Let's discuss the state of the game

[Joseph Sneed]

The following was posted to a thread that got locked because OP could not stop feeding the trolls. As I agreed with a lot of it I thought it was worth reposting as it was a conversation worth having. Lets keep it civil this time.

Below is the old thread by Peachesforme.

Originally posted by author:

Hey, everyone. This is going to be a little mini-essay. I am not wanting to condemn anyone else's perspective, or feelings on the current state of the game. However, I did want to bring up my perspective; partly to raise concerns but to also gauge where my opinion lies among the fans of this amazing game.

So, let's start:

I think the game is going into a bad direction. I am going to be a bit arrogant when I say it and I know what I'm about to say is false, but: "It's almost like the game devs never read a book on game balance."

The dev's solutions to all their problems seem to be, just introduce something new to distract people. They're falling into the trap that a game can only be entertaining if it's constantly receiving novel updates. And, the most egregious way they started doing this is just by introducing new coins/tokens. It's probably the laziest and weakest way to deal with the game balance issues.

Introducing new coins only ARTIFICIALLY extends game content, once the closed-game-loop completes it's largely a non-issue. What do I mean by the 'closed-game-loop'? What's this game's game-play-loop? Gather Resources, Refine Resources, Sell Resources. Which wouldn't be a bad thing, if all the aspects of the game fed into this, but they don't. Each aspect of the game is INDEPENDENT of the other loops in the game. Yes, there can be some cross over, and that's where the HydroCoins are.... but introducing Farming Tokens and .... Pointless Tokens (I know it's prospector) are things to create NEW independent of other aspect of the game, game-loops.

What's the issue that they're trying to solve by introducing F2P mechanics in the game (the using alternate currencies to artificially lock-off a portion of the game). Well, it's the poor game balance. In just a few hours you can collect so many HydroCoins and can produce so much resources that all other ways to obtain money is pointless. Like, 2-3 hours into the game, I can produce 300k+ of HydroCoins in 30-Minutes. Largely making t he game 'creative-mode'.

So, what I'm saying simply is that you don't need to fish, farm, or prospect to basically get access to the entirety of what the game offers. Farming is a completely different thing... It has no effect on your mining capabilities. At least Prospector's guild makes some sense. And, the Prospector Coin could actually make more sense, than the Farming Token because you are now dealing with the 'elite' aspects of mining in the game. However, it still fails there ... because it's not 'locking off the elite' portion it's locking off 'another style'.

