Posts by LittleBoBleat

Agreed! I've been really hoping that NPCs get some life-like attributes, even something simplistic (like the weather commentary). I haven't tried any Japanese games, so I don't know what type of interactions they would have. I know a lot of games have mods to make NPCs interactable, when it would be stellar just having in-depth NPCs as part of the game itself -- sort of like a Red Dead 2 type idea but more personal if that makes sense.

Had some further thought on the romance side of it, and came up with a few more suggestions for what that might look like:

Getting Married:

1. Obtain a Ring

- Obtain certain ores --> smelt/craft into a ring.

- OR purchase from a jeweler merchant.

- Fancier rings might increase chance of proposal acceptance (NPC only).

2. Propose

- Player with a ring can propose to another player or NPC that is not married. NPCs must be an adult.

- If the NPC is someone else’s child, then the parent player can decide if they will “bestow their blessing” and allow the proposing player to marry their (adult) kid. Would transfer that NPC out of their original family to the other player.

3. Married Status

- Being married unlocks a married buff (faster stam regen or something) and the procreate option. Also unlocks commands and task assignments for an NPC partner.

NPC Children

1. Spawning Children

- Using the procreate option with a visual of hearts or something, the adult female (whether player or NPC) becomes pregnant for x duration. After pregnancy, 1-3 infants are spawned, with higher numbers being more rare. Perhaps odds can be increased with an item or certain food?

2. Adopting Children

- Players can adopt children of various ages from an orphanage “merchant”, but can be expensive.

- Players can also put up their children for adoption as well, but in doing so cannot get them back again.

3. Age Stages

- There are five Age Stages: Infant, Toddler, Child, Teenager, and Adult. Each stage requires a bed, food, and clothing, but can vary slightly between them (ex: babies need goat milk, but other ages can eat actual food).

- Not every stage has the same interaction level, with infants having the lowest (no, they can’t do chores) and teenagers/adults having the highest.

4. Child Help

- Teen and older family members can be assigned to take care of younger children (feeding, carrying, guarding, etc). Players can also hire a nanny to do the same, but would be super expensive.

- If skills are added to the game, players might be able to hire a tutor to “teach” their kid skills at a faster pace than the kid gaining experience by doing.

Emotes / Visual Actions:

Just for fun. Having emotes in the game that can be used to trigger events.

- Handshake — agree to take on a quest

- Head Shake — turn down a quest option / other “no” instances

- Propose — down on one knee

- Marry — slide ring on finger (auto plays if proposal accepted)

- Rejected — some sad emote (auto plays if proposal rejected)

- Romantic (if married): Kiss, Hug, Hold Hands

- Rock Paper Scissors (can play with NPC child and older)

- Carry Child: In Arms (baby), On Hips (baby, toddler), On Shoulders (toddler), On Back (child)

Note: If you need ideas, the game HEAT: Homestead (abandoned game) has decent examples of how to incorporate this. Not a fan of their procreation idea, need something more PG, but the general gist.

While the current game has tiers, they aren't mandatory for progression and can be altogether skipped as soon as you find an iron node. Wondering if there might be a plan to introduce a tiered system or something similar to the below photo that slows progression down a little to lengthen game play? Sort of like how Minecraft has their tier system that allows players to progress, but doesn't affect the creativity level the players can use.

(photo from the game HEAT: Homestead)

Would love to have in-depth NPCs that can be used as hired hands, merchants/traders, quest givers, romantic partners, and children.

Hired Hands:

Whether hired, rescued, or otherwise obtained, it would be nice to have workers that can be assigned tasks to help out, such as tree chopping or guarding. Different than family members.

Merchants / Traders:

NPCs that have specific trades and an inventory that matches their trade. Carpenters sell wood-related items, tailors sell clothes, etc. Can even have an orphanage “merchant” to adopt kids.

Quest Givers:

NPCs that give quests. Could be something as simple as “Do / get this for me, I’ll give you this in exchange.” Possible reputation mechanic.

Romance:

Would love the option to settle down with a player (like my irl partner) or an NPC and raise NPC children. Spouses and children can be given commands like “Follow Me” or “Guard This Area”, or assigned tasks such as “Plant Seeds" or "Hunt Nearby" or "Mine for Ore". Kids might not be able to do much until they hit adult, but they could milk animals or gather eggs or help garden.

