Dev Blog #16 - Travel Weariness

[@nattteo]

Dude I literally just saw Splattercat do a video on this, it's awesome to see you are actually documenting the development. Something you might consider is to provide a positive bonus for being at low travel weariness and debuffs when you are at extremely high levels. That way the mechanic isn't purely punitive, which I think increases the "fun" factor a lot. I think it makes sense realistically too because obviously someone who is rested and refreshed is going to perform better. I'm not sure the multiple sleep options are great either. Why not just trigger the level up screen when you sleep, if you have the ability to level up? And then if players don't want to you could just have a skip or an "X" button to disregard the level screen and end the sleep. You could remove the UI all together at that point and just right click to sleep or whatever. Another thought is that if you are worried about overwhelming players with systems, just remove that from the UI until it becomes relevant, and then have the very first "pass out" encounter basically just be a little tutorial encounter where there aren't really any negative consequences. Then add the weariness moodle to the UI and the player will sort of intrinsically understand what it is.

[@TheDoorsOfTrithius]

These are some great ideas. One issue with providing bonuses for low weariness is players might feel obligated to always keep the amount low so they have the bonus which would lead to annoying gameplay where they feel a need to constantly sleep. One thing I have learned is that some players feel "lack of a possible bonus" as similar to a debuff. For example, +15% wisdom gained for 2 hours after sleeping translates to -15% wisdom gained if you haven't slept in two hours. This is not to disagree with you, because I agree having weariness be all-or-nothing is less interesting. There are some hidden mechanics related to weariness however, which I didn't mention in this video: A) The chance for a random event goes up as the player becomes more weary, and B) the amount of travel experience gained while moving on the overworld goes UP as more weariness is gained. The reason for the two sleep options is because players might not want to level up yet (levelling up is a commitment), but still need to reduce weariness. Then again, your suggestion could work quite well if there was a way to escape from the level up portion. I will have to think on this. You're right that it would be cleaner to just have the bed one-click to start sleeping.

[@nattteo]

​@@TheDoorsOfTrithius "some players feel "lack of a possible bonus" as similar to a debuff." I can definitely see this, although I think it really depends on the size and significance of the buff. For example Skyrim's "well rested" bonus gives you a small amount of additional experience while you have it. I never prioritized having it though because it didn't seem significant enough to play around, and you level up decently quickly in that game anyway, so it just became a nice little "cherry on top" sort of deal. On the other hand you have something like terraria, where I'll literally spend more time assembling buff materials and building arenas than fighting the boss XD Honestly the hidden mechanics sound really interesting, but I understand why you wouldn't show that to the player. One thing I'm curious about - it seems like there are a lot of weariness reduction sources. Specifically the town based weariness reduction seems to provide an unlimited source of weariness reduction that will result in players just "town hopping" rather than invest resources in costly sources of weariness reduction out in the wilderness. Is this just mitigated by town layout ect? Or is it not possible to really move between towns without exhausting yourself?

[@TheDoorsOfTrithius]

@@nattteo ​ @Nathaniel Fischer Good question. 1) Town hopping is similar to the real experience of travel, and so this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Planning a path through multiple stops can be a good experience, and the player will see more quests and possibilities in each town they enter. 2) Towns are in hubs, which are not always connected by roads, sometimes separated by a long distance so to get to the next hub you will definitely have to travel a long distance. The Skyrim well rested buff is a good counter-example. You're right that as long as the bonus isn't too crazy it might work.

[@MaunomauClips]

​@@TheDoorsOfTrithius "The reason for the two sleep options is because players might not want to level up yet (levelling up is a commitment), but still need to reduce weariness. Then again, your suggestion could work quite well if there was a way to escape from the level up portion." Perhaps more immersive way would be that you sleep with one button and if you can level up you get a choice of some sort where one leads to seeing a dream and leveling up and the other to skipping it.

