Lo-Fi Games

I hit over 2000 hours this week. It got me thinking about the game: why do i stick with it? why have i stuck with it? and most importantly what can it do better?

What kept me going was the mods. When it wasn't a theme mod, it would be an end game mod: tougher creatures, stronger enemies, etc etc. Which really points out a big weakness in the game: What is the end game? Is it going to the south east? is it getting all the technologies? what is it? It really varies from person to person.

Now, what the game got right was grind. The grind is great, the grind is why you stay. Kenshi proves that a good grind does not need a quest, and really quests are why i stopped playing skyrim. why keep redoing the same quests?

so what would make the game last longer? What does kenshi need in my opinion? what, after 2000 hours, could add more value?

More squad ai and interaction, including moodlets and sim style wants and needs. This is, of course, something that is really hard to program in with a small dev team. But why do i feel that it needs this? Because it is a grind that adds value by adding personality to the squad members. We grow attached to the people, we like the conversations(especially with the named characters), and watching them grow. I enjoyed that aspect of the game.

This is where the first big problem comes in: the characters are robotic. This is acceptable for skeletons, but the people need some work. Everyone loves beep, because he has the most personality. Everyone else needed personality, outside of a few lines of special dialogue, there really is not much going on. What makes this stand out is when they work non-stop 24 hours laboring. While fun to watch it breaks the immersion, and makes things a little easy. Imagine how difficult it would be if not only did you have to manage hunger but also managed fatigue? Imagine if having beds was important for keeping people productive? suddenly the bandit raids on the bases are even more dangerous. It makes having a skeleton on the team more important.

Those quality of life mechanics are something that should be considered. imagine a full sandbox where everyone works, sits, talks, lives and dies together? Where some people have violent personalities and are fine killing bandits, but others break down and get debuffed until they become hardened.

These are not complaints. I got 2000 hours out of the game. I have no room to complain. However, How often does a dev get feedback from someone who put that much time playing a game?

I agree with Philthy,
I'm closer to the 5000 hrs at this point. Steam tells me I'm at 3475, but I stopped playing it through steam a couple years ago. I mainly play directly from the .exe, because that make Kenshi run faster and frees up my steam account for my kid to play his games.

A little different then Philthy, I run few mods. I have a the 256 squads, fishing by adys, a personal tweak to food production, a personal mod for MA training and clothing, and sometimes a personal conversation mod to recruit prisoners. besides that I run it pretty vanilla. After all this time I still play almost everyday.

Why do I keep playing? Kenshi is the place where I can make my own stories come to life. I have more then a dozen saves that I rotate through. Each one has a different story line that I have created in my head. Each one plays a little different then the others. Each has it's own special characters that I have grown to care about. I have just started three new games in the last couple months. I'm excited to see how they will progress.

I'm not looking for "end game" content. Mainly because I don't ever want the game to end.

I agree with Philthy that I'm more interested in things that will fill out the world more, to make it more real and give it more flavor. I agree that it would be nice if we had a switch that would turn on water and fatigue as necessities for survival. It would make life tougher for experienced players. And more dialogue between characters is great. Lo-Fi Devs have a great sense of humor that comes out in the random conversations that I would love to see more of.

But Philthy is right, in Kenshi the Grind is king. It's not how fast can I beat the game and become king of everything. It's the long slow slog to survive another day. The more things that effect that slog, make the grind more gritty, the better. For me adding some things like illness and poisons along with things like water and fatigue to make you leave your outpost or seek out a cure to save a cherished character would make that Grind even better. Things that would cause your crops to fail, or bandits that came at weak points in your walls instead of always at your main gate, thieves that sneak in and steal things, storms of dust and rain that ruin crops and destroy buildings and walls. Resources that run out. Expanded the interactions with the known factions. Anything that makes it so you can never rest at ease behind your walls. Something will always change and make you adapt and force you to leave to find the answers someplace in the wilderness.

Most of my games center around building bases and keeping them up and running. And I would love more content to expand those games. But I do have three game that I play as completely nomadic. I don't have a base, I carry everything with me at all times. There are several things that would make those games more interesting. The ability to squat in discovered ruins. Use of discovered work benches, wells and fields. And mostly consequences for staying in those locations for too long. Like the previous owners return, or what ever drove the previous owners out, returns. Also hunting party type raids. What I mean is something like a base raid, but that follows you around the map (like the noble hunters). Like a bounty is placed on your head and bounty hunters start to actively track you down, or someone takes out a contract with the various ninja factions to assassinate you. Or a big cat type creature with great stealth, that gets your scent and stalks your party till you sleep. Or a holy paladin that has made it his life's work to eradicate you from the face of the Holy Phoenix's earth. Every time you stop at a shop, camp, trade with a wandering merchant, or someone sees you, your pursuers are updated about your location. You have to keep moving.

I believe I have already mentioned this stuff on the features request forum. But like Philthy I offer them here more as feedback after thousands of hours of game play, what makes Kenshi Great and what makes me keep playing. All I can say is I waited a long time to find a game like Kenshi. I hope I never reach the end game.
Thanks Lo-Fi! Keep up the good work.