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T3HL33TB34T

Why TFC Multiplayer is highly problematic.

13 posts in this topic

Hiya, I'm a long time player of TFC, played it since one of the builds that still had the vanilla tools, and back when cows would just drop 45 leather per kill. I don't post, I don't lurk forums, I just play, it's what I do. In general, I play, a lot more than just TFC, of course you can already assume such.

Call that a basis for my position as a professional consumer.

Now, onto my point; I don't care if this is in the wrong section, but this needs to be read by anyone who plays TFC multiplayer, or anyone who hosts a server.

The basis of the game you're playing is flawed. The ability for new players to join in and have the same amount of fun as veterans in the community is hampered by the fact that TFC is a very single-player or close-knit type of overhaul. Regardless of how you feel about this, you have to be smart enough to understand that bronze alloys require that metal to be obtainable to new players, while still being equally available to those set up. Bronze is a requirement to reach steel, steel ends up being a pseudo requirement to reach end game gear. While it's nothing to talk light over, this is quite an achievement, the costs are high, and it's rewarding to get somewhere that you can have all that going on for you, but here's the big deal.

Only a few people or groups can realistically achieve this tier per server, unless new players are forced to spread farther and farther from the center where the old folks would have likely set up. To put it super clearly; all the metal that is reachable from the surface would be gone in about two IRL days on a big server like Outlast, if not shorter. The large biome size seems to be both immersive to traverse, and effective at making sure that X stone type and X ore is present aplenty, which is nice and dandy, only 50% of that ore is hidden under the second layer of rock below, and being a particularly educated player, I can safely say that without some measure of luck, nobody would really be able to detect a lot of the ore deposits that they may even be living ontop of, simply because it's just not an easy thing to do, nor is it easy to get to. It's fun as fuck, no doubt, but it aint achievable to players who are going to have a shit time casting their first tool in the first place. A simple solution would be to bring back the shitty tool metals like Zinc and Tin, sure they're absolutely garbage, but they're something that a player could use to get at heavier duty stuff. Gold panning could be changed to be player specific rather than relevent to the chunk, this way players could of course pan in areas that someone else depleted for their first metals.

This is just one issue that is quite a big deal wrong with TFC as a largeish scale multiplayer game. We're already somewhat hampered by a small, closed community (Possibly good servers are whitelisted, additional plugins, etc) and little hurdles for the little bambi players make the possibility of a popular server staying in favor long very very unlikely, as the game can pretty much "be completed" in roughly two days of gameplay if you're somewhat lucky and proficient, or have some friends and such. But that amount of gameplay is going to deplete a lot of resources on the map, and possibly encourage players to hoard what they have because they recognize the scarcity and troublesome nature of acquiring any substantial amount of metal.

But wait, there's more. Even handling animals is pretty much "more time = more animals", sheep are as rare as they come, and cows are a necessary way to not end up with 700 health, pigs are great starting food, so they're slaughtered early because they don't have much more use. The mob spawning rate is as well, very very low. Which, in one case; is pretty good to give players urgency towards a resource, but in another sense, it is very harsh to new players looking for their stake (and steak) because they simply aren't going to be able to handle as much as the next guy.

To put it plainly, first person in, last people out. If you're the first guy to a server and you decide you're gonna get swole there, it's all yours, nobody is generally able to stop you because the community is too small, and nobody is likely to get at you.

Don't even get me started on map generation, I understand it is supposed to be random, but in my experience, it is always unfavorable in the most ridiculous ways. I've had maps so abundantly rich with metals that I was pretty much ready to start handing it out, when otherwise the trees are practically nonexistant and the only mobs I'm seeing throw spears at my noggin, flip it full circle and I have the same issue. Stupid little problems like a lack of flux, or the inability to get your hands on a starter metal always seem to arise. A simple solution to a lot of problems that I've seen would be to allow players to make lumber with some stone age implement, this would allow water manipulation and storage solutions (Give the player the ability to settle down and get the bench) without causing too much trouble. If that isn't quite fair, then change some recipes to require the saw so that it keeps it's importance.

The last major issue I can think of is a pretty shitty one; devotion.

Who wants to devote all their time into something big like a nice statue, or a rad home design, etc when it's entirely possible that it will be taken away from you, or reset and lost to the ages? It's fun while it lasted, sure, but it is something I can't blame someone for getting upset about.

This game is a really fucking fun experience. I will never forget the seriously fucking cool adventures I had, but unless there was some way to fix or alleviate the stress of scarcity and relative cost for metals, or some sort of reason to need to even do all this cool shit, I don't know if this mod will last very long in general. Here's a thought for you if this hasn't quite clicked in already; There's no point to playing TFC other than the possible creative aspect. There's no big bad guy to fight, and there likely isn't going to be any fun combat to be had, even if they tried pretty hard to give the combat better depth, it'll still just be "I saw you first, I get to kill you." and generally cheap nonsense. It'll always be feast or famine, and there will always be that desire to start over in the back of your head eating away at those precious, precious metals you spent stupid amounts of time mining without supports for.