Note: If NPCs have can have text chat/responses, the ability to modify or add onto the chat would be cool (for servers or a mod).

The game is an open world sandbox, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't have survival elements. A good example of this is Minecraft, where the player CAN do anything, with an option between creative (which is different than sandbox) and survival experience. Minecraft still has tiers of progression and a survival feel, despite being a sandbox.

I think of this game as a mix between Minecraft and what HEAT: Homestead could have been. It has a lot of potential, and I love the interaction level between player and crafting stations, as well as the flexibility of a voxel world. I'm hoping that this game keeps building on this, as it is so far potentially my favorite game! Just need animal and human NPC interactions, plus some cooking, and I'm set.

And if anyone knows how (or if there is a mod for) building pieces rather than blocks, I'd really appreciate the insight! I work better with "window" and "wall" and "roof" type pieces, and really struggle with the current building mechanics in-game (so much so I still live out of the primitive tent).

Building off of og’s post, some other feedback:

Animals:

While wild animals do a lot of damage, I’m all for it. Reason being the player can currently outrun any animal in-game, and can take down even neutral/aggressive animals with primitive stone tools without taking damage by staying behind them (turn is slow). Some animals that could defend themselves don’t (or don’t defend babies/herdmates), and willingly let players get close enough to attack. However, some food for thought:

1. Untamed (non-aggressive) animals should be skittish around players, moving away if the player gets too close. This also means that wild sheep cannot be shorn and wild cows/goats/sheep cannot be milked (which is more realistic if we have taming).

2. Adult animals should be faster than the player. Not only does it add a sense of danger for larger animals (although you can use terrain advantages to escape), but it encourages the realistic use of ranged weapons for hunting. Animals, with the exception of babies and maybe chickens, should be able to outrun any melee combat.

3. Animals turn speed should be adjusted and/or faster to prevent cheesing.

4. Most animals should defend themselves, their baby, and/or a herdmate if attacked (cows and pigs are very dangerous irl).

(Red already responded to this)

5. Add visual gender differences for animals missing them, like chickens (rooster vs hen), pigs (boar vs sow), and horses (stallion vs mare). Will really benefit from this in future breeding.

Can’t wait for the taming update!

Food:

Food is too easy to obtain. Between easy hunting, frequent (and very filling) apples, and crops found practically everywhere, my character doesn’t need to put in any effort to find / obtain food.

1. More challenging hunting. Animals move away from the player if too close, requiring ranged weapons and crouching to get within range of a hit. Currently swimming in meat due to easy hunting.

2. Wild crops should be harder to come by, so harvesting by hand could give you a seed, a crop, or a rotten crop, rather than guaranteed food. Certain crops can’t be eaten uncooked anyways (ex: potatoes).

3. Reduce number of fruit trees. Apples fill up way too much food/water, and should be greatly reduced in value to encourage other sources of nourishment (ex: 1 food, 2 water). However, the value is better when in recipes such as apple pie (when cooking update comes out).

4. Add seasons that certain crops (or trees) can grow in, so apples and wild crops aren’t available (or found in the wild) year round.

5. Increased food/water drain, especially in hot/cold climates, when low health (uses to recover health), or when recovering stamina after being completely used up.

Gameplay Extension:

Currently the gamplay is very quick, going from primitive stone to metal tier as soon as you find an ore node.

1. Extend primitive tier. Start with no tools, tiers being more so wood —> stone —> copper / iron —> steel (not iron), etc. Bone and antler tools could also be a possibility before iron tier. Each tier can only harvest the materials for the tiers below it (if any) and the one directly above it.

2. Tools can only harvest particular resources. The beginning tool (if kept) could be a primitive axe that only harvests wood, but shouldn’t be an all-in-one. Loose stone is found on the ground as is (possibly sticks too if added) and can be used to obtain stone tools.

3. Use stamina when using tools, and reduce stamina usage while running. Chopping trees and mining ore take no stamina, but running takes a lot.

