6+ months of agonizing "realism" nerfs have ruined this game.

[Random_dragon]

It does act consistent with the idea of magic rituals though. :V

[Rivet]

No idea what Rivet's opinion on these game design fuckups are, but she at least is generally as sensible as Coolthulhu about game design, moreso than Kevin.

Filthy clothes - needs a good bit more work. The morale penalty is mostly ignorable due to the effect going away the moment the clothing in question is removed. I'm on board wit the idea behind it (I know I wouldn't want to put on this guy's clothes) I just think it needs some refactoring. Changing the primary malus out for increased chance of infection when wounded would be an excellent step in the right direction.

Boom cranes - could use some TLC regarding their weight limits. Other than that I'm fine with the addition of jacks and such - it always struck me as odd that the character could hold a car up with one hand while changing a tire with the other.

Recipe learning requiring books during crafting - I'd like this a little more if you could learn recipes whose requirements are well below your skill level by simply reading them. A master chef shouldn't have a particularly difficult time learning an entry-level cooking recipe by simply reading it a time or three. Other than that, I'm fine with it. Used to be, people hoarded books just long enough to suck the information out of them and automagically memorize it all before casting them aside, and that never seemed right to me.

Electric motors - haven't been nerfed to the best of my knowledge, so I'm not sure what that's about.

Firearm magazines - I love this one. Looooove it. I'd rather spend the extra few seconds loading up a bunch of mags prior to engaging in combat if it means that I can swap them out as they run dry instead of having to constantly stop in the middle of the fight/disengage to load a firearm with a removable magazine - whose primary advantage over firearms with internal magazines is that you can carry lots of pre-loaded magazines with you. Previous behavior was that all guns effectively had internal magazines, and it was ridiculous that we couldn't carry spare mags in order to reload quickly on the go.

Solar panels - were nerfed a good long while ago (I think it was right after 0.C came out) because a single bog-standard panel was all it took to recharge an entire bank of large storage cells in a single afternoon. I agree with the decision, since they were waaaay too efficient before.

Point is, this game has been run into the ground with neckbeardy "realism" fetishism, and there's no real reason for anyone who isn't a Dwarf Fortress enthusiast with OCD to bother since interesting content additions have been inversely proportional to pointless crippling nerfs for ages now.

Projecting some nasty assumptions while making light of mental illness for bonus points.

[Random_dragon]

Filthy clothes - needs a good bit more work. The morale penalty is mostly ignorable due to the effect going away the moment the clothing in question is removed. I'm on board wit the idea behind it (I know I wouldn't want to put on this guy's clothes) I just think it needs some refactoring. Changing the primary malus out for increased chance of infection when wounded would be an excellent step in the right direction.

Yeah, I'm in favor of it having a practical purpose, not morale. Either way it was not a well-thought-out idea. Still, that's the closest to a sane answer we've got from the project heads aside from Coolthulhu's disapproval of it.

I'm also in favor of there being some option, mod, or whatever to disable it. Are there any PRs in the works doing that?

[Rivet]

There's a PR in the pipe that adds a trait to disable the morale effect. I'll be happy to merge it once all of its lumps are hammered out.

[Random_dragon]

I see. Huh. Looked at their error report and I'm as stumped as they are.

[Commie]

Arcana mod also mandates that you keep the books on hand to craft, via their being tools. So this idea being a mainline feature is something with a mod-based precedent already set for it.

I love/hate that about those books.  Nifty idea, but there should be some way around it - maybe make significantly higher level recipes that are exactly the same but don't take the books?

I pictured them more like spellbooks, actual magic books, compared to 'to serve man' which you just memorize.

[ApatheticExcuse]

No idea what Rivet's opinion on these game design fuckups are, but she at least is generally as sensible as Coolthulhu about game design, moreso than Kevin.

Filthy clothes - needs a good bit more work. The morale penalty is mostly ignorable due to the effect going away the moment the clothing in question is removed. I'm on board wit the idea behind it (I know I wouldn't want to put on this guy's clothes) I just think it needs some refactoring. Changing the primary malus out for increased chance of infection when wounded would be an excellent step in the right direction.

I'd disagree. Doing that would simply turn if from an apparently unpopular mechanic that people can ignore into an equally bad mechanic that people actually have to pay attention to. Conceptually, and speaking realistically, it makes sense. In terms of actually fun, it doesn't.

Boom cranes - could use some TLC regarding their weight limits. Other than that I'm fine with the addition of jacks and such - it always struck me as odd that the character could hold a car up with one hand while changing a tire with the other.

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure jacks have been in game since the first few 0.C releases. Boom cranes kinda have the same logic as the above - makes sense, but for bad gameplay. Jacks are ok because you can at least move them around without too much hassle.