Next time you go to play a server, think about this for a moment; Either someone's been there first and has depleted a good amount of the area you can access within two days walk, or you're the first person there, regardless, you're forced into a very fun, but ultimately hollow experience that serves to be nothing more than a mental wank. Sure, that wrought iron is really fucking good, but it just means the next guy aint gonna get any, or that you'll just lose it, or it'll never get put to use on anything non-creative.

Now before you post and get mad, you gotta know, I love this shit dearly. I wish more people would play it, I wish there was a heavier team behind it to see it to it's full potential, I also wish there was something to do other than labor monotonously for a cause that will ultimately disappear.


tl/dr: metal is expensive

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Hehe, my signature. :)

 

Also, I would like to point out: in my experience on the server that I play on, the amount of metals still undiscovered around spawn were generally not harvested until very recently, and this world has been around for around 70

in-game years. I think the reason behind this is that most people wanted to settle further away from spawn to get at the different stone types and metals (and also just variation in landscape.) Also settling away from spawn before we got mytown was protection against newbie/troll grief.

 

About players destroying your stuff, that is, unfortunately, a fact of life. Certain people are just dicks because they like to be dicks, no matter how grand or fancy your statue or house is. I myself have experienced this, mostly in the form of my blacksmith building being robbed countless times. Solution? Keep stuff in stashes out in the wilderness. Otherwise, install factions or mytown onto your server/ask the server owner to consider a land protection mod.

 

I will say in final: TFC is an acquired taste. You need to know your stuff or have someone teach you ingame, otherwise you'll be lost and alone and generally have no idea what's going on. Applying real-life logic tends to help too, in my opinion.

 

Just my 2c. Anyone can feel free to gripe or agree as much as they like, and I will respond in kind.

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Ugh...

 

After my first single-player experiences with TFC I went to play on a public server. Happy Diggers, the biggest and with oldest map, I think.

 

And I did not know how Towny works, I did not know I could teleport to other people towns.

 

They have a dynmap, so I found myself a spot I thought looks nice and I walked there. 20k blocks or something like that.

 

I died the first time, of thirst, while crossing the ocean near equator. I wised up for the second time and made myself lots of jugs, also a large vessel and a set of 18 small vessels.

 

By the time I arrived at my destination, I had a backpack full of fruit tree saplings, seeds, ore nuggets, skins and other useful stuff. I was able to make basic bronze tools (pick, saw, propick and chisel) on my first day in my new home. All on a highly populated server with a map that started a looooong time ago.

 

The fun is in the chase (for materials, animals) as much as in crafting and building.

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There are a number of good points raised in the OP, especially about the depletion of "starter" ores.

 

The view on servers is, however, one of a non-cooperative nature - the premise is that everyone has to go and do everything that he/she needs to make the normal progression just like in single player mode.

I know that this can be more rewarding than simply joining a "mature" toenship.settlement where the town has already progressed beyond the bronze age - perhaps something for the devs to think about is making other progression paths worthwhile in some king of rewarding way - e.g. making farming more 'tiered', or leathreworking - or animal husbandry...  The only problem there is that then it *may* be a very difficult mod to play in single player.

 

(fwiw I don't think that the current 'familiarisation' of animals works well on a server - you have to devote a couple of hours of real time to isimply being online to feed the animals, or when you get back from work all your efforts will be in vain, as while you've been earning your keep your animals have decided to like you less and less)

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Ugh...

 

After my first single-player experiences with TFC I went to play on a public server. Happy Diggers, the biggest and with oldest map, I think.

 

And I did not know how Towny works, I did not know I could teleport to other people towns.

 

They have a dynmap, so I found myself a spot I thought looks nice and I walked there. 20k blocks or something like that.

 

I died the first time, of thirst, while crossing the ocean near equator. I wised up for the second time and made myself lots of jugs, also a large vessel and a set of 18 small vessels.

 

By the time I arrived at my destination, I had a backpack full of fruit tree saplings, seeds, ore nuggets, skins and other useful stuff. I was able to make basic bronze tools (pick, saw, propick and chisel) on my first day in my new home. All on a highly populated server with a map that started a looooong time ago.

 

The fun is in the chase (for materials, animals) as much as in crafting and building.

This is pretty much how we look at things on our server. The world is 80 x 80KM in size, it's huge. The vast majority of resources still hasn't been depleted by players and the current map has had more than 6000 individual players on it.

 

It's true that on small maps world generation seems to be unbalanced. However when the map becomes large enough, you will get pretty much every combination of biome and resource available in TFC. Again, our map is huge so it has everything... with 1 exception. There was a bug in TFC when the map was generated that made it so that graphite would only generate in schist. This has, unintentionally, created a new challange for players. Graphite is rare on that map so either it's hard to find yourself or you need to trade for it. All in all I think it's made things more interesting.

 

As for TFC being a metal wank. You're just wrong. If you are one of those players that just has to progress through the tech tree to have fun, then that's fine. There's nothing wrong with playing that way. However TFC is more than just about getting the shiny red metal tools, just like regular Minecraft is about more than just getting diamond armor and tools. You should travel across the roads on our server and visit the towns see what people have build and the fun they've had doing that.