4. Other ways to extend the game length between tiers. Hoping to make the beginning more challenging and increase length of play. 😄

Would love to see ducks, geese, and turkeys. Not only can they be found wild, but they are all domesticatable species too. Feathers used for arrows (as I saw someone else say further up), and possible down for bedding or clothes. If they swam too, that would be so cool! (not the turkeys though lol)

Been loving this game, and the interaction for crafting stations making the game feel more immersive! Hoping this feedback might inspire a similar feel for animals and the eventual animal husbandry update.

Animal Updates:

• Increase adult animal movement speed to be faster than player.
• Faster animal turning to prevent players from staying behind the animal while attacking (takes no damage).
• Make wild animals skittish and run away if the player gets too close.
• Cannot milk or shear wool from wild animals, but can harvest wool from wild sheep corpses.
• Animals defend themselves, their babies, and occasionally their herd mates. Requires sneaking up with ranged weapons rather than outrun and chop to death with primitive hammer.
• An over-hunting (risk of extinction) mechanic, requiring players to be careful about how much they hunt. Game might have a set number of adult animals in the world. Every so often (or in Spring if seasons), babies are spawned in a herd that has at least one male and one female. Babies slowly grow into adults over time, making herds bigger to a certain cap. Killing all the adults puts babies at risk of being eaten by predators without protection, and overall the risk of that herd or even species going extinct. Can purchase extinct animals from trader, but will be extremely expensive.
• New Animal Ideas: Bees, Cats, Dogs, Ducks, Geese, Turkeys, Fish, Small Wild Cat (Lynx?)

Taming:

• Immersive taming by capturing babies early game, and working up to capturing adults late game (more dangerous).
• Require horses to be tamed before riding. Dismount key bind would be lovely.
• Most babies can be captured by picking up, from chicks up to lambs and piglets. Wild-caught baby mammals grow faster if bottle-fed goat milk over cow milk.

Breeding:

• If going with passive breeding (animals reproduce on their own), have pregnancy / egg hatch be chance-based rather than a guarantee to prevent overcrowding and resources being too easy to obtain. QoL idea could be a “contraception” toggle to pause breeding for certain animals.
• If going with active breeding (Minecraft-style of feeding to create baby), have pregnancy / egg hatch be guaranteed to prevent excessive grind and high maintenance, and balance with slower growth. QoL idea could be a breeding UI that displays offspring potential between 2 parents before breeding (if there are traits, colors, etc inherited).
• Gender Icons & Visual Differences - Animals have visual gender differences and gender icons starting as babies (possible bird exception) to make it easier to sort males from females. So you can tell calves apart at birth, or pigs apart while out taming.
• Genetics – Wild-tamed animals produce very little, but selective breeding creates better animals. Example: Breeding black bull to red and white cow. Father’s genes are good milker but bad meat, mother’s genes are average milker but large body for meat. Baby gets a mixed percentage (or range) of both parents’ genes.(credit to Marxell)
• Players can create their own breeds by having consistent-trait offspring for x generations.
• Family Tree: Helps prevent inbreeding, which might lead to bad traits or other negative consequences. Encourages capturing more than just 2 animals of each species, and decent stock is possible with 5 animals (1 male 4 females example — http://www.barbadosblackbelly.…d_this/articles/1_ram.htm)
• Players can create unique combos either by chance or through certain crosses such as Donkey + Horse = Mule or Pig + Pig = Mini Pig chance.

Resource Production & Utility:

• Egg-layers cannot lay more than 1 egg per day, but can lay a range of eggs “per week” (number of eggs / 7 = % chance to lay egg per day). Would love a flock of chickens, rather than be swamped with eggs from one super-bird. 🐓
• Dairy animals are unable to produce milk without breeding first.
• Passive Resources: Eggs (chickens/ducks), Fertile Eggs (all birds), Cow Milk, Goat Milk (used to feed baby mammals), Sheep Wool (cannot shear wild animals)
• Meat: Raw Meat (most animals), Raw Beef (cattle), Raw Fish Fillet (butchered whole fish), Raw Mutton (sheep/goat), Raw Pork (swine), Raw Poultry (butchered whole bird), Raw Venison (deer)
• Meat: Whole [insert animal] - Chicken, Duck, Goose, Turkey, Fish, Hare, and Rat.
• Unique Pelt: Hare Pelt
• Unique Resources: Antlers, Bones, Claws, Fangs, Feathers, Fish Bones, Horns, Shark Teeth, Tusks (boars vs elephants)
• Unique Utility:
  • Draft Work: Can plow fields, operate mill (harness), haul lumber sled, pull wagons, and more. (Donkeys —> Cattle & Mules —> Draft Horses)
  • Packing: Can store resources in packs for transport, with some species being able to carry more. (Riding Horses —> Draft Horses & Mules —> Donkeys)
  • Riding: A source of transportation, with some species being faster and/or with better stamina. (Donkeys —> Draft Horses & Mules —> Riding Horses)

