A problem of scale

[kaelis33]

One of the biggest potential problems I see for this game is how to give the game real scale. Like a sense of accomplishment. I realize this is early alpha (like there is no sound) but already I can see a real challenge to come up with a meaningful world to explore, build, and interact in.

For all I know the creator could be well aware of this, and already have a plan on how to deal with it. My experience has been that this is always overlooked and leads to a real waste of time and effort when actually playing the game seems meaningless. Its a pitfall of sandbox games. So I hope that the creator proves my concerns unfounded.

Right now in early alpha I see that once I can build a town and beat down a group of ninjas I have "beaten" the game. For all intents of purposes further development is pointless, unless I just want to see virtual digits increase. There is no need to have 100 STR 100 DEX characters. I can easily craft the very best weapons, there is no wondering if I can pull it off. I know I will get them.

I can only assume it will be the same when armor is implemented to. I would argue that crafting should yield high quality generic gear suitable for outfitting your squad, but not be the elite stuff...which should be hunted down in a rare shop, or off a powerful enemy, or maybe from a treasure somewhere. That would add a sense of mystery and "what if" which is very necessary to keep people hanging on for a bit longer.

Also I sincerely hope that all the skills I see like Thieving, Climbing, Mass Combat are fully implemented and not tossed aside because it is too much to implement. I realize this is alot of work and really I would not bother to post unless this game has some amazing potential. Its so refreshing to see a developer( and obvious gamer) take such an out of the box approach to game design. Much of what I see planned for Kenshi in the final release are things I have wanted to see in a game for a long time.

I very much hope that the most important things are not lost due to time constraints. Once the graphics and sound are done and all the NPCs dropped into place, with all the models and AI working its very very easy to not go in and make the game worth playing, to forget about scale. Making the game have a reason to be played, I can use my imagination like anyone else in a sandbox game, but still there needs to be an element of adventure, and "what if".

[windows 98]

Yeah, there should be legendary items, you can craft good stuff, but i think it needs to require something more, than just a piece of steel, maybe something you get form chance.

and dex, is important imo. along with strength, alows me to carry stuff while still maintaining a reasonable speed, and dex is for block, and attack rate. seems pretty important to me.

NPC strength needs to be toned up. because after you hist a Cretan point, nothing can really appose you.
maybe it was the last patch, but pre .44 i kinda didnt like to get near those sand ninja because they would kick your but, but now its just meh. and sand ninja used to take out all the other forums of npcs and they like get there buts whopped now.

[Marilous]

Difficulty will go up with the finished map where some areas are more difficult than others and you'll need to build outposts in order to get whatever special stuff is in that area, if there was stronger enemies around the start area im guessing you'd get stomped once they get bows.

To the rest of it I'd say be patient, the game has just now started having more than one guy working on it, and the dev doesn't have any investors to answer to so its not like he is going to rush the game out unfinished, it'll have all the features he wants it to have when its done im sure.

[kaelis33]

Difficulty will go up with the finished map where some areas are more difficult than others and you'll need to build outposts in order to get whatever special stuff is in that area, if there was stronger enemies around the start area im guessing you'd get stomped once they get bows.

To the rest of it I'd say be patient, the game has just now started having more than one guy working on it, and the dev doesn't have any investors to answer to so its not like he is going to rush the game out unfinished, it'll have all the features he wants it to have when its done im sure.

Mmmm I think I was being more than patient in fact I am having trouble seeing where one thing I said was the least bit impatient. Like, I made not one demand or said hurry in any conceivable way. Nor did I mention that the game needed to be rushed, and I was pretty darn careful to acknowledge the fact the game is in early alpha.

Thank you for your relevant words?

[Perez Turner]

You not highlight the genuine problems with your scale that you are facing with. First you should make sure it and then share the actual problem for better understanding and analysis.

Scale For Less | Crane Scales

[Mattk50]

i think the issue is that the game has shifted in a few updates from wandering around killing everything to sitting on your arse crafting everything from sand using some form of alchemy.

What's needed is a limited amount of resource nodes, spread out so you cant pull water stone iron and essence of desert out of every grain of sand in the world. They can be hidden or whatever.