[@rosskelly4618]

Gonna buy this on steam tomorrow looks brilliant

[@goosewithagibus]

This video got recommended to me randomly and I love it because I'm also making a 2D, top-down game in Java about survival. I'm also using IntelliJ, but I guess that's probably the norm these days.

[@goosewithagibus]

Your graphics are wonderful.

[@scorseve]

I love to hear about the placeable objects being a thing now! It's only a campsite kit now, but who knows what awaits in the future :)

[@CAVEDATA]

Cool hearing your thought process. Excited to get into your game.

[@seeker296]

a level requirement for travel weariness would help tutorialize the mechanic 13:20 although it may be better to give the level requirement to hunger damage, because if new players don't know how to explore, they can actually die (from travelling too long; thus trapping them near settlements). whereas travel weariness seems more of a soft punishment, where you can travel as far as you want, you just might get teleported randomly, inconvenienced, lose an item or two, etc. (which wouldn't limit a new player's experience, but rather give them engaging challenges)

[@MaunomauClips]

Been playing the game for a day or two and so far I've enjoyed just hanging near my starting area and haven't had any reason to travel very far aside from needing to carefully cross a bandit controlled section(sleeping in a temple along the way) to reach a nature town to learn magic(had to go back and do the trip again but better prepared to trade after realizing gold was useless due to them using a different currency(which I liked a lot btw)). So the game certainly achieves the goal of getting you to stick to a small area at the start but other than running out of dungeons/content to do I'm not seeing much of a reason to explore further, presumably the main quest will do that to some extent but some other reasons could be nice to have. Do delivery quests have a max distance for the target settlement? Either way if there isn't one already there should be a delivery quest category where traveling a great distance within the time limit is the main challenge to encourage traveling to more distant locations(probably should somehow discourage player doing them super early, requiring a good reputation level once that's a thing would be a natural way to do that). Another way to sort of indirectly encourage exploring would be to have NPCs randomly talk about towns that have services/features/situations that can't be found in (nearby) towns player has visited(or sometimes, just for the sake of it, comparing to ones that can be found, "I'm sure our Smith/Bandit situation/Monument is better/worse than that other town's"). And of course more unique location mentions like the Bard's College one would be nice, at least if they included a cardinal direction to potentially head off to, or if you wanted to provide player an opportunity to work a bit for information have random NPCs say stuff like "I heard John talk about Bard College" and then on asking John about it get either a direction or a map marker. Semi related: being able to just ignore dungeons and just do other quests and crafting isn't bad exactly but I would like to be kind of forced or at least heavily encouraged to deal with nearby dungeons if I hang around a set of towns long enough. Something like eventual risk of town being destroyed after an attack or just becoming empty after everyone has moved away but starting with NPCs just complaining and blaming shortages and prices on whatever the nearby threat is. It'd make clearing a dungeon feel more meaningful and get me to at least travel to those dungeons and then potentially beyond them. Also one cool way to sort of expand the world as player progressed would be for at least city faction to build roads if you clear/solve whatever reason there is for a settlement to not have a road to it from wherever you are. Multiple road quality levels that can change depending on situation and roads that have been blockaded off or fallen into disrepair would be cool too. Roads opening, being repaired and built through player actions would be nice way to give player a connection to the local area and make going elsewhere feel new and different.

[@TheDoorsOfTrithius]

Good ideas. Thank you.

[@SugarPvP123]

elliot from mr robot becomes a game dev

[@jospehjack]

new patch has a Glitch that allows arrow to become worn and/or broken and you can't repair TY.

[@robertmarquez343]

I like the game, but the mechanic is horrible. I'm so p***** off right now. I'm in an area that I'm not supposed to be a parameter. And I can't get out because I keep passing out and getting pushed back in. Oh my Gear. it' destroyed and I have no Gold. Cause every time I pass out it takes everything and damages everything. I'm literally trapped in a A hostile area with no gear and no gold.