Hello Elders!
With today's update, I am addressing the feedback from players that find the memories too slow to unlock, especially now that Folkways has been added.
Now, I forgot how much the game has advanced since release, and especially for new players. When I released dotAGE, to unlock every memory (depending on your preferred difficulty settings) it would take from 50 to 100 hours. That seemed a good idea back then, as it was a new game, and it provided a shared build-up of knowledge to all players as they unlocked more by playing.
With the new content added in the last year that added new memories such as Yugong, Santa, or new Boons, and the addition of Folkways, a player starting today would take up to 200 hours to unlock everything, While many players like this (I do), I can see how this can be daunting for many, especially for those that decided to buy the expansion with the base game, maybe because they want to play with Cats right away (not suggested, they are *complex* for newcomers!)
For this reason, I made two main changes to the memory system:
More points awarded
Starting with 1.6.4, each run will net you double 50% more (MDMichele: Edited with 1.6.4c for better pacing) memory points. Also, Doom and Apocalypse events now net double the points of a normal event. This should help new players to catch up to the content.
This should also make it so that new players can unlock Shaman earlier, as I received feedback that players wanted to try her after finishing their first run (she is supposed to take roughly 1 failed run and a won run, but some players could win first try!). The game has so much content now hat it feels better to unlock content a bit earlier!
Also, the memory cap enters into effect only *after* awarding the points above 100, so to not create feel-bad situations.
Fast Memories Accessibility Option
This is an accessibility feature for players that want to unlock the whole content in less time, thus experiencing the complexity of dotAGE at a faster pacing. I am a dad, so I understand how little time one might have to play!
You will find this new option is in the settings, and once you enable it you will find a button in the Memories Screen that allows you to switch from/to the sped-up values. This greatly reduces the points needed to unlock most memories, especially reducing the point scaling for later memories, saturating to a maximum of 23 for the final memories. This basically makes it so that you can unlock a couple of memories per hour of play.
You can safely toggle this on and off once you have it enabled, so maybe you *really* want to reach cats faster, and then toggle it off for the rest! Win/win!
Please note that I am not adding the option for everything to be just unlocked instantly, because I think that would be detrimental to the experience. This is for several reasons: (1) complexity *greatly* increases with unlocked mechanics, especially if you have Folkways, so I feel that players need to play a bit with new content before unlocking the next; (2) the sequential unlock of content makes runs different both for buildings and event choices, and this is part of the experience of learning dotAGE (looking at you, Terraforming memory!), so that I think players would be missing a big part of the experience if they just unlock everything right away; and (3) some form of progression is good as for some players it can be a good incentive to play, so I want to make sure you still feel that sense of progression.
Balance and UX!
Also, this updates brings various UX and balance changes both with new and old content, thanks to the feedback I received in these two first weeks! So I thank you again for the feedback!
Here are some highlights from the patch:
- Cat ruins at the start are now more useful and less random, and their midgame received some buffs!
- Added "Relocation" action, costing 1 Turn and 1 Pip
- Tunnels now count for pathing for Trisavolo
- Latrines are now refreshing to see
- Start map generation has more creature types
- Dad received many bugfixes with Automation, as he found his old Pipbot manual
Now then, I'll be monitoring feedback as I continue working on the porting (GoG is almost there!)
In the meantime, have fun!
