Forever... staying awake?

[The Nameless]

I'm loving the gardening thing. But one little tweak that's needed now that growing our own plants is a thing: getting an energy boost from an item needs to add a minor stacking debuff that reduces how much energy we get from the next item so that after a few, we don't get any energy from it at all, and we have to reset it by taking a full sleep cycle, no clicking 'wake up'.

This didn't matter much when harvesting plants meant a visit to a greenhouse tower or the underdust, but now that they grow freely in the airship, I can stay awake forever by eating nothing but lobster peppers and I don't think it's supposed to be that way.

I do think somebody should grow a giant habanero and call it a lobster pepper though. That's pretty cool.

[Scipo0419]

This is an argument of realism vs gameplay. I, personally, would find it very tedious to stare at a black screen for 30s watching my food and water drain as I get my full 8 hours of sleep. I'd much rather manage my floating greenhouse and shove lobster peppers and coffee beans into electric cookers to keep my energy topped off. At least that allows me to do minor stuff around the airship (chores, basically) while they cook.

[The Nameless]

Originally posted by Scipo0419:

This is an argument of realism vs gameplay. I, personally, would find it very tedious to stare at a black screen for 30s watching my food and water drain as I get my full 8 hours of sleep. I'd much rather manage my floating greenhouse and shove lobster peppers and coffee beans into electric cookers to keep my energy topped off. At least that allows me to do minor stuff around the airship (chores, basically) while they cook.

Yeah, I can appreciate that, it'd just take a bit of tuning, that's all. I think everyone would flinch if they lost, for example, half their effectiveness with each use. I'd say ten percent or so would be a much more fair rate, and that'd give you a solid run before you finally had to hit the sack. But if it's still too much, there's no reason not to go all the way down to a five percent hit, which you'd barely even feel for quite awhile.

Maybe they could just give us a slider in the menu and let it be up to the individual.

[DeLindsay]

As long as it's added as an optional slider (off by default) in the Settings I'm all for it.

[Scipo0419]

Originally posted by DeLindsay:

As long as it's added as an optional slider (off by default) in the Settings I'm all for it.

This is a fine alternative for me. It could be another level of survival, but I'd think beds would need more options because as I said in my first reply, having to stare at a screen while you wait for time to pass isn't exactly engaging gameplay. But if that's what hardcore survival players want, it doesn't affect me!

[DeLindsay]

Originally posted by Scipo0419:

Originally posted by DeLindsay:

As long as it's added as an optional slider (off by default) in the Settings I'm all for it.

This is a fine alternative for me. It could be another level of survival, but I'd think beds would need more options because as I said in my first reply, having to stare at a screen while you wait for time to pass isn't exactly engaging gameplay. But if that's what hardcore survival players want, it doesn't affect me!

I would also think that the superior Bed (can't remember it's name off the top of my head) should provide a slightly better buff in that instance.

[The Nameless]

Originally posted by Scipo0419:

Originally posted by DeLindsay:

As long as it's added as an optional slider (off by default) in the Settings I'm all for it.

This is a fine alternative for me. It could be another level of survival, but I'd think beds would need more options because as I said in my first reply, having to stare at a screen while you wait for time to pass isn't exactly engaging gameplay. But if that's what hardcore survival players want, it doesn't affect me!

We've already reached an accord so this doesn't change anything, but your inaccuracy does bother me a bit. You don't have to stare at the screen. You sleep for about five or six in-game hours before your character wakes up automatically, and it does take like thirty seconds, big deal. Stand up, do a stretch, glance out the window and it's done.

How do you ever manage waiting at stoplights when you go shopping?

[Scipo0419]

Originally posted by The Nameless:

Originally posted by Scipo0419:

This is a fine alternative for me. It could be another level of survival, but I'd think beds would need more options because as I said in my first reply, having to stare at a screen while you wait for time to pass isn't exactly engaging gameplay. But if that's what hardcore survival players want, it doesn't affect me!

We've already reached an accord so this doesn't change anything, but your inaccuracy does bother me a bit. You don't have to stare at the screen. You sleep for about five or six in-game hours before your character wakes up automatically, and it does take like thirty seconds, big deal. Stand up, do a stretch, glance out the window and it's done.

How do you ever manage waiting at stoplights when you go shopping?