What do I suggest for the solution to these issues, instead of just introducing new coins. It's simple:
1. Raise the cost of All non-starter equipment 10-Fold.
Hand tools make sense how much they cost, so does the bucket, crucible, and the sorter machine. All those make sense by being as cheap as they are. They're highly inefficient ways of obtaining resources, so they shouldn't break the bank and shouldn't cost too much so that you can actually afford it. However, the machines, the tier-2 things, the building material, logic, and conveyors, and ESPECIALLY ... ESPECIALLY the vehicles should all literally be 10x their cost (vehicles, should actually be 20X more expensive AND you shouldn't get a starter truck). That alone will balance the game in a significant way, but there's still more.
2. Introduce Resource Syncs
Why the (Flippers) are we NEVER using the refined resources to craft things. And, I know the immediate first thought "but we craft jewelery and weapons"... no we craft HydroCoins, that's all crafting is for... selling. This is the greatest flaw of the game. This is one of things that makes it next-to-impossible to balance the game. There is no alternative uses for resources/refined resources. It's either to sell, or to sell.
Pipes should ONLY be craft-able. Considering how critical they are, by making them the resource sync, your vastly slowing down the rapid growth one can have by building a 'factory' so-to-speak. Each tier, should be only crafted via their resource. ( And, by like 500, 1000, and 2000, of weight respectively per tier).
3. Have a purpose for the items that are crafted.
As previously stated, any craft-able item is just to be sold. So, my solution would be to have people COME TO YOU , NOT YOU COME TO THEM, (that will be the next bullet point) and you sell THEM the weapons or jewelry. That alone would give some purpose to that game-play loop and opportunity to make the game more interactive.
4. DON'T FORCE PLAYERS TO GO LOOKING FOR PEOPLE/STALLS.
This probably not the worst thing for balance, but holy meatballs Batman, this is by-far the least enjoyable aspect of the game. The fact that your contract have you go LOOK for a freakin' MOBILE NPC! This is just the simple dumbest thing in the game... Like, I actually rage quit the game when farming came out, because of that. That's so freakin' stupid. Like, a solution could be to have a location they all travel to and WAIT that's in ONE SPOT, would make sense, but having to pointless travel the place is so annoying.
As for the stalls, why did they move them all across the map? It doesn't encourage you to explore! The BIGGEST increase to the sale of the item I've ever saw was like 5% more, which is insignificant compared to the fact you can pump so much HydroCoin that; getting a better deal is moot, but getting a SLIVER of a better deal is insulting. So, it's not just annoying, it's POINTLESS.
5. Have PROPERTY TAX!
I know we don't want a game-over state, but it's really simple to play around that and create a system that is more interactive than just not doing anything. So, every X days (let's say 5), You are expected to leave Y*Z amount of HydroCoins (pointentially the other tokens as well), in a bucket at the front of your property. Y being the property value (which should be increased by 10x), and the time owned or some other factor.
And, if the money isn't in the tax bucket at the right time, shops suddenly doubles in prices. If the the tax hasn't been paid in twice the length, then the shops no longer sell to you.
BOOM, there's immediately a new cycle that's attached to your activities. That gives PURPOSE to your actions.
6. Please, don't add a story-line.
This is another area where I think the devs are falling short of study/education. They're not understanding purpose doesn't mean a story line. The idea of adding a king/queen is actually a VERY GOOD idea, but as a solution to the problem of the game having no purpose? Hell, no.
This isn't the PURPOSE of the game. The game's game-play loop is to create satisfying contraptions/factories. How does introducing a King who arbitrarily asks for things give you purpose? That's literally what the 'normal' NPCs are and do. The devs are LITERALLY saying that they're going to add the same thing they already have, with a new coat of paint, to solve a problem that currently exists in the game. WHAT? How is a dumb NPC asking for things, going to give this game purpose, if DOZENS of dumb NPCs have failed to give this game 'purpose'. And to that... I'll point to Minecraft - a game with literal no story what-so-ever and with ENDLESS purpose. Games don't provide PURPOSE by story, they provide PURPOSE by game-play and entertainment. MOVIES and BOOKS get purpose from their story, games are not restricted by this.

I'm sure people will disagree with me, but that's the point of having this dicussion. I would love to see other people's perspective. Maybe I can use some of this community's opinions to refine my position on the game.

And, I should conclude this 'essay' with. I truly the game, I may have just been critical, but it's because it's a strange problem for where t he game is GOING not where it's at. I just don't want this game to be like Valhiem, Overwatch, Runescape 3 (OSRS is going in a good direction, not RS3 though), or any of those kind of games. Where, they come out strong, but due to poor developer direction, the quality of the game and the sustainability of the game went off the edge of the world.

I posted the following response

I agree with everything other than the property tax as I feel that just creates needless grind. I feel like this game has been heading in the wrong direction since they got rid of the old mining vehicle and made it so drills don't affect terrain. For a game about mining and prospecting there is very little mining and prospecting going on. If I wanted to play a game about building machines I would play Factorio. I recently suggested adding a steam shovel and dump truck to help get things back on track but that thread never received a dev reply. I also have suggested a minecart and tracks as an interim solution to conveyorbelts (something that would be needed if their cost went up) in the past. I don't even think its the cost of items that is the problem but the infinite hydrocoins from the drills. I think the drills need to be entirely reworked to dig out terrain again but this time in a single cube area and also be able to dig in any direction, not just down. Land could then simply be reset for something like 50x the initial buy price.

[roboticaust]

Imo, a hydrosink has always been needed. But Max and his team have read that comment a million times over by now. So despite not getting a dev reply, I think it's not just "under consideration" but likely planned. Just other aspects needed to be implemented, tweaked and balanced first.

Seriously, the crafting system was a good step forward in offering sinks early on to prevent players from just flopping all their wealth into hydrocoins immediately. The problem though is it's limited thus making it only valid for a short period of time to a small range of resources.

What I'd like to see and have a feeling is coming as soon as next update is a major hydrosink in the form of a guild of some sort. If it's not a hydrosink, then it's a resource sink similar to crafting by making other items with the return of the workbench. Either one is a step in the right direction. Not a permanent solution, but it shouldn't have to be.

