Suggestion reply marathon - Apr-Dec 2020
This marathon thread is a compilation of suggestions and replies to them from nine from month period of April to December 2020.
Each reply can be also found in their respective forums threads. The majority of suggestions were about the game interface, character skills & related mechanics, and NPC behaviour & interaction. There were 110 suggestions in total , and the most participating 10% did post 50% of all these suggestions. Naturally some of these things will never end up in the game but replies are given nevertheless and thus the development roadmap hopefully grows clearer. After these replies my time to continue ponderings on these very subjects rarely continues, but the topics stay open and discussion can naturally go on till the end of time.
Here we go...
Sub-categories for food in cellarhttps://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5840.msg16955I find it tricky at times to find the stuff in my cellar.
There's all herbs/seasonings, vegetables, meat, fish, stews and soups all in one big... pile?
I like the fact that top most items are the oldest in there, so using those first makes sense.
But what I'd like to see is add additional food categories for cellar:
Complex piles here and there is a common result of hoarding playstyle. Item selection categories are item type related, and this kind of custom categorization would be a mess and super costly to add, and thus not considered worthwhile. The best solution is to arrange things that don’t need to be stored in cellar in to different piles around your homestead, or to use several cellars. However, the more there’s hoarding the more there is browsing in general.
Recipe [optional] with +/- % qualityhttps://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=6142.0I would be nice if in recipes for making crafts that optional items could give a chance for different quality which in turn can lead to a higher value by the fine/perfect modifiers.
For example a decoration of headress with leather on branches in the baseline, adding optional bones a +10% quality and adding optional feathers a +10% quality so together if both added a +20% quality so likely to bump it up a category.
We understand there are many crafting syntax ideas which can come up in modding, but in general we tweak and enchance the syntax foremostly based on the game’s need and the modding possibilities then follow. This idea might be something to explore deeper, if practical item applications are come across. However, for me a quality is a confusing word here and I think you meant bonus/minus to skill roll instead, which then in turn might result in better quality craft.
Skin sizes, adjust please. https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=6105.0Also, boars and sows give only 4lbs skin and seals 5lbs. Yet the body/torso size of ‘sus scrofa’ isn’t much smaller from ‘rangifer tarandus fennica’
I.e. reindeer yield 8lbs skins for roughly same body area.
E.g. making a skin for liquids takes 4lbs of leather, that’s the entire pig’s skin. Of course there’s some loss, but the ratio is way off.
Tl;dr; please check: calves, boars and sows, and seal skin yields.
If I recall correctly the average wild boar skins in the game should be closer to 5 lbs, big ones might reach the 6 occasionally. The original finnish landrace pig which is now extinct was said to be rather small and skinny creature. But maybe these could increased little. I'll ponder. However, the liquid skin material requirement seems way off indeed. I think it's a bit anachronistic item anyway. To tune or to remove, that is the question.
Deer and elk calf skins are minuscule.
Preferably around:
3lbs skin from young deer calves, 5lbs (winter skin) from old calves*
8lbs skin from elk calves, 12lbs (winter skin) from older calves*
But... the calf/cub skin sizes already depend naturally on their age and thus the size of the calf. It's not a fixed value - if people thought so? There's nothing to adjust with calves. You can find all the calf skin weight examples you mentioned, and everything in between, and more.
edit: 6lbs from ringed seals, 16-20lbs from grey seals
The seal skin yields seem low indeed and would need adjustments. I'll have a look at those values.
Since calves' graphic is resized... https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=6140.0the calves' graphic in game is actually just resized adult one.
And I immediately though that it would be relatively simple to have this:
? in late spring and summer you'd meet the tiny calves we see now
? in autumn and winter (winter fur time) they'd be say, about 50%, of the adult
Of course the meat yield and skin sizes would vary accordingly.
This all is featured already. The calves graphic icon grows as they grow. Their skin and meat yield is based on their size.
Seasoning threadhttps://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=6119.0Fat for seasoning.
The seasoning mechanics could be checked indeed. To add more possibilities, but also to make it possible to decide how much of the selected ingredient to use. The fat I would add as its own optional ingredient in relevant recipes. We’re doing some cookery additions currently, so this all might happen in relatively near future.
tweaks to the flora modding (trees) https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=6109.0So I finally ventured in to the flora of things. Made some slanted pine trees and straight deciduous ones.
Currently having 0 value in the tags below makes the flora not work or load at all.