Im more looking forward to the kind of AI chris was originally talking about, which imo will be the main feature of kenshi and generate most content and entertainment.

[windows 98]

i think the issue is that the game has shifted in a few updates from wandering around killing everything to sitting on your arse crafting everything from sand using some form of alchemy.

What's needed is a limited amount of resource nodes, spread out so you cant pull water stone iron and essence of desert out of every grain of sand in the world. They can be hidden or whatever.

Im more looking forward to the kind of AI chris was originally talking about, which imo will be the main feature of kenshi and generate most content and entertainment.

problem with this is it seriously limits where you would be able to set up a base. and that's kinda meh

edit: i was thinking about it it wouldnt be too bad, but would defeinitly need water towers and pipes, to Bring the water to your base, and that would ad another layer, because you would have to fight of bandits trying to break your Pipe lines lol :3

[LTPLegend]

God please don't listen to these ideas and turn it into an RTS MMO.

Make us have to pay a salary for our workers if anything. Something modest that keeps us in check from blooming too fast. I have built a huge city and crafted all the update allows me and had to RP a lot to keep interest. Really though now I can crash into any city and kill everyone. No purpose left. A lot of fun though. About 70 hours invested. For scale-ability we just need a larger world with stronger factions that have agendas. Maybe some are war mongers other techno fiends or diplomats all with an agenda. Then let the AI run with it.

I keep thinking of Naruto when I play, how I leveled and trained my fighters and had some who were just workers. I wish slaves would work. I built the cages and put people in there but can't get them to work. wish you could design your own factions armors even if from a preset of armors not spawned in game and what you pick you use and the others stay inactive.

All in all though I love this game I hope the best for it and will continue to stay intrigued.

[Mattk50]

God please don't listen to these ideas and turn it into an RTS MMO.

Instead i suggest ignoring all of LTPLegend's posts forever. I cant have his suggestions turning kenshi into a F2P FPS MMORPG RTS CCLCKR tycoon game now can we.

[Someguy]

On the OP's thing:

I get what you're saying about feature bloat, and fleshing out one thing a bit much before other elements are even barebones implemented. It's a good thing to point out, a real concern. However, what we are testing now, not only doesn't bar broader implementations and adventure, I think it supports them greatly. I doubt everything we have now will be even fractionally as easy to aquire as it is now. If Chris made Well III or Edge 5 neigh impossible to aquire now, how would we test it?

Perhaps I'm a bit over optimistic, perhaps I just want to toss some ideas out there, just in case... but what I see in the future of this title is all of the spoilers that can't exist yet.

Things like mysterious places to explore, incredibly tough things to battle... like say trying to chop a four armed metal robot swordsman to death with swords... (I really want to fight this guy at some point: http://www.google.com/imgres?sa=X&biw=1 ... x=97&ty=92) or trying not to get stepped on by the huge thingee you're running away from, even more creative monsters and obstacles. Plants that emit gradually debilitating spores with symbiotic bugs that come along and want to carry your guys off and cocoon them into said plants for nefarious bug purposes. Of course with these sorts of things being the keepers of all of the awesome tech we're testing now, and the bits we can't see yet because they're spoilers. Like maybe those plants having a needed resource for your Medbench III production chain.

What if edge type blades are manufactured only by a fringe dwelling clan that's so martially badassed that they may as well be ethereal... or maybe they are actually ethereal (any definition; as far as anyone knows)... and they don't like falsely self assured tribals from the inner clans, not even a little. Maybe those guys are the same guys keeping all the things that would totally rock the world we know now at bay.

Maybe at some point we have to go beyond that boundary... Ultimately learning that everything that came before was inconsequential, a big Gamma World like reveal, or the book The Crysalids by John Wyndham, or almost anything John Wyndham for that matter, killer plants comes to mind again. And definitely the theme of escaping dystopia to find a bigger world. (Only to wind up having to choose whether to defend Dystopia from it.) That's what I'd lke to see the endgame look like. A tired hook as some will read what I've described, but there are lots of angles that are far different from the fare other studios have tackled if you read much science fiction.