Part of the Hydroneer experience most players don't seem to realize as they haven't been along for the trip all 3 years is that restarting your save is something you do often. The content shouldn't be lengthened artificially for someone to use some 2.0 save for the rest of the games lifespan. All this does is make things feel drawn out and grindy af. I personally don't want to start a new save at some massive content update and spend 200 hours just getting to the meat and bones of it because of all the crapola I've done in prior updates getting in the way or bogging the experience down drastically. I like that feeling of "did the things, can call the quits til the next big update." I don't want to live on this game and this game alone. I like to just visit it and have my brain chemicals stimulated by shiny rock give stonk.

Also one thing most people who make this argument over the years fail to realize is there is no way to balance it. NONE! Increasing prices just means players will increase drill count to overcome it. That's not balance, that's just creating a gross gaming loop that pushes players with low specs out of wanting to play and encourages mindless grinding from those that stick around. The beauty of this game has always been it's simplistic and addictive nature without it ever feeling demanding. The most demanding aspect is always that first pail or two of handpan. That's how it should be.

Don't get me wrong, I want a hydrocoin sink of some sort, but I don't want a grind wall. I want it in the form of additional content that is meaningful; not price increases, sales tax, and so on. And I trust this is the direction they are heading. Just be patient and give it time. The game was massively overhauled and new systems are being added and tweaked to feel satisfying. Do they balance the game atm? No! But can they be used to do so in a manner that doesn't feel grindy, noninclusive, or out of touch with what makes this game great? Yes!

[JimboTCB]

I feel like it's not a coin sink that's required as much as other stuff to use materials for. I understand you used to be able to craft your own pipes etc. and that to me is a big part of the gameplay loop in games like Minecraft etc., you collect resources to build stuff to collect more resources, and so on. We kind of have that with the Icehelm forge, but when it comes to the basics it's just... go and buy it from some dude. And when you get to T3 stuff that drags you into a parallel gameplay loop with the guild quests, but it's not as satisfactory a solution as making stuff yourself..

[Joseph Sneed]

Originally posted by roboticaust:

Imo, a hydrosink has always been needed. But Max and his team have read that comment a million times over by now. So despite not getting a dev reply, I think it's not just "under consideration" but likely planned. Just other aspects needed to be implemented, tweaked and balanced first.

Seriously, the crafting system was a good step forward in offering sinks early on to prevent players from just flopping all their wealth into hydrocoins immediately. The problem though is it's limited thus making it only valid for a short period of time to a small range of resources.

What I'd like to see and have a feeling is coming as soon as next update is a major hydrosink in the form of a guild of some sort. If it's not a hydrosink, then it's a resource sink similar to crafting by making other items with the return of the workbench. Either one is a step in the right direction. Not a permanent solution, but it shouldn't have to be.

Part of the Hydroneer experience most players don't seem to realize as they haven't been along for the trip all 3 years is that restarting your save is something you do often. The content shouldn't be lengthened artificially for someone to use some 2.0 save for the rest of the games lifespan. All this does is make things feel drawn out and grindy af. I personally don't want to start a new save at some massive content update and spend 200 hours just getting to the meat and bones of it because of all the crapola I've done in prior updates getting in the way or bogging the experience down drastically. I like that feeling of "did the things, can call the quits til the next big update." I don't want to live on this game and this game alone. I like to just visit it and have my brain chemicals stimulated by shiny rock give stonk.

Also one thing most people who make this argument over the years fail to realize is there is no way to balance it. NONE! Increasing prices just means players will increase drill count to overcome it. That's not balance, that's just creating a gross gaming loop that pushes players with low specs out of wanting to play and encourages mindless grinding from those that stick around. The beauty of this game has always been it's simplistic and addictive nature without it ever feeling demanding. The most demanding aspect is always that first pail or two of handpan. That's how it should be.

Don't get me wrong, I want a hydrocoin sink of some sort, but I don't want a grind wall. I want it in the form of additional content that is meaningful; not price increases, sales tax, and so on. And I trust this is the direction they are heading. Just be patient and give it time. The game was massively overhauled and new systems are being added and tweaked to feel satisfying. Do they balance the game atm? No! But can they be used to do so in a manner that doesn't feel grindy, noninclusive, or out of touch with what makes this game great? Yes!

