The Core Problems with Ideology

[Satori]

Hey all, I've played RimWorld Ideology and come across what I feel are the core issues. Here are my observations and suggestions to fix them:

1. The Ideologies aren't balanced in any way, shape or form and there's no clear label on which ones are OP or insanely difficult.

I wanted to play around with Dryads so I created a hardcore tree worshipping hippy colony. Worst experience of my life. I didn't appreciate how much of a nightmare RimWorld is being unable to chop down trees until this moment. Gave up within 6 hours.

I then tried another ideology, Transhumanism. Seemed cool at first, I liked the new object skins etc. But it ended up playing exactly like old RimWorld and felt stale. Nothing new. Started getting "what's-the-pointitis" in about 15 hours of play. It was hilariously easy compared to my previous Ideology and there was no distinction why. They were both labelled "strong" ideologies but one was way more playable than the other.

2. Where's the C in DLC?

I went into this DLC excited for all the new things I'd see. Royalty had added a decent amount of cool stuff so I assumed this would be similar.

I assumed that you could worship "actual" gods, like Cthulhu or something, and if you pleased them enough they would give your colony boons or even eventually appear to help you in times of need.

I assumed there would either be a new bench for "holy weapons and armor" that look unique, or at least a bunch of cool new weapons and creatures. Nope on both counts.

Instead, you get a heap of mood modifiers... Yay? Mood modifiers are the most boring and lame element you could focus on in a DLC besides grass redesign.

3. Too many sticks, not enough carrots

Then, to top it all off, effectively all this DLC does is make the game more obnoxious to play. Want to capture a pawn? Oh, he's a different ideology than you, and within 7 days he's a rival of everyone in your camp and starting social fights everywhere.

Heaven help you if you get 3+ or so different ideology pawns in a short time span, which happened to me. Your whole colony goes insane. Mood debuffs everywhere from constantly fighting over religion.

Many of the bonuses you get from Ideologies are "win more". By the time you get them, your colony is often largely stable and they don't matter a ton anyway. For example day long production or research boosts.

Meanwhile the negatives you have can often cripple you from the start of the game. Some of them render the game nigh-unplayable. (Stares at tree worshippers)

TLDR: Game has 3 core issues: Balance, lack of fun, cool new content based around ideologies and a heavy handed system which punishes you way more than it rewards you.

[Squid]

1. Don't need to be balanced, besides, at the ideology creation screen, there is a score telling you how much impact it has on the game. High score, much impact.

2. You misunderstood the dlc. You create a belief system, not actual deities, your assumptions were just wrong. Besdides, you got a big update for free, so there's a lot of content.

3. The rim is not your friend. But you can convert pawns, so there shouldn't be a problem. I think you can convert them in all 3 situations, being a colonist, prisoner or slave.

[Zalzany]

So you tried to what should been clear hard games, and blame the game for not saying "hey this is hard?" I mean you just picked the two hardest memes in the game, tree one you can cut some trees you just can't go over kill and you are not tribal why are you eating that much wood? There is so many options avialable on day one like powered things, and um let see oh you start with stonecutting unless you are tribal in wich case you want hard, and you just made it harder.

Same with tech one it comes with researcher bonus role becuase you are uppose to research to the tech they want its their like lifes goal to unlock and use that technolgy. Its not really clear when you pick that but I will give you that one.

2. Umm you just decribed a ton of content in one all that stuff you didn't like people who want a harder run that is content to them. And why would we make weapons? You can hunt for them do rituals get relic sites there is freaking holy relics you can go after in the DLC, but no one wants to do the rituals and the work. I mean they been telling us for what over month what to expect, and instead of expecting that you expected somehting else. Might as well say you expected MP while you were at it.

3. The carrot is 150% research, its I just made human meat ok to eat by every one who is that religion, I just got rid of the nudity debuff. All this mind you wiht out picking cannibal, the tech meme, or nudity one. You can pick supramict only and allow all that, and even toggle corpse don't bother people. There is a ♥♥♥♥ ton of rewards for it, and the this rimwold there is always gonna be drama from new people, if you don't like it kill them, or get them killed. Arrest them then release them.

I mean the whole they don't get along is based on the bigotry tennet you can edit every religion in that playthrough to be tollarent of each other if this is a real issue and they won't be pissed that they are wrong religion anymore. I mean yet again this is all content for people who want drama, and things to happen for people that are not just here to play a basic colony sim.