I suggest following actions with the assigned 0-values,
[SPROUT:0]
(Will be spawned only once - when zoomed-in map area is first generated)
[MATURE:0]
(Will be an obstacle like trees and will be spawned already mature)
[WITHER:0]
(Will be never wither or despawn - unless picked up in case of [mushroom]-tags)
These hopefully simple modifications would allow tree modding (among gazillion of other peculiar things) while we wait for a more complete tree overhaul with species recognition.
Tree modding isn’t truly really possible, and I don’t know if it ever will be. Within the game mechanics and internal structures the trees are handled completely differently than the flora_* plants. Even if those tags would be added, the things generated wouldn’t really be trees for the game. You notice it immediately with a need to add an option to make a plant an obstacle like a tree - and a lot more. So in practice this approach is suggesting to add an new tree related tag possibilities for flora_*.* plants, and if that was done we would need start reworking the character and NPCs movement etc. code as well to recognize certain plants as obstacles etc. etc. etc. Just to mention
very few tiny things about how it would be snowballing. So, trees will get a lot of love and more species in the future, and the ideas regarding that can be (and have been) suggested already. But we really need to wait until it’s being actually coded.
Walking through the fire messagehttps://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=6129.0It'd be helpful to state how long the fire will burn instead of the current "You can not walk through the fire" warning that you only need to read once in a player's lifetime.
EDIT: I wasn't aware / didn't remember the 'x' command, which diminishes my suggestion below treshold of making it.
There are hundreds of small things individual players, in their playstyle, would want differently. That’s eternal. The message is clumsy though, so we might address it if this comes up again, or we happen to wander around that part of the code.
Remove fistfulls from containershttps://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=6124.0It would be good and a quick code to apply to the "A"pply command to "R"emove things from a container. Flowers would go back in hand, beans back in hand although liquids like water would be lost.
This would let us also carry a box of berries to put out fistfuls in traps.
That would be good and reasonable addition. Those containers are clumsy to handle, within the code as well, so it’s a bit of a headache to add actually but I’ll be checking out possibilities in regards to this. The thing is, when stuff is put in the container it loses its base unit so fistful of berries becomes just heap of berries. The same goes for the fish, which become just one big heap of fish in a container. That’s why container content removal hasn’t been a thing from the start. The bigger chances to containers are evident at some point, but let’s see if we can come up with simple workaround while waiting for that.
(Minor QoL) Remember last zoom level upon game launch plus savegame loadhttps://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=6115.0a) Launching the game (from desktop), then loading a savegame results in loss of player's previously active zoom level setting (i.e.: game starts with default zoom level of maximum zoom in).
Based on the above, it appears zoom level setting is stored in memory but not written to disk.
I think it would be a small improvement if zoom level is stored on disk and retained every time.
Yes, it’s true the zoom level isn’t saved with the character, and there are quite many other interface related things as well that don’t get saved. These are mostly things that have came along long after the early character structures were defined. It doesn't harm to add zoom level to savedata so I'll see about taking care of this.
Please make it possible to quickly shorten tying equipment https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=6001.0Could you please add a single Tying Equipment menu option to cut down (a single chosen tying equipment) to 1 feet pieces?
1 feet chunks is the ultimate choice as it is the only size that will guarantee that a character can do 100% of tying-equipment-related tasks and waste no tying equipment at the end of task. There is no other size that fits all tasks and wastes nothing at the same time.
There is a side benefit (in my eyes) that it will only take one menu-entry per tying-equipment-material-and-quality-combo.
e.g.: it would read "87 1-feet bitch-bark ropes"
rather than e.g. 8 10-feet bitch-bark ropes + 1 5-feet, 2 1-feet etc.
I acknowledge that this may not be a good thing for other people as others might prefer cutting down everything as chunks of 5 feet or n feet or a combination of various sizes.
This thread was replied with a modding snippet which gets the thing done. We might consider adding “cut this number of this long pieces” at some point, but it doesn't feel urgent. At least there hasn't been too many mentions about that.
But surely, if people need hundreds and hundreds of short ropes at once for their playstyle it surely is burdensome to come up with. However, from role-playing perspective adventurers always carrying 1 feet cordage seems silly and not appealing for my eyes at least. And with metric system in use (future option) the inventory wouldn't even be that tidy: “87 0.3 meter ropes” etc.
After all, I'm still thinking of an addition for automatic length cutting upon tasks, though it's a bit costly thing to do.
Harvesting(edited:boiled down to harvesting, ignore redundant leather discus.) https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5996.0Situation:
Your character is standing near a ripe plant. you press 'alt+a' for agriculture and 'h' for harvest, then 'space' to confirm.
