Six hour in; comments so far

[MONKWORKS]

The game feels lackluster so far. The character idle animations and running animation don't impress me, and the camera movement is sluggish. I had to tweak the settings to make it feel somewhat decent when looking around, and even then, there are frequent FPS drops, especially in towns due to cluttered level design. It's frustrating to see the FPS fluctuate between 30 and 100 constantly. Turned the music off i find it uninteresting and doesn't add to the experience.

As for gameplay, I'm unsure of what I'm supposed to do. There isn't any clear or preset danger I've amassed 2k coins and seem to have stumbled upon every tool available without much effort. There's no real incentive to craft anything yet, and I have an abundance of food stocked up for the winter.

Despite this, I find myself feeling bored already.

will winter bring some type of challenge? will there be any type of challenge in this game?

[Morri]

Based on your description, i fear this is just not your kind of game. It has some survival and RP elements, but in its core it's a sandbox colony sim,
Winter will not bring new challenges.

As for the fps issue; is your hardware adequate? My pc is over 5 years old but I have no issue with MD's performance.
Maybe changing the rendering to DX11 ingame or switching it to fullscreen mode could help?

[MONKWORKS]

Originally posted by Morri:

Based on your description, i fear this is just not your kind of game. It has some survival and RP elements, but in its core it's a sandbox colony sim,
Winter will not bring new challenges.

As for the fps issue; is your hardware adequate? My pc is over 5 years old but I have no issue with MD's performance.
Maybe changing the rendering to DX11 ingame or switching it to fullscreen mode could help?

You might be onto something, and I'll give DX11* a shot. But my computer specs are pretty decent, and I even installed the game on an M.2 drive. Whenever I venture into a new area, there's a slight drop in performance, but it usually stabilizes afterward.

The gameplay feels quite subjective to me. I'm not entirely sure what the game is aiming for. There's talk of bandits posing a threat, but so far, it's been more of a "where are they hiding?" situation. I bought the game with the expectation of some attacks or encounters.

I'm not really into family sims or romance. What I do enjoy is strategic building and crafting. Survival games are my jam, but death in this game seems about as threatening as a kitten's meow. It's not even worth worrying about. Plus, I've been running around in the buff because the temperature mechanics seem to be more of a minor inconvenience than a serious challenge. also there is no reason to sleep...ever

[Morri]

This is not a survival game; that's probably part of the problem for you. It has some elements, sure, but those are pretty tame compared to hardcore survival.

As for bandits; the game is meant to be rather peaceful. You can stumble onto bandit camps in the wild, but they will not search you out or raid your settlement. They are also not that hard to deal with.

I love the game, but I make up my own role-play and play with specific ideas in mind as a sandbox with self-generated challenges to make it interesting and to still have stuff to unlock after playing a whole generation. Otherwise on default settings you blast through the game too quickly, seen the story, unlock everything, have way too much money and can find so much random loot that you don't really have to craft half the things you can.

[MONKWORKS]

Originally posted by Morri:

This is not a survival game; that's probably part of the problem for you. It has some elements, sure, but those are pretty tame compared to hardcore survival.

As for bandits; the game is meant to be rather peaceful. You can stumble onto bandit camps in the wild, but they will not search you out or raid your settlement. They are also not that hard to deal with.

I love the game, but I make up my own role-play and play with specific ideas in mind as a sandbox with self-generated challenges to make it interesting and to still have stuff to unlock after playing a whole generation. Otherwise on default settings you blast through the game too quickly, seen the story, unlock everything, have way too much money and can find so much random loot that you don't really have to craft half the things you can.

What settings are you using? I would start again with some harder settings. I did find it too grindy. I don't have time in RL so i increased exp to 120%

[Philtre]

Originally posted by MONKWORKS:

The gameplay feels quite subjective to me. I'm not entirely sure what the game is aiming for. There's talk of bandits posing a threat, but so far, it's been more of a "where are they hiding?" situation. I bought the game with the expectation of some attacks or encounters.

I'm not really into family sims or romance. What I do enjoy is strategic building and crafting. Survival games are my jam, but death in this game seems about as threatening as a kitten's meow. It's not even worth worrying about. Plus, I've been running around in the buff because the temperature mechanics seem to be more of a minor inconvenience than a serious challenge. also there is no reason to sleep...ever

As mentioned, this is not a combat-oriented game, and the survival elements are quite light. The core gameplay is the colony management sim aspects: building homes and production buildings, hiring people and assigning them jobs based on their skills, managing your labor pool to make sure your village is supplying enough food, water, and firewood to meet your people's needs, managing resource supplies and production chains to keep everything moving smoothly, making enough surplus stuff to sell to meet your taxes, etc. If you don't enjoy colony management sims (e.g., Banished, or even Rimworld or Oxygen Not Included ), this game may not be your kind of thing.

[Wizard of Woz]

Oh look another topic of someone not researching the game they purchased...

[MONKWORKS]

Originally posted by Wizard of Woz:

Oh look another topic of someone not researching the game they purchased...