I mean ♥♥♥♥ what do you do when people show up with addictions? I mean that was still way worse when that update hit the odds of getting an addict was higher and it was pain in the ass, far more then this dlc creates. Talking mental breakdowns, then you people with chem lover stealing drugs and getting addicted before you could burn or sell them it was choas.

You got 3 main issues, you don't know how to balance your own playthroughs, what is fun for some isn't fun for all you got sort that out super fast, especially when picking playthroughs you won't like. I mean I kind new tree worshiping would be a pain I did it once and it wasn't as bad as some people think it is, simply becuase I hate wood walls, furniture and floors. I upgrade to stone asap so I don't lose my whole colony to a fire when first flashstorm hits. I don't even use wooden chairs i make them use marble stools instead lol

[Swagmaster Love 🇪🇺]

I must admit that the DLC was poorly designed.
The idea is great, the content it could potentially provide aswell.

But there are so many aspects of it that were implemented badly.
It doesnt have a save option for custom ideologies.

You cant designate growing zones for your tree-loving ideology, because they didnt think of a way stop trees from getting cut by growing zones.
You have to either toggle cutting plants on and take massive negative moodlets or toggle it off and manually designate individual patches of grass to bet cut every single time, micromanaging your growing-zones in the most tedious way.

Those are the 2 most blatant flaws that already hit you within 2 minutes of playtime, yet were obviously ignored by the devs.
That attitude of ignoring or not being able to create a functional and well designed DLC shows throughout ideology.

I liked Rimworld for what it was: A well put together, well designed and quality game.
Ideology doesn't fit.

[Zalzany]

Originally posted by 🇪🇺 Swagmaster Love👌:

I must admit that the DLC was poorly designed.
The idea is great, the content it could potentially provide aswell.

But there are so many aspects of it that were implemented badly.
It doesnt have a save option for custom ideologies.

You cant designate growing zones for your tree-loving ideology, because they didnt think of a way stop trees from getting cut by growing zones.
You have to either toggle cutting plants on and take massive negative moodlets or toggle it off and manually designate individual patches of grass to bet cut every single time, micromanaging your growing-zones in the most tedious way.

Those are the 2 most blatant flaws that already hit you within 2 minutes of playtime, yet were obviously ignored by the devs.
That attitude of ignoring or not being able to create a functional and well designed DLC shows throughout ideology.

I liked Rimworld for what it was: A well put together, well designed and quality game.
Ideology doesn't fit.

What you can cut the trees. I did it al lthe time in my run. It upsets them but they won't snap unless you are clear cutting a freaking rainforest. I hate this myth. I did a forest run with my tree hugger save, cut a ton of trees know what drove my guy more crazy STARVATION lol

And yet again YOU PICKED TO WORSHIP TREES. You don't have to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ worship trees I only did it once I never saw the point in doing again you guys make it sound like tree hugging is manditory

[Swagmaster Love 🇪🇺]

Originally posted by Zalzany:

-snip-

The point being that it doesn't have an auto-cut function just like the pens that disables unwanted tree-cutting. It should have.

Your argument of ignoring -20 moodlets is pointless.

[Zalzany]

Originally posted by 🇪🇺 Swagmaster Love👌:

Originally posted by Zalzany:

-snip-

The point being that it doesn't have an auto-cut function just like the pens that disables unwanted tree-cutting. It should have.

Your argument of ignoring -20 moodlets is pointless.

The point is you knew it when you made the religion that trees would be a problem and you can turn it down a notch. I gonna do a new save right now clear some feilds and not have my pawn go insane again, I take a screen shot. While you complain you picked to worship trees, and are upset that they don't want to cut a tree, and you shouldn't have to feel the debuff of doing it lol

[Swagmaster Love 🇪🇺]

Originally posted by Zalzany:

-snip-

The point is that I want to avoid cutting trees when making a religion about it and oversights on the developers end making it a pain to play a videogames as you have to clear individual patches of grass by clicking on it every other minute as it doesnt have an auto-cut option.

[Gatsby]

If the content people created for rimworld all had a price, lets say rimatomics, it would be $150 while the actual content made by developers would be $5. so bland and boring not adding much

[Locklave]

This DLC has clear balance issues and shows elements of it were not properly fleshed out.