Looking forward to the husbandry update!

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Animal Resource Math - Top Producers of the 1800’s (considering livestock have to be tamed first).

Chickens/Ducks:

• Poor Layers / Meat Birds: 50-80 eggs per year (14% - 22% chance per day)
• Average Layers: 100-120 eggs per year (27% - 33% chance per day)
• Good Layers: 130-160 eggs per year (36% - 44% chance per day)
• Excellent Layers: 180-220 eggs per year for chickens (49% - 60% chance per day) and 160-180 eggs per year for ducks (44% - 49% chance).

• Record Layers: 310 eggs per year for chickens (85% chance per day) and 230 eggs per year for ducks (63% chance per day).
• So a poor laying hen would only lay up to 2 eggs each week, while a record laying hen might lay up to 6 eggs per week.

Dairy Cattle:

• Poor Milker: about ½ gallon per day (non-meat breeds)
• Average Milker: about ¾ -1 gallon per day (non-meat breeds)
• Top Milker: about 1 ½ - 2 gallons per day (non-meat breeds)
• Record Milker: about 2 ½ gallons per day
• Cow Butter Math:
  • Milk to Cream Ratio: 1 gallon milk = 1 pint of cream (& 7 pints milk)
  • Cream to Butter Ratio: 1 pint cream = 5oz butter (1/3lb) --> 1 stick of butter = 4 oz --> 1 gal cow milk = ~ 1.3 sticks of butter
  • A poor producing cow could make just over 1/2 stick of butter each day, but a record producer could make over 3 sticks of butter each day.

Dairy Goats:

• Poor Milker: about ½ - ¾ quarts per day (about 16oz - 24oz per day)
• Average Milker: about 1 - 1 ½ quarts per day (about 32oz - 48oz per day)
• Top Milker: about 2 quarts per day (about 64oz per day)
• Record Milker: about 2 ½ quarts per day (about 80oz per day)
• Goat Butter Math:
  • Milk to Cream Ratio: 3 qts milk = 1 cup cream (1/4 quart)
  • Cream to Butter Ratio: 1/4 qt cream = .5 cups of butter (4oz) = 1 stick butter
  • A poor producing goat could make 1 stick of butter each week, while a record producer could make just over 1 stick of butter each day.

Sheep Wool:

• Poor Producers: .18 - 1.68 pounds per year (about 3oz - 27oz per year)
• Average Producers: about 1.95 - 2.43 pounds per year (about 31oz - 39oz per year)
• Good Producers: about 2.68 - 3.28 pounds per year (about 43oz - 53oz per year)
• Record Producers: 3.62 pounds per year (about 58oz per year)
• Wool Math (taken from a weaver):
  • Grease Wool (right off the sheep) to Clean Wool: 2 pounds grease : 1 pound clean
  • Clean Wool to Hanks: 1 pound wool = 60 hanks of standard worsted yarn (1 hank = 560 yards)
  • Clean Wool to Yarn Yards: 1 pound wool = 33,600 yards of yarn
  • Yarn to Fabric: 2.4 yards of yarn = 1 yard of fabric (1 fabric bolt = 200 yards - 60” x 40yds)
  • Small Men’s Tunic = 1,760 yards fabric
  • Grease Wool to Small Men’s Tunic: 4oz grease wool = 2oz clean wool = 7.5 hanks / 4224 yards of yarn = 1760 yards of fabric = 1 small men’s tunic
  • A poor producing sheep wouldn’t be able to make a single tunic each year, but a record producer could make about 14 (rounded down).