balenced" or Crafter type characters at a gang of Sniper and Big Gun PVPers and its no surprise who will come out on top.
And what was the point of that post if the wipe is like already here. Things gonna change in it, you kno..
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And what was the point of that post if the wipe is like already here. Things gonna change in it, you kno..
Post was made literally moments before wipe was announced and changelog was posted.
Some of the points have been covered, the crafting system is deffinatly improved but its still so difficult for single starting players to get anywhere. If you have a group of 10 people you can have a base in a few hours but on your own its a real struggle just to get that first tent up.
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Traders stocking hides (as well as the new trader system!) should help the new folks a little too
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I don't really understand all this moaning about this game being hard, hard and verry hard. It's just a game you need a distance and about not finding help in game it is not true. It's just like real life , when you enter a town and start shouting for help you'll almost only attract assholes who want to use you but sometimes when you really need help you can find somebody who can be a big help. Today i saw an available bussiness at merchant and only needed somebody to craft something for me and he got half of mine profit [1000 caps in less then 2 minutes]just for helping me. People you're about to die anyway, at a point when you don't expect it so why are you soo damn greedy ? BTW that guy later helped me to buy something for me . There are few cool people.