People however will nitpick the OPs post for wording and technical mistakes and focus on that.

Way too much of ideology is balanced around a fully functioning colony. Where as this game is about creating a colony, not end game bonuses when super specialization is preferred.

Minus mood because the hat required requires materials you didn't start with and you are still waiting to grow.

Minus mood because the hat required has tech requirements not met.

2 Glaring examples of the game being user unfriendly and poorly considered for new colonies. If experienced players can work around it doesn't matter. It shows a lack of care went into the process.

And the bottom 2 tiers of ideologies are stronger then the top tiers. The top tier is just more game changing, not by any means stronger. I seriously question how much legit colony building was taking place during these tests. Because that is the actual game, not end game when you can do anything and never fail.

[Zalzany]

There i cleared 256 tiles of farmland on a new start in forest. -10 from cutting the trees. She is more pissed about not having any recration activities then fact she just cut a bunch of trees.

[mcb0ny]

Superstitions require extra effort. Deal with it ;D

[Zalzany]

Originally posted by 🇪🇺 Swagmaster Love👌:

Originally posted by Zalzany:

-snip-

The point is that I want to avoid cutting trees when making a religion about it and oversights on the developers end making it a pain to play a videogames as you have to clear individual patches of grass by clicking on it every other minute as it doesnt have an auto-cut option.

What no point is you know what you picked the oversight is it adds a challange either cut them for -10 not -25 jesus you got be clear cutting like 500 tiles for farms to get that, and you can plant trees as well and trees being in area gives them a mood bonus. Its like saying "well they let us pick cannibal and I get debuff for not eating human meat why dev no give us easy way to get human meat!" Its like um what? Point is the challange not to hold your hand jesus.

Its also not a permant debuff you acting like you will never forget that time you cut like 12 trees to make a feild. Unless you are in tropics where the buff for bing surronded by trees is higher the temprate you are not cutting down 20 trees to set up your farming unless you are picking a spot on purpose with a ton of trees.

[Swagmaster Love 🇪🇺]

Originally posted by Zalzany:

-snip-

You picked the wrong memes.
Cutting a tree gives -5 modifier for each that was cut. 12 trees? Good luck with that moodlet.
Then there's an advancing modifier that advances for trees cut in general and immediately hits -10 for a few cut trees.

Dude, you're just here because you want to defend something for the sake of defending it.

But anway, you're ofc. totally right.
It makes so much more sense to chop down all the trees as a tree-loving religion, because ideology is oh so well designed.
Thank you for your insights.

[Bussy Butcher]

There are a lot of little things that don't make sense to me, and I hope get patched in quickly as quality of life updates.

1) If you play as animal worshipers, and have predatory animals in your biome (like me with my ~8 lions on average), you have to just tolerate that they exist until they single out and hunt your colonists. Otherwise they're considered innocent.

Even worse, if you decide to fight back, and other animals of that type nearby go manhunter in retaliation, they're considered innocent. Congrats, now you have huge mood and opinion debuffs for defending yourself.

2) Executions and slave colonies. It would be nice if these ideology types had some sort of buff to the rate they down people or a specialized club for doing it more often, because it can be hard to meet your needs for prisoners or executions when the few raids you get don't bear many prisoners, if any.

3) If you're playing as non-meat eaters, your food restrictions should default to meat as forbidden. Same with cooking restrictions. It's only after I noticed they were eating meat and using it in cooking and suffering big penalties for it that I could go in and manually address it, which I shouldn't really have to do.

4) As some people pointed out, some clothing you make mandatory for your people or roles isn't available by default. It seems bizarre to me that you don't know how to make the clothing your people consider spiritually significant right off the bat. I couldn't even figure out where to craft a headwrap, or maybe the game didn't actually give me the option to with my ideology despite it being required, so I had to cheat one in.

Those are my main problems so far with ideology. It would also be nice if you could have an additional specialist slot. I'm not sure why you're limited to 2 when you can potentially unlock up to 5 different types from your 4 memes. Same with being limited to how many rituals you can have as part of your ideology. If the argument is "balance", I'll point out that much of the DLC isn't balanced, and it should be my choice anyway.

[ambi]

i think if you maximise diversity of thought, people of different ideologies get a mood buff, so converting people becomes kinda pointless.