So this is nothing new, so now my suggestion. I would really enjoy a feature like this:
Instead of the harvested plant laying on the ground[requiring you to further key-jockey, like 'alt'+'g', choose direction 'choose amount' 'Enter' 'space' to confirm(all this for 1 tile of plants)], it is put directly inside your inventory. Just like when you pick young leaves or berries or mushrooms, for example.
that would be the standard harvesting procedure. Also the old method would still be there as "Cut" in the agriculture menu, which would leave the crop laying on the ground just like it has been for now.
Yes, there are several occasions where the interface could be made less burdensome for the player – and harvesting mechanics is one of them. These things exists often because chaining the character actions is quite troublesome due to design and nature of the roguelike game engine and approach. Sometimes it's more doable, than in other cases. I guess it would be doable to add pickup command trigger right after harvesting is done, so I'll explore this possibility, although weird setback may sometimes follow. One thing that would do harvesting (and some things also) easier would be to allow auto-picking up single item stack, just like one single item is picked without confirmation. But then again, sometimes you only want to pick x items from a stack.
All in all, if this gets implemented in the end we'll probably add new “Harvest and pick” command to agriculture menu for this alternative.
Character custom picture slothttps://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=6006.0Just noticed in the directories it is already there as 'portrait'
The suggestion would be then during character creation to be able to select an empty or silhoute with the player to replace later.
Those who don't fancy the game portraits can replace them with their own anytime. Add your favourite portaits to each culture and you can then select them easily during character creation.
seal-catching and dangers of entangling into a netThe proper way to catch seals would be the net, btw. (instead of the heavy deadfall)
Is the suggestion to add possibility of seals to be able to get tangled into fishermens nets, or?
I believe the modern nets are far more dangerous and effective in that regard.
NPC command requestshttps://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=6099.0Fell trees to:
Fell tall trees (for tree trunks)
Fell young trees (for slender rods)
Add cut trunk into blocks (alternate to boards)
Make stakes (out of slender trees)
(This would allow the helper to be a good partner when laying a long trap fence)
Yep, they should be able to do many more chores than currently. I'm sure we'll see new commands popping up every now and then.
Note takinghttps://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=6091.0Some sort of way to write / read text would provide a nice way to roleplay note taking/journal writing for players. Lot's of ways to implement it so just thought I'd throw it out there incase you think it might fit well for UnReal World's setting in some fashion.
Maybe instead of text, Finnish symbols, or other marking methods.
We already can add text to message log and on the map markers, and I think that's enough for player written information. Although, I'm not quite sure what kind of ideas you're thinking exactly.
Some character made wilderness and sacred site markers in the historical fashion would be nice to add at some point. As a side note, ancient Finns didn't have written language back in iron-age.
Well icon for villageshttps://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=6093.0Arriving into an unfamiliar village in the winter I really am having trouble finding where the water tile is. This would be handy to drink from. The villagers have a source of water for themselves.
It would be nice if we could have the village water tile as a well or barrel. That would also become a graphic we modders could access for the player's own stead.
We'll be adding a way to ask the location of the village water supply. They hardly have wells, but the water supplies are more often springs.
Directions from the women https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5973.0I'd like the locations that we receive from village women to show on the F6 map when they give us the directions, instead of still having to scout the area to locate them.
It's deliberate choice that the verbal information is all you get. Having everything precisely marked up on the map turns the feeling of the world into something very different.
Additional historically accurate cordage: "Lime Bast Cordage"https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5806.0I think it would be neat to add Linden trees to the game and allow players to gather the bark and prepare it by one of the methods described in the article (either by peeling in summer and then soaking in water for 4 weeks or by gathering in winter and smoking it). Alternatively, perhaps a process to gather bark from a variety of trees beyond what's currently permitted and prepare into cordage by soaking, peeling, and twisting?
Yep, Linden trees and their bark usage for cordage would be a suitable addition. The same goes for willows too. More trees and more usage for trees is among planned development goals.
Naming:First Word Tag Please for Moddinghttps://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5875.0I'm able to mostly accomplish what I want with modding with the [naming:last word] tag but there are times the naming would be a lot less awkward and allow for more precise modding if a [naming:first word] tag.
We understand there are many crafting syntax ideas which can come up in modding, but in general we tweak and enchance the syntax foremostly based on the game’s need and the modding possibilities then follow. This sounds like a simple thing to add, but sometimes weird setbacks can be met on the code level. However, I’ll take a look at the code and explore the options.
End of part 1/6. Read on ...
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