Another thing I'm looking forward to is the possibility that some resources are so rare that you have to actually make a choice as to what one thing you're going to do with it. Use that awesome alloy or robotics component you may aquire after defeating the aforementoined robot to, for example: Upgrade one guy's cyberntic limb, automate your well to level III, make a higher tier weapon, so on... Or make production low, and units consumed in crafting high, and put a node in an incredibly dangerous, indefensible area. A place you almost have to plan raids to, just to run your own equipment for a few days, and hopefully get out alive with a few units of materials. Like say an area that emits a huge EMP or earthquake every so often so all mining has to be done by hand. Perhaps simply within an inconsolable enemy's territory if the more mundane is desired.


@mattk50
Aren't nodes already on the table? I seem to recall hearing something in that vein earlier this year. Are those little black spots still on the map anymore? (I haven't come across any lately, might be due to the new scenery being worked on.) Sure looked like resource nodes to me. Check science skill description too, it alludes to this with prospecting.

This is quoting someone quoting Chris, but it's what I've got at the moment, not digging it up.

Chris_The_Great wrote:
The different map zones may have rare resources that are vital to certain areas of research. This might force you to build a protected mining outpost to further your research, rather than one single mega-base.

@ windows 98
Rare minerals, not water. If there's water on a planet it's probably everywhere, at a certain depth, that's how water works, barring MASSIVE near-surface hyperdense rock formations in extremely low rainfall areas I'd speculate, but I'm no geologist. In any event you'd figure out pretty quickly that was a bad place to drill a well I'd imagine. On Earth about 1/3 of existing groundwater is so close to the surface that plants can tap it. Guess where? I'm guessing everywhere there's a plant... You suggested something about piping water around, it'd take some pretty unusual circumstances for something like that to be neccessary in my estimation.

Nodes wouldn't limit where you can build (via water supply), though they may limit where you want to build. Perhaps Chris could do an altitude calculation as an abstract for wells on craggy mountains, he's planning on doing that anyway for windmills, but eh, I'm indifferent as wells are concerned, dig deep enough, you'll hit water.

>

[Mattk50]

If we're talking about realism, water is actually a very vital resource and, especially for the kind of technology kenshi has, very difficult to come by in a desert situation. Even if there is water, underground water can be brackish or polluted and therefore unusable without extreme amunts of electric processing. This is a huge problem even in the modern world for smaller towns all over the globe However, from the gameplay perspective adding those kind of pipes would give more points of failure for the player's outpost, which means more things for the player to take into account and think about.

[Someguy]

Ahh yes, 'Realism' (TM).

I'm a plumbing contractor, who lives in the desert. I know wells, I know water, and I know deserts. I also know rural water from wells in deserts if that all didn't connect. I'll spare the thread another page explaining the hundreds of ways that every word you've said, except "water is a vital resource", is incorrect. Because, y'know, Special Olympics. But tell me I'm full of shit again...

Take your own advice on this one:

by Mattk50 » Mon Mar 25, 2013 4:56 pm

The most valuable trait anyone can have on a forum like this is knowing when to stop arguing for something you've learned is wrong.

Yes, from a gameplay perspective it could add something. From a design perspective, or a realism (TM) perspective, I'm a bit dubious.


Edit: Sorry about getting so short with you, vacation has gone to hell, thus all of this forum time.

Here, I went ahead and dug this up for you, you may find it interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuzDyFquyqw

I think it encapsulates everything quite nicely. I use a clip close to the ocean as an example refuting your claims of "brackishness", well water is the cleanest there is barring man-made pollutants which do not apply to this scenario. Even at that distance, sand filtering is evidently barring salination contaminants enough to be potable, that's no garden well. You'll see another desert well being hand dug in a sidebar clip to this one. Kenshi already has far superior tech to this btw. A 300 foot well is certainly doable in Kenshi. /edit

Edit2: Do not water your garden with salt water, it will die. I was referring to a well on or near the realestate for non-potable purposes.

[arthoz]

Well said kaelis33. The game is not yet complete so we still can't foresee the extent of its limitations however kaelis33's concerns is very real. I play game either to discover new hidden places or to unravel the solution to the problems.

The Total War and Mount & Blade series are excellent in providing me this but they all have a similar weakness, halfway through once you've build that mighty empire and formiddable army or in M&B you capture a castle or two...the challenge is no longer there. I always asked myself...what's the point? Everything becomes a monotonous repetition, no more suprises or sense of mystery.

