Badtides: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

[Zarek]

The Good:

1. Two fluids - Okay, this is a great concept, fluid mechanics is the heart of this game, so more fluids to toy with is awesome, and having to find ways to separate it is also awesome.
I'd go so far as to want a third liquid to manage. Something that is more neutral, or different effects or something.
2. 3rd season: I want more. Droughts should still be primary still, thats the core premise, but as others have mentioned, winters, or floods. I like the idea of having to master more elements from the map, to be hardy for a variety of conditions.
3. It makes dynamite more immediately accessible, and I like that.

The Bad:

1. Double Bad Tides coming faster than your production chain recovers, I think this should be delayed as a possibility, not forever, just awhile.
2. Dead Trees - so i get it, early droughts killing some crops, fine. But killing my wood production really stalls the economy. I'm not saying don't kill trees, but something there is more offputting.
3. You have to rush directly to handle it, and it makes everyones playthroughs a little more homogenous.

The Ugly

1. Look, I love the flood gates and redirecting flow being a bigger part of the game, but its very obnoxious once it becomes a routine doing the same redirects every time there is a bad Tide. Once its the same step every time, it gets unfun and manual.
2. Badwater is ugly, but it should be. I do find it displeasing half my map is hideous though.


Improvements I would suggest

1. Expanded Options
We need to be able to make the badwater less aggressive but still keep it as a mechanic, its a way to turn off a part some people find as a challenge, and others as an annoyance. Maybe a toxicity slider or something. I could see some real fun in playing with it, but not having it kill your stuff, just managing the contamination challenge, or vice versa.
2. MediocreTide - The bad water isnt as aggressive when diluted with water, maybe we should have some diluted Badtide events if we don't have the options? Might be a good difficulty scale option too. First bad Tide is only marginally contaminated, second is heavily contaminated, 3rd is full force.
3. Map maker should be able to set if badtide is possible, even cooler if thats per water source.
4. Add Easy maps with no Badtide sources.
5. Double tree badtide exposure longevity (or make this a custom setting too)
6. I like how the option to prioritize buildings shows up once you throw down a hauler building. What if there was a Floodgate Management Control Building. Each Flood gate could have a drought height Setting, a badtide height setting, and a default height setting. COuld By default District workers or idle beavers could handle, and the building then controls it automatically or something. Needs work but theres something there.

[Fall2YrDoom]

I like all the changes. You get use to it.

[EleventhStar]

obvious ideas for more fluids are lava, ice and mud. either as a season or entirely new map types. e.g. lava burns wooden dams. you can walk on ice but gotto blow a hole before you can pump from it, mud is bascially a badtide without the land contamination, just water you can't swim in, kinda like your mediocretide idea.

you could also take lava/ice/mud to the extreme and have them create new terrain blocks, e.g. volcano eruption that changes the map layout, glacier that freezes half the map, landslides, etc. but not sure if that's a good fit for this game.


rushing to solve droughts/badtides and then "being done" is simply a fundamental problem with the game that isn't going to go away until some entirely new type of problem is introduced that scales to the lategame.

[bcrehore]

Originally posted by EleventhStar:

rushing to solve droughts/badtides and then "being done" is simply a fundamental problem with the game that isn't going to go away until some entirely new type of problem is introduced that scales to the lategame.

I agree. Rediricteting BadTides off the map is no different than building up dams to save water for droughts. Once the problem is 'fixed' then the game goes into city builder mode, as survival mode has been conquered.

[Zarek]

Just for the record - I do like the changes. I just noticed some didn't, And I see why.

In my estimation, the survival part is solvable well before the completion of the city building. Bad tide extends that out a smid, but it doesn't solve it. The proper balance would require continuing to try to figure out how to shore up your population and sustainability and tackle new problems as you get deeper.

Tide 7 is a badtide that continues? Well what if 21 is an even bigger problem you need to prepare for?

[oyssoyss]

need an automatic floodgate.

[Flishster]

I wouldn't say the inclusion of badwater is BAD, necessarily, but you are completely correct that right now it's not implemented in a very good way. It basically just punishes newer or slower players by decimating their colony if they don't get everything set up by the first badtide, and then doesn't really do anything but change a few production trees for good players. My first game since the update has been on thousand islands because I figured it'd be a good map to check out if I wanted to test out the update. Yeah, first badwater tide was completely unavoidable on that map. Virtually nowhere to redirect the badwater because of how sprawling it is, and all the metal is very very far away which means you're basically unable to get explosives before the first badtide as well.

Another thing I haven't seen brought up is that because the badtides kill plants so quickly, a lot of the time berry bushes across the map are just killed before you ever would have had a chance to use them to help jumpstart a settlement, which just kinda makes these berry bush patches very far from spawn kinda... pointless? They just end up clogging up space.