No, that's completely off the mark.

I've dedicated around three hours to watching playthroughs, and I believe there's a problem with YouTubers conveniently glossing over or hiding the true gameplay experience to suit their own agendas.

I was seeking depth (check), a strategic crafting challenge (from what I gathered on YouTube), good environmental effects like weather and seasons (check), and intriguing crafting mechanics (check), but without any real challenge. The game promised hunting, fishing, farming, and gathering (check), BUILDING!

I still feel unfulfilled at this point.
I have actually started to install Subsistence again. for some reason this game reminded me of that one a little.

So its not a survival game then :(

[Wizard of Woz]

Originally posted by MONKWORKS:

Originally posted by Wizard of Woz:

Oh look another topic of someone not researching the game they purchased...

No, that's completely off the mark.

I've dedicated around three hours to watching playthroughs, and I believe there's a problem with YouTubers conveniently glossing over or hiding the true gameplay experience to suit their own agendas.

I was seeking depth (check), a statistical crafting challenge (from what I gathered on YouTube), good environmental effects like weather and seasons (check), and intriguing crafting mechanics (check), but without any real challenge. The game promised hunting, fishing, farming, and gathering (check), BUILDING!

I still feel unfulfilled at this point.

So go play another game, problem solved.

[MONKWORKS]

Originally posted by Philtre:

Originally posted by MONKWORKS:

The gameplay feels quite subjective to me. I'm not entirely sure what the game is aiming for. There's talk of bandits posing a threat, but so far, it's been more of a "where are they hiding?" situation. I bought the game with the expectation of some attacks or encounters.

I'm not really into family sims or romance. What I do enjoy is strategic building and crafting. Survival games are my jam, but death in this game seems about as threatening as a kitten's meow. It's not even worth worrying about. Plus, I've been running around in the buff because the temperature mechanics seem to be more of a minor inconvenience than a serious challenge. also there is no reason to sleep...ever

As mentioned, this is not a combat-oriented game, and the survival elements are quite light. The core gameplay is the colony management sim aspects: building homes and production buildings, hiring people and assigning them jobs based on their skills, managing your labor pool to make sure your village is supplying enough food, water, and firewood to meet your people's needs, managing resource supplies and production chains to keep everything moving smoothly, making enough surplus stuff to sell to meet your taxes, etc. If you don't enjoy colony management sims (e.g., Banished, or even Rimworld or Oxygen Not Included ), this game may not be your kind of thing.

Its odd because i do have and play Banished, Rimworld and Oxygen Not Included.
Enjoyed them.

[Morri]

Originally posted by MONKWORKS:

What settings are you using? I would start again with some harder settings. I did find it too grindy. I don't have time in RL so i increased exp to 120%

I personally do like it when things are grindy, so you might not like my settings either.

As for ingame settings; I start with:
- taxes: 1000%
- xp/technology/dynasty gain multiplier: 50%
- season length: 30 days
- inhabitants needs: 1000%
- bandit hp: 250%, damage: 200%
- animals hp: 400%, damage: 200%

To make crafting meaningful; I don't buy anything from vendors (other than eventually 1 male and 1 female baby animal of each type, for obvious reasons) and I don't loot anything from random carts/barrels/chests etc other than the tree seedlings or seeds (and the presents for spouse and child since you can't craft those yourself).
It keeps exploring the map fun for me; as I completely depend on those finds to be able to build out my orchards or to do the initial farming.

I try to sell things to vendors that make sense. So not 300 axes to every vendor I see; but crafted baskets to herbalist vendors, pottery to the cooks, arrows to the hunters etc.
That severely limits my income and now with taxes on 1000%, I have to be really careful what I spend money on and how many buildings I put down.

Different foods for your villagers have no reason to exist atm, so I like to add that to my game. As I start with 1000% needs; for every 2 new foods I introduce to the food storage, I take 10% needs off. When I have all foods unlocked, by my estimate i'll be around 400% needs I think; which should be doable (1000% is too harsh i think once you have a big settlement).

New people in my settlement start working at 10% productivity. And only gain 10% each 2 seasons they work for me. That way it'll take 5 years before they reach full productivity and makes sure that i can't just over recruit instantly without making sure my economy can handle the newcomer, as they won't instantly be that useful.
No such restriction to children born in my settlement, so it puts more importance to actually getting children.

I want the feeling that I need to prepare for winter, which is not needed in the game atm. So when it's winter, the villagers that are bringing in food (hunters and fishermen) are set to 10% productivity, and I place only half the traps I normally do. This to simulate the lack of wildlife during winter and the need to have a stockpile during the other seasons. Outdoor extracting (like woodcutting and mining) is set to 50% in winter; to simulate things being harder to acquire during extreme cold temperatures.

Only upgrade a building to a higher version once I bought all schemes, a self-imposed limit with how many buildings I'm allowed to place each year and how many schemes I allow myself to buy per ingame season, a self-imposed need to provide certain clothes per villager per year or have a production penalty, only saving at the start of each day in my house, so dying = losing a lot of progress + a fine out of my already low amount of coins, and more similar things.

