Post by Tazshelby2016 in Mustelia comments

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Tazshelby2016152 days ago (2 edits)

Definitely interested, as this is already very strong. I only have five right now, since I am struggling to keep the colony functional long enough for me to properly test the game. Firstly, a means to disable the owls would be useful. the option would provide more of a sandbox option. As for the owls themselves, I would recommend giving the player some means to counter them, or at least making the current form a random event. Similarly, colonist deaths should be better telegraphed. Currently, the only indicator is the owls screeching. Corn does nothing currently, which is costly to find out. Is it supposed to be another kind of food? Lastly, I still notice some pathfinding issues, notably with trees, anything above the ground level, and anything placed near beds. I will be eating shortly, so it may be some time before I respond again.

Edit: Added the feedback on owls. It is now the second recommendation out of five. (Sorry if I am too thorough.)

bobthefish151 days ago

Not too thorough, it's wonderful to have feedback!

The owls are easily countered by shelter. Owls will not enter houses and mustelids will seek beds to sleep in at night time. The player can pass the night quickly by sleeping on a bed. I am, however, open to suggestions about counters, other night-time threats, and ways to telegraph danger.

Corn was an experimental feature. I'm not sure what to do with it.

The pathfinding engine needs something of a rewrite which wasn't worth it just for the prototype. It's quite fixable though.

I have created a Discord server in case anyone would rather converse in a space other than these comments:

https://discord.gg/VQEbvP8GpT

Tazshelby2016151 days ago (3 edits)

I mentioned a different counter since sufficient bed and shelter can be unobtainable at times (Especially when you add 4+ settlers in one night), the bad pathfinder can invalidate the run for cover, and it simply feels like owls are too weak in their current form. Corn would work well as a third food source, reducing the pressure on traps, which often eat into the building resources. I suggested disabling owls since it would allow me to move and do things freely at night, which would help significantly (Unless you are not supposed to gather resources and build things at night.). Danger should be telegraphed simply as a notice of who, how, why, and sometimes where. For references on threats, I recommend the Rebuild series and Hive Time (You easily could go down the semi-educational route Hive Time did). No Man's Sky's settlements is a great reference for settlement management (Especially in 3D games like this) and Minecraft continues to be a good source of things done wrong and right for sandbox games. (Your owls resemble phantoms, which that community considers a nuisance). A few more things I remembered, I would be careful with linear progression in this game, since players may use it to optimize the fun out of the game. I recommend keeping stone and wood as separate upgrade trees, as a player who wants to switch from one material to another can replace the walls. This fixes another issue I noticed: upgrades lose resources. If you are willing to deal with a game with a complicated relationship with SFWness, Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead is an excellent resource. That said, I would also be careful with open progression, as some players flounder when guidance and objectives are absent. While I do not know of something on balancing linear aspects, acgaudette (who is on itch) wrote several blog posts on balancing openness and sticking to your level of abstraction. Lastly, two things with construction. Firstly, built objects should not cost the full amount of resources until it is built. You should allow partial construction (The most common) or block construction until all resources are present. In addition, a proper planning mode would be very useful and help keep the settlers from bottlenecking on their auto buildings.

Notify me if you want me to put the suggestions on separate lines.

bobthefish150 days ago

Thank you again for the feedback. I am assuming that you would like to see this game updated (rather than just providing the feedback for the sake of my own learning) and so my responses below are focused on next steps of development of Mustelia rather than games of this type in general.

"the bad pathfinder can invalidate the run for cover"
How bad is the pathfinding overall? The reason I ask is because it is a big job to fix properly or I could work on your other suggestions first and fix pathfinding later.

"it simply feels like owls are too weak in their current form"
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. I thought the problem was owls are too dangerous? I would also interested to hear if you have any specific ideas for different owl counters and/or dangers.

"Corn would work well as a third food source"
Ok, that should be easy enough to do.

"you are not supposed to gather resources and build things at night"
This is correct. The valley is supposed to feel like a dangerous place at night.

"Danger should be telegraphed simply as a notice of who, how, why, and sometimes where."
This is good. I will consider those references and add a feature for this in the next release.

"upgrades lose resources"
I will investigate this and your suggested reference games.