[Momaw Nadon]

Originally posted by Flishster:

My first game since the update has been on thousand islands because I figured it'd be a good map to check out if I wanted to test out the update. Yeah, first badwater tide was completely unavoidable on that map. Virtually nowhere to redirect the badwater because of how sprawling it is, and all the metal is very very far away which means you're basically unable to get explosives before the first badtide as well.

Another thing I haven't seen brought up is that because the badtides kill plants so quickly, a lot of the time berry bushes across the map are just killed before you ever would have had a chance to use them to help jumpstart a settlement, which just kinda makes these berry bush patches very far from spawn kinda... pointless? They just end up clogging up space.

Thousand Island map, normal difficulty, first Badtide. You absolutely can survive the first Badtide without suffering too much, having beavers get contaminated, or crops/trees dying off.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3151398991

[Flishster]

Ok but see that only proves my first point. You had to neglect all your industries just to spend tons of logs to make a bunch of floodgates everywhere, which newer players are not going to think to do, and slower players are not going to get to in time, especially if your badwater flood starts on cycle 5 (as it can on normal) or earlier (on hard). And now that you have a way to safely avoid badtides they're basically a non-issue for you, making them kind of just... pointless other than adding floodgate micromanagement, I suppose.

[Momaw Nadon]

Neglect all my industries? It's not a race to get every single industry up in 5 or 7 cycles. It's not a race to get the most bestest happiness as fast as possible. It's not a race to get 150 population in as little cycles as possible.

Timberborn is a survival game and as such, I prioritized getting the minimum amount of food, water, wood, and production that my beavers *needed to survive*, instead of trying to design utopia in the first few cycles. You said the first badtide was "completely unavoidable". I just showed you that it is not. I also play slow, and there were plenty of other ways of diverting the badtide on this map that I explored while paused, but this is what I chose because I thought I could make it work. Yes, I could have chosen to build more happiness, or add more housing, or push ahead to paper or potatoes. But those industries/strategies were not necessary - once again - TO SURVIVE the first badtide. Newer players will learn these lessons as they play, as they fail, and as they succeed. Slow players like myself also learn these lessons as they play, fail, and succeed. Just because you haven't adapted to survive it does not mean it is "completely unavoidable".

I can always run this same map on hard and prove you wrong again, but you'd just move the goalposts in order to keep complaining.

[Doktor Oktor]

MediocreTide

MediocreTide.

I've been on Steam for about a decade now and it never occured to me that an "e" followed by a "T" looks absolutely weird!

[Wuik]

Originally posted by Momaw Nadon:

Originally posted by Flishster:

My first game since the update has been on thousand islands because I figured it'd be a good map to check out if I wanted to test out the update. Yeah, first badwater tide was completely unavoidable on that map. Virtually nowhere to redirect the badwater because of how sprawling it is, and all the metal is very very far away which means you're basically unable to get explosives before the first badtide as well.

Another thing I haven't seen brought up is that because the badtides kill plants so quickly, a lot of the time berry bushes across the map are just killed before you ever would have had a chance to use them to help jumpstart a settlement, which just kinda makes these berry bush patches very far from spawn kinda... pointless? They just end up clogging up space.

Thousand Island map, normal difficulty, first Badtide. You absolutely can survive the first Badtide without suffering too much, having beavers get contaminated, or crops/trees dying off.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3151398991

Hello,
Totally agree and you may post your reviews on this thread opened with the revorked map ^^
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1062090/discussions/4/4033600999067682401/

[Ericus1]

Originally posted by Zarek:

The Ugly

1. Look, I love the flood gates and redirecting flow being a bigger part of the game, but its very obnoxious once it becomes a routine doing the same redirects every time there is a bad Tide. Once its the same step every time, it gets unfun and manual.

This is why I gave up playing this game. The lack of automation for what is a completely mindless and boring amount of tedious and repetitive micromanagement, and now clearly the devs' intent to dig even deeper into that as a fundamental core mechanic tells me I made the right choice.

Challenge and interest does not come from busywork. This game didn't need more frontloaded difficulty, and it certainly didn't need more busywork. Badtides seems like nothing but both.

[UnderTow]

Automation is definitely needed in this game Now, but other than that get creative i guess, ill start using mods that add automation, but not sure what your micromanaging? other than the badtides..

[Zarek]

Originally posted by UnderTow:

Automation is definitely needed in this game Now, but other than that get creative i guess, ill start using mods that add automation, but not sure what your micromanaging? other than the badtides..

Just the badtides for me, but it is annoying, Up until the bad tides it was possible to get your community stable enough that you could let it run and go get a drink or take a bio break. I actually enjoyed that work when each badtide i had made progress and had a different thing i needed to do, and observe if id solved it yet, but once it got past that point, all badtide means now is a delay i lumber production, and i do the same gate thing but now pause to get up.

[Dr Strangelove]

Badtide is just a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ addition. remove it.