These days it's always the same, play them halfway and then just exit and restart. I remember the old days like x-com, neverwinter and diablo, you play till the very end and then you replay again and again and again each in a different way or just to challenge myself....

[Scotterius]

they all have a similar weakness, halfway through once you've build that mighty empire and formiddable army or in M&B you capture a castle or two...the challenge is no longer there.

This is a problem that most open world non scripted game design suffers from. Perhaps since you can start anywhere and do anything difficulty seems to usually be far harder in the beginning, and reach a point where you are unstoppable because such difficult challenges would be discouraging for the starting character.

I would expect rare extremely difficult challenges, and interactivity and goals to scale with your power. For example: Are you attacking a bandit, bandit group, town, nation or controlling a continent? Unfortunate events like earth quakes, locust, and disease can be great tools to destabilize you well oiled nation stomping machine. These things are far less punishing when you are leading a small group, but can be crippling when you are large and heavily invested.

Scale itself can bring its own challenges, rebellion inefficiency, even complacency and politics can slow or stop you. I think there is plenty that can be done, I am not sure if it needs to be. I would expect something like this however.

[RoboSwordman]

I dont agree with the OP at all. Sounds like he needs something to tell him what to do like some arbitrary quest journal. Kenshi doesnt need that jazz, in kenshi you set forth your own goals and if you feel accomplished, you will, if not, so what? Go crazy and flip out and attack the whole village if it pleases you, or be a doctor and follow caravans and heal them maybe they pay you for it. Or research lost technology and sell your tech for profits... its more like freelancer with mods or morrowind or daggerfall, or any RPG where you decide to stop following the story and just explore everything.

EDIT: Kenshi isnt going to be just, do this and get accomplished, its going to be a sim world. Sim worlds need features yeah, I agree with that, But its the amount of features and options and occurences that create the most fun and memorable exchanges.

Making sure your enviroment is highly dynamic is most important.

For instance, The Sims 3, the game is always changing, and always working against my characters or their families, The guild 2, same thing. Eventually my characters age and die so my empire isnt eternal, must constantly be maintained. Another great example of a sandboxish game wish the same foundation: Rome Total War, same thing, and even more events to keep be entertained and busy.

But Kenshi will have ALL of this (most likely) and more! Now we have the RPG stats and control of single characters and even more factions and travel and exploration.

So its almost like taking Black and White Series and combining it with Empire Earth and combining it with the Sims 3 and combining it with Rome Total War, its amazing. But I dont want any stupid things that detract from the experience. I dont need a goal set forth by a quest journal or anything.
Just give us the world and we'll find the possibilities on our own, as the world should be self-playing. Our characters should just exist in it.

[Mattk50]

Ahh yes, 'Realism' (TM).

I'm a plumbing contractor, who lives in the desert. I know wells, I know water, and I know deserts. I also know rural water from wells in deserts if that all didn't connect. I'll spare the thread another page explaining the hundreds of ways that every word you've said, except "water is a vital resource", is incorrect. Because, y'know, Special Olympics. But tell me I'm full of shit again...

Yes yes, thats a "desert" in the video. But it isnt the Saharan landscape most of kenshi is. If you are a plumbing contractor, you should be also be aware that conditions can vary including depth and quality of the water table. it is a simple falsity that you may dig anywhere and find perfectly drinkable water.

Additionally, you should be aware that while the deeper you go, typically you will get more saline groundwater, but permeable layers of earth can change this drastically, sometimes allowing salt water to settle in far shallower areas, and may be saltier than even the deepest groundwater. Deep drill wells are a little bit off from the technology we see in kenshi, too, even if there was more advanced water filtering. If the geology where you contract is so favorable, that is fortunate, but it is not the same everywhere.

Your right in that it would be entirely realistic to place kenshi in a region with extremely favorable water conditions (expecially considering that screenshot with water effects we saw) However its false that you can find drinkable water anywhere, and its entirely up to the chosen setting. I understand contractors arent expected to know the detailed science of their field especially of other regions, but pretending to be a geologist too is pretty funny. Thanks for the video though, i hadn't seen a well being hand dug and built like that.

So how bout that gameplay.