- Michele
V 1.6.4
UX
- Added Fast Memories accessibility options for players that prefer to unlock game elements at a faster pacing due to playtime constraints
- The "Make a Baby" random action now also works for Folks (if it cannot find base Pips)
- Pip folk type is now called "Pipfolk" to make events affecting only them less confusing
- Redrawn Comfortable Cushion and Statue to make it clear when they are built
- Added "Relocation" action, costing 1 Turn and 1 Pip, will move all Pips in a home to another. Not all Pips might be able to move with a single action (due to space, class / folk restrictions, or already having a child growing)
- Folks will not relocate automatically anymore
- Improved description of new "Pip-counting" traits to be clearer
- Trisavolo: Mining requirements now appear as special traits in mines
Balance
- Memories: Ending a run will now give double Memory points
- Memories: Doom and Apocalypse events will now give double Memory points
- Memories: Memory point cap now enters in effect after you receive the over-the-cap points, and not exactly when you reach 100 points
- Memories: Mushroom memory now appears before Dwarves to make Mushroom Collector more useful
- Memories: Pine Forest memory moved to Dwarves
- Events: Feigning Death, Lost and Found, and Prodigal Pip now trigger only if you have 12 or more Pips
- Events: Rarity of Evil boons is now 1 instead of 2
- Map: Multiple critters and creatures can now appear at map generation
- Map: At least one critter of one type is forced to appear based on your herding buildings
- Latrine: now a Leisure building instead of a Gathering building
- Percent-based Pip bonuses will now be summed together instead of being multiplied in a cascade
- Percent-based Pip bonuses on multi-Pip buildings now affect the building only partially
- Shaman: Increased consistency of Hares spawning at the start of the game
- Trisavolo: Birds will also now spawn on map generation
- Trisavolo: Tunnels now count for pathing
- Trisavolo: Cannot find "Mountain Lovers" anymore, as he already loves the mountains a bit too much
- Ronomy: Revised ruin generation to be place ruins in more useful spots
- Ronomy: Now also starts with a Fisher Pip
- Ronomy: Now also starts with Fishing Post knowledge
- Ronomy: Starts with 8 Manure instead of 6
- Ronomy: Starting food on map reduced from 12 to 0
- Dad: Dad cannot work as a Bourgeoise, as he's not that snob
- Dad: Broken Woodpips now lose all other ailments and cannot gain new one
- Dad: Broken Woodpips now cannot die repeteadly
- Dad: Tasks cannot be automated anymore
- Dad: Upgrading a building now removes automation, to preserve jobs
- Dad: Cannot perform Automation if you have only one non-Broken Pipbot (or you lose the run!)
- Added a Minimum resource cap of 20 to make sure losing your Bivoauc does not spell doom
Balance: Buildings
- Latrine: production now reduced by 1 for each Structure around it instead of being unbuildable
- Latrine: new recipe that generates 3 Hope and 1 Sickness
- Latrine: now attracts Belly events
- Large Herbal Altar: input from 2 Natural to 4 Natural
- Smelly Fertilizer: Requires 1 turn instead of 3
- Fertilize: Requires 2 turn instead of 3
- Lantern: Now uses Fuel instead of Oil
- Jail: now produces 6 per Prisoner instead of 4
- Prison: now produces 8 per Prisoner instead of 4
- Catnip House: added a recipe that transforms 6 Basic Food into 4 Hemps
- Catnip House: added a recipe that transforms 6 Elaborate Food into 4 Medicinal Herbs
- Waking House: Now also can produce Beer, so that Dwarves can better fight Drowsy with it
- Ropery: recipe changed to 3 Basic Food -> 1 Rope
- Ropewalk: recipe changed to 6 Basic Food -> 2 Rope (3 with adjacency)
- Coal Mine: Coal output from 6 to 4
- Charcoal Maker: Coal output from 8 to 6
- Coal Bounty bonus from x3 to x2
Bugfixes
- Fixed multi-turn unreachable buildings not being rebuildable from ruins after the first turn
- Fixed Mice appearing among huntable options
- Fixed creatures not appearing anymore among resource tags
- Fixed blank icon sometimes appearing in the building viewer info
- Fixed bug with the game sometimes zooming in for no reason
- Fixed visual bug with animated text sometimes messing up vertices in the game log
- Fixed skip cutscene message sometimes showing the tutorial skip message instead
- Fixed buildings sometimes showing unusable inputs
- Fixed Mushroom Picker appearing earlier than expected
- Fixed memory unlock points in the memory bar not matching the ones in the memory screen
- Dad: Fixed trying to automate certain buildings (such as hunters) blocking the game
- Dad: Fixed having disappeared automated Pips be stuck in work limbo
- Dad: Fixed Dad being able to work in multiple buildigns at once (he's not *that* good of a multitasker)
- Localization: Fixed "Eater" boon localization
- Various minor UI fixes
- Various minor localization fixes