Goonhub
09-20-2016, 02:40 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-20-2016, 02:41 PM by Mageziya. Edited 2 times in total.)
I'm going to reiterate that a lot of this is because of a flaw fundamentals to videogames. Consequence has no meaning because everything will be back to normal by the start of the next round. Why spend all the effort trying to accomplish something when it will be just rendered pointless by next round?
Effort is defined by the amount of time it takes to accomplish. Rounds tend to last around an hour, for frame of reference. This game has a lot of things built in that take a lot of time to accomplish. If something takes 10 minutes to do, you've spent 1/6th of your round doing that thing. This is actually why the majority of secret chems are never made. For example, Rajihah, the chem that everyone loves but no one ever sees, can take 30 to 50 minutes to make due to its complexity, so no one ever makes it.
With player interactions, if you need someone to do something for you, its a godsend if it takes less than 5 minutes to happen, and a miracle if it takes less than a minute. Anything that requires any level complexity, that is, a lot of effort, is going to leave you spending 10 minutes waiting for someone to make it to happen. There are already tons of interactions in game, but no one ever witnesses them because of sheer amount of time you need to invest in it. The prime example of this is botany, because it takes time for them to make anything useful. Even if botany actually makes something useful, every time I've seen medical crops be shipped to medbay the efforts of the botanists are always wasted. Processing many of these healing plants takes 5-10 minutes, which is often too much effort for something that is already accomplished by what medbay has, regardless of how much of said thing medbay has.
One of the few high-effort things I've seen people do is make canister bombs. Why? Because it's literally a round-ender if done correctly. The other things are the engine, solely because it's sole effective duty of the engineer job, and telescience, because solarium is interesting and different from round to round monotony. Actually, telescience is a prime example of both the potential of cooperation and its frustrations. Many telesci attempts end in people frustratedly milling around waiting for someone to do something, while some rounds actually go exploring and accomplish amazing things.
So what's the solution? It seems that we need longer rounds. Problem: That's an awful solution, and we tried it before and it went horribly. It just makes the game boring and dull for the majority of the players.
Effort is defined by the amount of time it takes to accomplish. Rounds tend to last around an hour, for frame of reference. This game has a lot of things built in that take a lot of time to accomplish. If something takes 10 minutes to do, you've spent 1/6th of your round doing that thing. This is actually why the majority of secret chems are never made. For example, Rajihah, the chem that everyone loves but no one ever sees, can take 30 to 50 minutes to make due to its complexity, so no one ever makes it.
With player interactions, if you need someone to do something for you, its a godsend if it takes less than 5 minutes to happen, and a miracle if it takes less than a minute. Anything that requires any level complexity, that is, a lot of effort, is going to leave you spending 10 minutes waiting for someone to make it to happen. There are already tons of interactions in game, but no one ever witnesses them because of sheer amount of time you need to invest in it. The prime example of this is botany, because it takes time for them to make anything useful. Even if botany actually makes something useful, every time I've seen medical crops be shipped to medbay the efforts of the botanists are always wasted. Processing many of these healing plants takes 5-10 minutes, which is often too much effort for something that is already accomplished by what medbay has, regardless of how much of said thing medbay has.
One of the few high-effort things I've seen people do is make canister bombs. Why? Because it's literally a round-ender if done correctly. The other things are the engine, solely because it's sole effective duty of the engineer job, and telescience, because solarium is interesting and different from round to round monotony. Actually, telescience is a prime example of both the potential of cooperation and its frustrations. Many telesci attempts end in people frustratedly milling around waiting for someone to do something, while some rounds actually go exploring and accomplish amazing things.
So what's the solution? It seems that we need longer rounds. Problem: That's an awful solution, and we tried it before and it went horribly. It just makes the game boring and dull for the majority of the players.