Recipe learning requiring books during crafting - I'd like this a little more if you could learn recipes whose requirements are well below your skill level by simply reading them. A master chef shouldn't have a particularly difficult time learning an entry-level cooking recipe by simply reading it a time or three. Other than that, I'm fine with it. Used to be, people hoarded books just long enough to suck the information out of them and automagically memorize it all before casting them aside, and that never seemed right to me.

This makes sense I think, and most people who were against this seem to be realizing they keep all their books anyway, so it doesn't matter too much. I'd certainly agree that simple shit should be easy enough to memorize, depending on your skill.

Firearm magazines - I love this one. Looooove it. I'd rather spend the extra few seconds loading up a bunch of mags prior to engaging in combat if it means that I can swap them out as they run dry instead of having to constantly stop in the middle of the fight/disengage to load a firearm with a removable magazine - whose primary advantage over firearms with internal magazines is that you can carry lots of pre-loaded magazines with you. Previous behavior was that all guns effectively had internal magazines, and it was ridiculous that we couldn't carry spare mags in order to reload quickly on the go.

This is an extra "make work" type feature that actually works well in game in my opinion. I get why people don't like it, but I can't say I have a problem with it. I think a big part of it is that you can just ignore it all together if you're not into it.

[survivornaginata]

There's a PR in the pipe that adds a trait to disable the morale effect. I'll be happy to merge it once all of its lumps are hammered out.

maybe upgrading outdorsman with this filth resistance would be better than adding new trait.just spring to my mid and i doubt outdorsman is used much anyway and this would be make it very  interesting options for those who have problems with morale penalities cause of filth/elements.

[Random_dragon]

If we do anything with outdoorsman, adding clothing filth seems to break the theme. I've always thought it could plausdibly affect comfort in slightly chilly/warm weather maybe.

[survivornaginata]

If we do anything with outdoorsman, adding clothing filth seems to break the theme. I've always thought it could plausdibly affect comfort in slightly chilly/warm weather maybe.

well i guess you are right-i presume outdoorsman would be more accostomed to filth from nature and not zombies.

suggestion about comfort lvls about temaprature is great.i would seriously consider choosing trait which could lessen penalties from warm weather as summer heat is killing me.

[Random_dragon]

The speed penalty from being chilly is what will most often fuck over underdressed spring starts. Expanding tolerance of temperature could be done by a few different methods.

One is to expand the range of comfortable temperatures by a few degrees in both direction. Ideally only reducing the ranges of warm and chilly, not pushing back the more extreme levels.

Another way is to have it reduce the speed and/or morale penalties by a flat amount OR percentage. Thus you could be chilly but still able to function, or merely not bothered by it if we wanted Outdoorsman to stay a morale-only effect.

[Sheb]

Just want to pop in to say that I don't really mind most of these features, even the filthy things. Sure, the feature doesn't add much, but it make sense, and add a lower tiear of clothing in your char progression ( Filthy clothe < clean clothes < reinforced cargo pants and practical stuff < Army clothing < Survivor clothing). Zombie clothing wasn't really useful after early game (apart from some piece of valuable gear that are worth fixing/cleaning). I mean, if you had to do laundry for your own clothing, that'd be too much.

Bumping up soap's spawn rate might be a good idea though.

I think a lot of the issues with those tediums chores isn't that they're in the game, but that there is so little automation of them. I think they add to the game by making taking care of your survivor more complex, but there should be a way to get through them with a minimum of keypresses once your character is set up. In the same way that batch-crafting clean water or installing a foodco kitchen buddy make managing thirst trivial, there should be buttons to batch-clean and mend clothings, batch-fix all damaged parts on a car and so on. Also, being able to outsource those tasks to a NPC housekeeper would be good ("Clean and mend all clothings items dropped in this zone").

[Random_dragon]

I agree that the idea COULD have merit. The problem is horrible mismangement of its implementation. In game balance terms, pre-existing factors do a better job of making zombie clothes a less than ideal choice.

From a realism perspective, it lacks any realistic effects beyond morale (Mugling is working to unfuck that), and it introduces a lot of logic flaws that counteract the realism gained by making it less realistic. See my current sig in a nutshell. If a "realistic" feature causes as many realism failures as it solves, AND it does not actually improve gameplay or game balance in any meaningful way, then you have fundamentally fucked up.

The other issue is that, unlike a lot of controversial recent features, it is (currently) the only one that is forced on players. Since it doesn't add anything meaningful to the game at present, and doesn't actually make things more realistic overall, the vitriol over this feature is ultimately understandable.

[Sheb]

I agree that it has a flavor of a WIP, but I think the vitriol is a bit much: it's not really hindering the game.

[Random_dragon]

Perhaps. Understandable, if not excusable. How excusable it is depends on dev attitude when defending the features, or when vetoing alternative ways to handle it. How did Kevin handle initial opinions and feedback concerning the feature becoming always-on?