Personally I feel like the way the drill work is a bigger part of the problem than the hydrocoins. You can literally set up a system with some water filters and wrench throwers and generate infinite money with no maintenance to the system. The whole process needs to be more involved and I think drills need to destroy terrain again as stated at the end of my OP. This would make it so you have to frequently maintenance and expand your systems and that the amount a static system can generate is finite. After that all that would need to be added is a way to reset the plots for a high expense so running out of dirt does not end your save.

Originally posted by JimboTCB:

I feel like it's not a coin sink that's required as much as other stuff to use materials for. I understand you used to be able to craft your own pipes etc. and that to me is a big part of the gameplay loop in games like Minecraft etc., you collect resources to build stuff to collect more resources, and so on. We kind of have that with the Icehelm forge, but when it comes to the basics it's just... go and buy it from some dude. And when you get to T3 stuff that drags you into a parallel gameplay loop with the guild quests, but it's not as satisfactory a solution as making stuff yourself..

I 100% agree pipes should be crafted not bought along with other tiered tools like shovels, rakes and pickaxes. This would also help put a dent in the balance problem. Even if an iron pipe only costs like 5 iron to make you are still going to spend several hundred iron on even a basic set up

[Uncle Karl]

i played for about a week, all these metal ingots and nothing to do with them all. the lag is horrid once you build a half decent set up as well.

[Neptas]

I don't get some of the points. You complain everything is about Hydrocoin, but you also want to increase by 10x the grind needed to just buy T2 (do you even realize how long it would take? That doesn't sound fun one bit to be stuck with T1 for 10 hours), and you want to continuously pay for your property, making the grind even worse.

I think the problem is the opposite. Not enough stuff is really about HydroCoin, in a way. The game wants to go to a different direction from other logistic games, where you normally build your own stuff yourself. Here, it's based on economy instead. I would be fine with that, if there was more stuff to be play around that, like having some competitors that could deliver stuff before you do, item price varying because of supply and demand, etc. If you go the traditional "Craft what you need", I feel like the game is going to lose its identity. At this point, you may just play one of the other 12 logistics games that have a lot more contents.

I don't like the tokens though, I think it's an easy way to build up artificial walls for the player so they don't rush to high tier directly, however it's also a trap. Are you going to add a new currency every new tier? Yeah, good luck having 5 different currencies, 3 of them being completely useless because it's lower tier. I think it makes more sense to have some kind of research. Invest into a company with your money, and they will develop new item from time to time. If you want to go faster, invest more money.

[Tux]

Originally posted by Charlie Shovels:

i played for about a week, all these metal ingots and nothing to do with them all. the lag is horrid once you build a half decent set up as well.

the more unattached objects you have the worse it gets. So combine those bars, put them in a chest. combine your gems etc.

I am not making a judgement, I am just providing some possible help.

[The Old Dog]

I am in favour of many of the main points raised here.

firstly, yes, have NPCs come to you, have some sort of shop front or counter capacity, ideally something that can be shaped to your housing designs so people can feel like their shop front serves a purpose. however, if not so advanced, then maybe at least a queue point for each location where the NPCs can gather between certain times for their desires.

crafting your own equipment would be a great introducton, it's the whole reason people move to the icehelm location at all, but expanding that to include the capacity to construct your own pipes and even wires and logic pieces would allow for more ways to sink resources other than just printing money.

a greater variety of craftable items, both in jewlery, weapons and even equipment would allow for more resource sink and even option player progression and milestones. if tied in with the shopfront point above, this would give a player more reasons to be splitting bars, and crafting objects. with my current factory i can sell a single ring for more money than i will ever need to spend, but imagine if instead, contracts were brought to you at a set price (maybe some wobble room) and you had to fulfil their orders, suddenly that 1,000,000 weight bar of iron isn't so useful when your only going to get 200 coins max for a 100 weight iron dagger request, instead, if you want to maximise profits, you will now need to invest into the automation and logic systems.

i don't agree with OPs idea of taxes, i feel that this may slow the game too much and force you to remember bills which just seems more like a choir than a fun mechanic. instead i would favour towards a prestige system, where better equipment (or better contracts in the case above) would only come after a certain amount of sales.

