One Hour One Life Forums

Yesterday I was playing as Eve and started a little family which died out in a couple of generations. Today I got to play as Eve again, and not only did I spawn in the exact same spot, I even somehow inherited my old home marker.

Despite the everything runs out philosophy, there's plenty of core resources that are infinite if managed properly. Initially I thought this was kinda cool, but the more I play the more I realize they're just creating tedium. From the very start where you're standing around waiting for milkweed to fruit to the late game where you're carting around water from faraway ponds because wells suck. And some technically finite resources borrow this scheme, which just creates headache (carrot seed plot management for example). It also decreases child life expectancy, because the natural job for a kid is farming and in anything but the tiniest settlement the nearby ponds will be low so kids will have to trek out for water and this is when most of them starve. And I think that gameplay that is about not doing something (draining ponds, picking seed carrots, picking non-fruiting milkweed) is inherently less fun than gameplay that is about doing something (making an axe, building a well, baking pies). Plus, the whole reliance on having a ton of ponds makes it too hard to find a good spot as Eve. And finally, because the early resources are infinite later stuff has to be kinda crap for balance reasons, which is why instead of getting a productivity increase as tech advances we actually get a productivity decrease. This means that the push to advance tech isn't as strong as it should be to fit Jason's vision here. So I think that the game should be changed so *everything* runs out and tech advancement replaces some jobs instead of just adding more. Some ideas on how it might work:

- WATER. Ponds shouldn't regenerate, at least not on a timer useful for a village. Regenerating after 8-12 hours might be necessary to allow reclaiming failed towns. Instead the main source of water for fourth+ generation should be wells. And since ponds are nerfed, wells can be made a lot better. Of course, they should still be finite to keep with the everything runs out philosophy, but they should have a lot more uses. What this means is no auto recharge on wells and hence no waiting for them and guessing if they're ready. Instead there'd be a number of uses than you can freely take whenever. Perhaps a well has two or three stages of fullness and there's a random chance to drop to the next emptier stage whenever you draw water. Of course, with these changes empty wells should still be upgradeable or we'll run out of stone way too soon. But to prevent permanent loss of space and give a sense of urgency to well building, maybe dry wells should collapse into a pile of rubble in half an hour or so. You can mine the rubble to reclaim some stone, or it disappears in another half an hour. Even with reclamation and upgrades stone is eventually going to be scarce, so we also get a niche for a stone quarry tech tree in advanced stages.

- SOIL. Composting makes this one infinite, so composting has to be fairly complex for balance's sake. While I like the general idea of composting, I think the current implementation just takes too much time and is a bit too complex to effectively teach to others with the limits of in-game communication. So I think the process should be simplified (just straw and poop for example, no extra berries or water), but a bottleneck should be placed to limit composting by resources and keep the everything runs out theme. I'm thinking sheep are a good point for that. What if instead of constantly spewing lambs sheep had to be given a piece of salt to spawn a lamb? Salt can be a stone/desert gatherable, and we can have a while salt mining tech tree later on. But I digress, my main problem with soil is actually the carrot management, it's just not fun and gets you pissed off at other players constantly. IMO it'd be simpler and more consistent if carrots consumed soil even when harvested before seed. This makes farming more newb friendly because active measures (getting soil/making compost) are more interesting to them than preventive measures (not picking seed/picking non-seed on time). Of course this massively increases soil requirements, but simplified composting should balance that out. Though we'd likely need a pre-sheep method of composting that's fairly limited, and I think thule reeds fit the bill. Just make the alternate recipe reeds and bowl of berries.

- RABBITS. Same deal as with water, no regeneration on a practical timescale. Because it's not fun to have to go snaring to gear up no matter what stage of civilization you spawn in. Give us rabbit hutches instead so we can farm rabbits.

- BERRIES. I'm kinda torn on this one TBH. Wild berries (and cacti) can be crucial for surviving famine, but they break the everything runs out rule. I think we should turn a blind eye here. There's a concern with wild bushes making sheep feeding a bit too easy, but in reality I've found they're mostly never full anywhere near town. As for domestic berries, they're a whole other thing. I'm not a fan of the current berry farming where you basically create a resource that's infinite if properly managed but the management is a nightmare because damn kids keep eating and not watering. I'd turn this whole thing around, give berry bushes finite number of uses (high chance to advance a stage in aging whenever watered), but make them faster and more resilient. Something like no drying out after harvest, you simply need to water an empty bush and it produces a harvest in a couple of minutes.

- IRON. This one is technically finite, but practically it's not. Your average stone biome has way more loose ore than a town can reasonably use in 10-20 generations (which seems to be your average town duration). The consequences of this is that mines suck and are pointless. IMO it'd be better if there was very little loose ore but mines were more common. Getting the initial tools would be harder, but as long as you're smart and make pick as your second or third tool getting iron should be more fun than it is right now.

- MILKWEED. No respawns, so no more standing around waiting to fruit (unless you're going after seeds). Wild milkweed can respawn on same scale as ponds and rabbits for reclamation, but farmed milkweed should be single harvest. Because it's no longer infinite, milkweed can be buffed so you can farm some thread in a reasonable time. I'm thinking something like two or three stalks instead of one out of a milkweed farm tile.