"stare at the screen" is a figure of speech. I mean that it actively pulls you out of the moment to moment gameplay, even for 30s. Forcing that onto every player for the sake of realism makes little sense. Just like how Subnautica doesn't force you to pass out for 30s irl on you when you've been swimming and staying awake for literal weeks in-game if you never make the bed (which just skips nights ala Minecraft IIRC).

It adds nothing to the game other than a slight effect of realism. At which point we could argue about a balanced diet being required to stay healthy. Giving you scurvy if you don't get enough vitamin C. Causing your inventory to shrink if you don't get enough protein as your physical strength fails you. Etc. It's realistic, sure, but what does it add to your moment to moment gameplay that makes it more fun or engaging?

I condensed all of that into "it makes me stare at the screen"

Edit: just to kind of further explain my point about how needing sleep adding nothing. Let's look at Minecraft. A minecraft day is 20 irl minutes exactly. Daylight is 10 minutes, with 1 minutes 40 seconds for dawn/dusk, and 8 minutes 20 seconds for night.

If we said "a player who has been mining and cutting down trees all day needs a full 8 hours of sleep to wake up at dawn and forced the player into sleeping through the night or face a debuff to your run energy. We'd need 500s, so let's speed that up by 10x to get close to the 30s of Forever Skies. The game now forces you to spend 50s doing absolutely nothing every 13 minutes and 20s or face a debuff to your run energy for the sake of realism.

[toddt]

i find i spend little with sleeping bit and do not relay fancy strategies to deal with it, but as for ppl stopping at red lights, I've seen many whip out the phones and... star at the screen.........

[The Nameless]

Originally posted by Scipo0419:

--loooooong--

It adds a little flavor for those of us with a mind for details, without going completely overboard.

But if you see it as such a small thing to add for us, how is it such a huge loss for you? Why do you argue so hard?

[Scipo0419]

Originally posted by The Nameless:

Originally posted by Scipo0419:

--loooooong--

It adds a little flavor for those of us with a mind for details, without going completely overboard.

But if you see it as such a small thing to add for us, how is it such a huge loss for you? Why do you argue so hard?

If it's forced on me, then yeah I'm going to fight against it as it actively does nothing to improve my moment to moment gameplay. If it's an optional "realism" difficulty, then I don't have any problems, even if you wanted it to take the full 8 hours and have the game run at real time.

[Scipo0419]

Originally posted by The Nameless:

How do you ever manage waiting at stoplights when you go shopping?

I figured I'd address this as well. I don't go shopping for fun (and even if I did, the drive there is the equivalent of a loading screen) so waiting at a red light isn't actively stopping me from doing what I have fun doing. I play games to play the game, not wait 30s at what's effectively a loading screen for immersion. Why you'd ever want to have a load time to make your game more immersive is beyond me, but hey as long as it's not in every difficulty and I can play without it, you do you.

[The Nameless]

Originally posted by Scipo0419:

Originally posted by The Nameless:

How do you ever manage waiting at stoplights when you go shopping?

I figured I'd address this as well. I don't go shopping for fun (and even if I did, the drive there is the equivalent of a loading screen) so waiting at a red light isn't actively stopping me from doing what I have fun doing. I play games to play the game, not wait 30s at what's effectively a loading screen for immersion. Why you'd ever want to have a load time to make your game more immersive is beyond me, but hey as long as it's not in every difficulty and I can play without it, you do you.

Yeah, I don't go shopping for fun either, but we all gotta do it to live, unless we're living with our parents and they still do it for us. Or we live off the land in the howling wilderness, in which case how do we have the Internet? So for most adults, going shopping is still a reliable reason most of us have to leave the house from time to time, hence why I used it as an example.

I can't imagine living like you do though. You react as hard to waiting 30 seconds as I would to spending a year in jail. You must feel like a prisoner all the time just from the sheer lack of patience. But I guess if it's the only way you've ever lived, it must not seem as horrible to you as it would to me.

I'm glad you're willing to compromise at least.

[Scipo0419]

Originally posted by The Nameless:

Originally posted by Scipo0419:

I figured I'd address this as well. I don't go shopping for fun (and even if I did, the drive there is the equivalent of a loading screen) so waiting at a red light isn't actively stopping me from doing what I have fun doing. I play games to play the game, not wait 30s at what's effectively a loading screen for immersion. Why you'd ever want to have a load time to make your game more immersive is beyond me, but hey as long as it's not in every difficulty and I can play without it, you do you.