"balancing linear aspects"
Thanks, I'll read up on this.

"two things with construction"
These should be relatively easy to implement but I am concerned about how to make the mustelids prioritise their projects and resources. I will think about this a bit more.

Tazshelby2016149 days ago

Yes, I would not mind seeing this updated. I cannot respond to this properly right now and it will be several hours before I can.

Tazshelby2016149 days ago (1 edit)

I noticed that beds mess up the pathfinder the most, particularly in the morning and evening. I've noticed colonists stuck on useable tiles like fireplaces or walking into walls (This is why I use doors more than walls). In one other case, I saw a colonist stuck walking into a tree, and another made its way up to a roof area and started pacing like it was in an infinite loop. Sorry if I made it sound like owls were too hard, I actually found them too obnoxious. I recommend looking into Minecraft phantoms, which suffer from the same problems. In particular, most of the owls' kills probably were byproducts of bugs or other things not controllable by the player, if not outright player stupidity. Currently, owls seem defeated by a floating roof. Optional combat or defense orientated nighttime events would probably be a substitute for why I wanted it kept (Padding the resource count/keeping a bed clear). Just a heads up though, blocking resource gathering/building outright at night may frustrate some. A system based on lighting conditions may be better. The simplest way is to expose the priorities to players in some ways. CDDA's base building system, Minecraft's village mechanics, and No Man's Sky's settlements would be good to look into for this as they feature very different approaches. Something I mentioned indirectly (and just now caught it was not directly), a configurable sandbox mode would be immensely useful to test the game properly.

bobthefish95 days ago

I gave it a shot but the work vs. reward level is not paying off. I spent weeks in my free time overhauling a number of systems including the pathfinding and I added a sandbox mode. The game runs more efficiently and the villagers were able to navigate complex mazes (including multiple levels) confidently but they are still doing weird unpredictable behaviours like walking into trees and I haven't been able to figure out why so the current build would be no fun to try. I am finding it frustrating to work with the old version of Godot and I tried porting to the new version but it is a monster task for uncertain gain. I appreciate your interest but for the sake of my own sanity right now I need to move on. If more people were interested it could be worth the effort but as someone wise once said "I do this for fun, and it's not fun any more". I'm still happy to hear ideas if you have them, especially if you are able to highlight what you like about it that makes the game fun, maybe there is a simpler games I could make instead. It's possible one day I may revisit this (especially if I start from the beginning and design it properly, since this was only intended to be a quick prototype) but for now I wanted to let you know my situation rather than keep you waiting indefinitely. Thanks again!

Tazshelby201695 days ago

I understand, as I myself am back in a position where I need to focus my time on other things.

Tazshelby201627 days ago

Tried the sandbox this morning and again hour or so ago. The sandbox and pathfinding works very well, the villagers do reliably get to their destination (and in one case, switch paths to a better one). I did notice three things in my playthroughs though. Firstly, the game crashed during every playthrough, though at different times. The only common factor I know of is that I was building things. More trivially, removing the delay on the delete tool made it function like a raycaster, deleting everything in the players line-of-sight. In addition, the larger villagers now do not fit through doors. A 1×3/2×3 door would be sufficient, or possibly returning the hitbox to the old size.

bobthefish27 days ago

Thank you for this quick feedback! I should be able to fix those most or all of those things in the next version. I also haven't forgotten about your other feedback, some of which you can expect to see in the next build, which will hopefully be a lot faster than the last one!

Tazshelby201626 days ago

Ok, and thank you for continuing to work on this.

bobthefish24 days ago

I fixed a game crash but I'm not sure it was the one affecting you, please test and if it crashes send the log file. I am slowly tackling some of your suggestions whilst also adding other stuff that I feel like. You are welcome to bring an issue or a suggestion to the surface again if you think it is important and I should get to it sooner. Thanks again for your advice and feedback! Also if you take any screenshots or video clips I can use them to freshen up the main page.

Tazshelby201623 days ago

Doing a playthrough to see if it crashes, none yet.

Tazshelby201623 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

No crashes, the one I encountered is fixed. Also, the fixes to the other problems work. The larger villagers enter doors without problem, and I have not ran into problems when deleting things.

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