a universal currency seems to make more sense than several different currencies but i understand that you don't want to give access to the best equipment right off the bat for anyone with a stable mining operation, so maybe some sort of respect system could be in place, you need to achieve so many contracts for smaller orders of tomatoes etc before you can unlock the higher tier farming or prospecting tools.

the current state of the game feels very much like you play a tutorial for the basics and then it's straight into printing money. let's face it, once you hit icehelm and start manufacturing more drills, even just the tier 1 stuff, the game quickly becomes a money printing system. at a bare basic, allow us some improvements around town, icehelm could easily become an entire underground town of it's own, with shops and the likes.
imagine getting requisition orders for x amount of iron, to be delivered to specific locations, and being rewarded with the visible change of that location, although this might also warrent the introduction or stone as a base resource, not that it wouldn't work alongside all the above points.

in summary, stop adding new factions, unify the currency, and give us more things to sink our resources, time and coins into... please

[Joseph Sneed]

To people that keep saying the taxes Idea was mine the post in quote is not mine I pulled it from a locked thread. I agreed that was a bad idea and said so in my reply on that thread that I posted underneath the quoted post.

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I dont expect anyone to agree with what im about to say. But just to represent that there are different opinions out there.

To me, the OP's suggestions are no more than an attempt to fix something that is not broken. For any and all questions such as "why dont we have A and B like in that other game?" the answer is - because its a different game. Hydroneer is a sandbox, even if it may not seem like it. You play it the way you find fun with the tools and toys provided.

I will run down his list briefly.

1. Raise the cost of All non-starter equipment 10-Fold.
There is absolutely no problem making any absurd amount of money rather quick, so you can buy anything even if it would be x10. This change will only hurt new players and casual players that have much less time to spend on the game.

2. Introduce Resource Syncs
Im pretty sure he meant to say Resource Sinks. Also there is literally a button now "remove all raw resources" lol. Jokes aside, thats a completely different game genre. There are plenty of games that have this gameplay loop at its core. Factorio, Dyson Sphere, Satisfactory, etc. Just to thow some big names.

3. Have a purpose for the items that are crafted.
That is already a game feature minus the "come to you" part.

4. DON'T FORCE PLAYERS TO GO LOOKING FOR PEOPLE/STALLS
Again, a game genre mixup. This is one of the tycoon-genre features where you deal with just a list of orders. The games examples will be anything from Gunsmith to Potioncraft and literally any tycoon'ish logistics simulator out there.

5. Have PROPERTY TAX!
First of all this serves no purpose due to the answer #1 anyway. But yet again a genre mish-mash. Any "sustain" subsystems are mostly prominent in survival genres and business simulators. It is essentially a Game-Over timer which a chill sandbox game clearly doesnt need.

6. Please, don't add a story-line.
At this point i think the author has completely lost it. I couldnt make heads or tails of what is he suggesting there, other than some hysterical unsatisfaction in general. Anyway, i actually dont mind if they add more unique questlines and rewards in the future. I like the kings quest.

So i guess im not thrilled about any of the OP's suggestions there. Such life, it happens.

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As for the actual topic of the thread, im 100% positive that the game is going the right direction. There is definately a list of things i would do differently if i was the man behind the wheel, but im not, so im just enjoying the ride. And its been a really good one so far.

I would very much welcome another faction, especially fishermans guild. And another token currency to go with it. And a whole new layer of fishing equipment and quests and such. I think the game is just getting better and better with every major update. What can you do?

PS: Jason strikes yet again. Same old dirt problems with a different twist. Sorry, couldnt help it. But if you really want a direct answer from Max to settle it once and for all, maybe try pinging him on discord or in one of his streams.

[Blue_Skies]

Interested to know if devs are planning to expand the late game quest system. Starting out looks fun but building complicated mining system and amassing huge sums of wealth seems a tad uninspiring.

Would be fun to,
+ keep taking missions from a King which increases our nobility the harder the quests get.

+ an ongoing war (we don't participate), rare quests for high quality weapons/foods, success of battles reveals a portion of the playing map, failure weakens our positions, raises taxes, or even lose portions of playing map

+ build a shop and sell our goods, any sort of role playing, dangle that carrot to keep us going, this could be the stardew valley for miners!