Spiders, Bugs, Feedback and Review

[krausladen]

TLDR: Make the game harder, make our threats smarter and more capable of unstucking themselves, climbing, etc.  Give threats less predictable patterns.  Give mosquitos, spiders, and other insects map wide traversing patterns all the time, give us the ability to scale their perception to make it a little harder to stay out of sight, but maintain and improve the line of sight detection.

I really like the spiders in this game, but they could be more lethal.  I read a bug post that players were complaining that the spiders fit into area's that are too small for their bodies: I encourage the developers to get familiar with the realities that spiders can squeeze through holes smaller than their bodies (to a limit).  They are not made of bone, they are not the size of the length of their legs, beware.  They are the among the most lethal invertebrates for any creature the size of an Ant, and I believe they should remain that way.  

One of the problems I have with Spiders right now is that they are a little too predictable.  They pace.  They only wander a little bit.  I think if we have a difficulty slider, in the games current state, I would slide Spiders to the maximum difficulty.  They're pretty easy to avoid if you don't go out in the dark.  Even then, their perception is pretty nerfed.  One issue I have is they can see you when you're in the hut - I don't like that - but they won't attack the hut if you're seen - I don't like that either.  When the spider seeing you in the hut is fixed, I think that if they see you run into your hut that it should attempt to break in.  If you're one of those people insane enough to build a house with one way in or out, I think you should be **** out of luck in that case.

Also, I noticed orb weavers getting stuck in a corner of the map near the etch a sketch.  There were 3-5 of them hanging out over there.  

Creatures I wish were added:
Inchworms, caterpillar, moth, dandy longlegs, maggots, flies, (maybe pair them with a pile of dog ****), termites (i think) like in the movie Antz, leeches, earthworms, dragon flies, may flies, butterflies, the family dog.  

The airflow of the game is too static.  I think there should be a little bit of wind effect added if possible.  There's a real good reason that this makes sense.  If you're like me, you use watching for the grass moving to spot large insects.  Adding a tad of wind will make this a little harder to do.  That's something that could play into changes in the day to day gameplay using weather events.  Each day should start and end with a weather setting.  Windy, cloudy, (rain?), moon phases, temperature changes, etc.  This is all stuff that could indicate to the insects what kind of behavior they're going to have.  Full moon?  Spiders are out hunting in the moonlight.  Hot temperature?  Water drains faster, spiders are more dormant, etc.  Cloudy?  Water doesn't drain as fast for lack of sunlight.  Temperature drops.  Spiders are more active.  I feel like with the traversion rule changes in the bug AI, that tinkering with weather behavior could be a little easier, because rather than change the pacing patterns statically, you'd be changing the decision making process the AI goes through on the day to day.  

DIFFICULTY:

I touched on this a little earlier.  In the games current state, the insect patterns, pacing, and behaviors are all very predictable.  The game captures realism at first, but the longer I play, the more I learn the AI of the insects and it becomes way too easy to know what exactly I can do to basically be invincible.  Climbing rocks makes it impossible for ants to reach me.  Staying out of the dark means there will almost be no instance of running into the wolf spiders.  Orb weavers are blind at a distance.  The koifish can't swim past the stem of a lilypad.  

I think one of the biggest issues plaguing insect AI is that they cannot traverse the absolutely stunning and beautiful environment that Obsidian built for us.  If a soldier ant locks in on me, the only choice should be to run or fight.  Climbing something to avoid an ant makes nooooo sense at all.   I haven't climbed anything to avoid spiders because I've never had to.  They're easy enough to avoid for me to never worry about it.  Making spiders less predictable, unbound to a location, random path finding, giving them the ability to traverse rocks and crevices, making their movement fluid, I realize may be really hard, but it's what needs to happen.  The rocks, cliffs, fences, etc all need to be painted with a checkered pattern of nodes for the spider legs to lock onto so they can climb and roam freely.  There should be a setting though that lets players elect to play with free roam insects where spiders chance their patterns every day or every couple of days.   I like the unpredictable challenge and the realism of the idea, and I have a feeling many players like myself would welcome such changes. I also understand there are going to be a lot of players that much prefer the game in its current state where they can avoid spiders more easily - but I do believe they need to be more lethal and intelligent.  The same notion applies to other creatures like mosquitos.  They should not be bound to a specific location and they should appear randomly from anywhere on the map.

DIFFICULTY: DROPPED ITEMS / BACKPACKS ETC
I think the game is too generous when you die, especially by Spiders or Antz.  Damage the goods, rob us a little bit - make it a choice for us to make the game more penalizing.  At its worst in the current save structure, players who REALLY don't want to lose what they had can reload - players that like the game to be harder - take the goods.  Also, EXPIRE THE BACKPACK after a day or two.  If I die and decide not to get the rest of whats in my backpack, it should delete after 3 days.  If I haven't gotten it within a day or two, it probably isn't that important so the icon becomes noise.   We shouldn't be faced with the choice of retrieving our backpacks for the purpose of removing an icon from the screen or just putting up with it.

INTERFACE:
Inventory and Crafting should be the first two things in the tab.  Crafting is currently after mutations/status.  I don't know if I just haven't been pressing the right control button, but I think opening directly to the crafting menu, and opening directly to the inventory screen should be possible.  Repairing held items should be possible without even going to the interface screens, imo.  Quality of life improvements.

I hope the goal is to eventually get to our neighbors yard, or be able to walk the full distance around the house.  Great game, absolutely beautiful. 
Graphics: 11/10
Gameplay: 8.0/10
Tutorial: 9/10
Interface: 8/10
Difficulty: 7/10 (too easy, bad AI)
My water and food stress set to medium: Perfect balance of food and water.  Sustenance Survival balance 10/10

 

[Kallip]

Ok, so your issue is...  You've been playing for awhile and now that you have good armor and weapons, have dew collectors and chests full of equipment, you've learned the tricks and traps of the yard and now the game is too easy.  I understand this, I have full lady bug armor and bone tridents and chests full of food and gear, multiple bases and I can solo an orb weaver.  I also just started a new game with some friends.  We are getting one shotted by mosquitos, in fact a single mosquito killed all 4 of us and we spent more than an hour trying to get our backpacks back.  Orb weavers are deadly serious.  Finding enough food and drink is a serious challenge.    My suggestion is higher difficulty settings.   Don't make the game inaccessible for new players just to give older players a challenge.