It's neurotic, I know, and grindy, and definitely not for everyone; but it's what I enjoy.
Maybe you can customise something similar to your tastes but with less grind?

[Philtre]

Originally posted by MONKWORKS:

Its odd because i do have and play Banished, Rimworld and Oxygen Not Included.
Enjoyed them.

In that case, you may enjoy MD more once you have a few villagers working for you. The game encourages you to build a fair bit of infrastructure before hiring, which does save you a lot of micromanagement, but there are ways to get started with a village with relatively little investment if you are willing to personally handle some things until you can get said infrastructure built.

[Philtre]

Originally posted by MONKWORKS:

I've dedicated around three hours to watching playthroughs, and I believe there's a problem with YouTubers conveniently glossing over or hiding the true gameplay experience to suit their own agendas.

A lot of YouTubers also aren't aware the game is mainly a colony management sim when they start, and even if they grasp that, it can take a while to get a village started. I would say the average new player doesn't have any workers at the 3-hour mark, so unless you are watching an experienced player who can speed though the early bits, it's not surprising that 3 hours of video-watching didn't get you to the village-management experience.

[MONKWORKS]

Originally posted by Morri:

Originally posted by MONKWORKS:

What settings are you using? I would start again with some harder settings. I did find it too grindy. I don't have time in RL so i increased exp to 120%

I personally do like it when things are grindy, so you might not like my settings either.

As for ingame settings; I start with:
- taxes: 1000%
- xp/technology/dynasty gain multiplier: 50%
- season length: 30 days
- inhabitants needs: 1000%
- bandit hp: 250%, damage: 200%
- animals hp: 400%, damage: 200%

To make crafting meaningful; I don't buy anything from vendors (other than eventually 1 male and 1 female baby animal of each type, for obvious reasons) and I don't loot anything from random carts/barrels/chests etc other than the tree seedlings or seeds.
It keeps exploring the map fun for me; as I completely depend on those finds to be able to build out my orchards or to do the initial farming.

I try to sell things to vendors that make sense. So not 300 axes to every vendor I see; but crafted baskets to herbalist vendors, pottery to the cooks, arrows to the hunters etc.
That severely limits my income and now with taxes on 1000%, I have to be really careful what I spend money on and how many buildings I put down.

Different foods for your villagers have no reason to exist atm, so I like to add that to my game. As I start with 1000% needs; for every 2 new foods I introduce to the food storage, I take 10% needs off. When I have all foods unlocked, by my estimate i'll be around 400% needs I think; which should be doable (1000% is too harsh i think once you have a big settlement).

New people in my settlement start working at 10% productivity. And only gain 10% each 2 seasons they work for me. That way it'll take 5 years before they reach full productivity and makes sure that i can't just over recruit instantly without making sure my economy can handle the newcomer, as they won't instantly be that useful.
No such restriction to children born in my settlement, so it puts more importance to actually getting children.

I want the feeling that I need to prepare for winter, which is not needed in the game atm. So when it's winter, the villagers that are bringing in food (hunters and fishermen) are set to 10% productivity, and I place only half the traps I normally do. This to simulate the lack of wildlife during winter and the need to have a stockpile during the other seasons. Outdoor extracting (like woodcutting and mining) is set to 50% in winter; to simulate things being harder to acquire during extreme cold temperatures.

Only upgrade a building to a higher version once I bought all schemes, a self-imposed limit with how many buildings I'm allowed to place each year and how many schemes I allow myself to buy per ingame season, a self-imposed need to provide certain clothes per villager per year or have a production penalty, only saving at the start of each day in my house, so dying = losing a lot of progress + a fine out of my already low amount of coins, and more similar things.

It's neurotic, I know, and grindy, and definitely not for everyone; but it's what I enjoy.
Maybe you can customise something similar to your tastes but with less grind?

Oh these look great. Thanks, let me give this a shot

[Foxglovez]

Sound like a Valheim kind of guy. Wolves re the only scary thing in MD, at least their growl still makes the hair on the back of my neck raise up. Since I have never met a wolf in real life it must be a genetic kind of response. Bandits, yeah make it difficult though the 30 day thing I would turn that to 10 then to 7. But I am impatient. I did manage to make it to turning over to my heir. You will have to find busy work at some point or something to do once the village gets moderately set up, Finding perfect villagers is a thing, and it's a fun game if it fits your playstyle, gotta like the sandbox. The sleep cycle isn't something to beat, it's a part of the game as it is set up. If you work all night it really has no benefit. Anyway, MD is way better than throwing your money at the three recent additions to the more or less survival genre imho.

You believe UTubers? That's like believing politicians.

[Morri]

Originally posted by Foxglovez:

make it difficult though the 30 day thing I would turn that to 10 then to 7. But I am impatient.

To OP: Y, like Fox says; 30 day seasons is a really really slow burn. So if you say you don't have much time irl, you might want to make some adjustments there.