Yeah, I don't go shopping for fun either, but we all gotta do it to live, unless we're living with our parents and they still do it for us. Or we live off the land in the howling wilderness, in which case how do we have the Internet? So for most adults, going shopping is still a reliable reason most of us have to leave the house from time to time, hence why I used it as an example.

I can't imagine living like you do though. You react as hard to waiting 30 seconds as I would to spending a year in jail. You must feel like a prisoner all the time just from the sheer lack of patience. But I guess if it's the only way you've ever lived, it must not seem as horrible to you as it would to me.

I'm glad you're willing to compromise at least.

You're misunderstanding me. I don't have a lack of patience, at all. It could be 30s, it could be instant. The fact of the matter is that I have to stop what I'm doing and go and rest at a bed. Which adds nothing but a slight bit of immersion and realism. Crafting something with materials 800m away because they're in storage isn't realistic but making me walk all the way over there to grab them doesn't add anything to the gameplay. I already have the materials from my exploration, just let me craft it. The devs agreed and added craft from storage. Realism for the sake of realism when it breaks the flow of the rest of the gameplay (which I feel your suggestion does) is not fun, it's tedious. That's why you don't see many where resting at a bed is a requirement. The only games I can think of are Stardew Valley and the Harvest Moon franchise (and spin-offs), but those games use a day-by-day system with the "end of day" report starting after you go to bed. Which is part of the moment to moment gameplay.

Imagine playing Skyrim and in the middle of your exploration, your character goes "man, that's a lot of walking. I'm tired. I need to lie down." and you're forced to go find a place to sleep. You weren't done with what you were doing, but the immersion! The realism! How fun! Except not... At all..

[Scipo0419]

Also, nothing is stopping you from not using food and just using the bed for Energy in the current state of the game. People apply self-imposed limitations in video games all the time.

[The Nameless]

Originally posted by Scipo0419:

Originally posted by The Nameless:

Yeah, I don't go shopping for fun either, but we all gotta do it to live, unless we're living with our parents and they still do it for us. Or we live off the land in the howling wilderness, in which case how do we have the Internet? So for most adults, going shopping is still a reliable reason most of us have to leave the house from time to time, hence why I used it as an example.

I can't imagine living like you do though. You react as hard to waiting 30 seconds as I would to spending a year in jail. You must feel like a prisoner all the time just from the sheer lack of patience. But I guess if it's the only way you've ever lived, it must not seem as horrible to you as it would to me.

I'm glad you're willing to compromise at least.

You're misunderstanding me. I don't have a lack of patience, at all. It could be 30s, it could be instant. The fact of the matter is that I have to stop what I'm doing and go and rest at a bed. Which adds nothing but a slight bit of immersion and realism. Crafting something with materials 800m away because they're in storage isn't realistic but making me walk all the way over there to grab them doesn't add anything to the gameplay. I already have the materials from my exploration, just let me craft it. The devs agreed and added craft from storage. Realism for the sake of realism when it breaks the flow of the rest of the gameplay (which I feel your suggestion does) is not fun, it's tedious. That's why you don't see many where resting at a bed is a requirement. The only games I can think of are Stardew Valley and the Harvest Moon franchise (and spin-offs), but those games use a day-by-day system with the "end of day" report starting after you go to bed. Which is part of the moment to moment gameplay.

Imagine playing Skyrim and in the middle of your exploration, your character goes "man, that's a lot of walking. I'm tired. I need to lie down." and you're forced to go find a place to sleep. You weren't done with what you were doing, but the immersion! The realism! How fun! Except not... At all..

(sigh) No, I don't think I'm misunderstanding you, I think you're making excuses. I don't think you have any patience at all. And that's coming from me, and I know darn well I have very little compared to most people.

But I think we've reached the end of the point where we can accomplish anything. We already agreed that a slider type option, in particular one that goes all the way to 'off', is the best way to handle this. Because regardless of your particular attributes, you've got as much right to enjoy your game as the rest of us.

Everything after that was just... curiosity on my part, which is now satisfied. Good convo, have a good one and all that.