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... regardless, you're forced into a very fun, but ultimately hollow experience that serves to be nothing more than a mental wank...

Maybe I've been playing computer games all wrong, but imho, aside from a very few cases where I made some lasting friends, every computer game I've ever played, no matter how much depth or shiny design, was ultimately 'a wank'.  Unless you've figured out how to make irl cash off a game, or otherwise derive a lasting benefit, it's ultimately a waste of time in the same way many hobbies are.  But if you enjoy it, that's all it needs to be justified.  It's no more wasting of time than watching sports, or most of 'entertainment' television, certainly.

 

Resource-wise,  yes, on big servers you have to be willing to either travel a bit, or join another town.   It would probably help the game a lot if caving wasn't so unattractive right now due to the cave-in mechanic.  That would allow deep exploration without tedious boreholes and branch mining.  I think part of that issue stems from the creative nature though - many people don't want to have to deal with a 'committee' of townsfolk, or a dictatorial mayor - they want to build whatever they want, how they want, and also not log in and find out someone else logged out with the red bucket, or best picks.  Cooks in the kitchen and all.  And that's no fault of the game, that's human nature.

 

Edit: I would also add, that the devs have stated in the past that they are designing the game with 'small' groups in mind.  So to some degree there's a conscious choice in the design - not for huge servers. 

I believe the popping off of nuggets is what causes large servers to feel depleted.  I think people pop off starting metal for their first tools, and later pop off nuggets of good ores to 'hide' the deposits for themselves, and then don't harvest the vein before they get bored and quit, leaving a deposit with no surface clues.  Personally, I make it a policy when starting, to never pop off all surface nuggets in starting metal groups (copper, zinc, bismuth, cass), if I can avoid it.  I try to always leave at least one nugget in place as a marker.  And I NEVER pop off the surface nuggets after I have a good starting tool supply, unless I'm actively mining the vein, and have decided I want to fully pursue it.   That is, except within a couple hundred blocks of my town.  Even on a towny protected server, it's very aggravating to invite someone to your town, and then have them start running around popping off surface nuggets within a few chunks of your town.  Even then, if I ever decide to quit, I plan to go back and mark all those close veins with signs.  I think if more people would be considerate citizens like that, it would help large servers a lot.

 

I do think it's a fair point that the game is very one-dimensional in it's tech progression right now.  The metal tech is very in-depth and drawn out, and functionally - in terms of fighting badies - everything beyond maybe bronze, and certainly steel, is arguably a bit unnecessary, unless you want to move source blocks.  The other 'techs' are very shallow.  I don't think it's for lack of desire - old forum posts are littered with grand plans - it's just they don't have a big team, like you mentioned.   However, if you don't already know, there is a TFC2 in the works.  It is still in planning stages, and sounds like it will be a different sort of game in terms of the overall progression of the game.   There's still room for input there, I think, so you might want to check out that forum. 

Edited by Darmo
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See, you all get what I'm saying and you've all put up some really strong points, I ain't here to be like; "THIS IS LAW THIS IS X".

I still fucking love TFC like nobody's business. But with the way things are, man, it's a game that benefits so heavily from being able to have a community, imagine if you actually felt the need to trade resources with x group for whatever reason, or imagine if you also had something foreign and strange to explore like ancient ruins, or an NPC village a-la Millenaire. I think that there just needs to be something to help fill the gaps between metal tiers and such. Essentially, once you get to copper you could pretty much live off of it if you have enough, there's not much real reason other than; "Steel lasts longer", which is valid, but again, ultimately just a cosmetic change. Methinks that there is something missing that the game is really close to, in one sense it needs something to populate the world, in another it needs something to lengthen the tier ascension.
 

 

As for TFC being a metal wank. You're just wrong. If you are one of those players that just has to progress through the tech tree to have fun, then that's fine. There's nothing wrong with playing that way. However TFC is more than just about getting the shiny red metal tools, just like regular Minecraft is about more than just getting diamond armor and tools. You should travel across the roads on our server and visit the towns see what people have build and the fun they've had doing that.

Not metal wank, mental. Games in general are just a mental jerkoff, it's a big feelgood schtick, I just see it much easier with this because of the probability of success. I also wouldn't want to go to a bloated server like yours, no offense. It's not interesting to me. I'm actually in the process of starting up my own, and I'm already planning on working on the problems that I've named out in my post. Again, you're entitled to your opinion, and it's a decent one, but you misread me.

Even still, yeah, there is more to the game than metal ascension, but it's a huge part of it. Having stronger tools to do x job faster and for longer is a big part of that, it's an incentive, and it's pretty much become the big mission; "Get good or be trash!"

Here's something I wish I could do; I wish that I could round up a group of three or four guys, get on horses and do a lightning raid on some small hamlet. Think of the cultural impact that could have on the server, they'd gain a wartime mentality, they'd have an enemy and a clear reason to seek them out, and they'd spread that with the people they meet. Spin it around, it provides a possible gameplay perspective for me and my boys, we're mongols, we like pillaging!

Things like that can't really happen in any fair way because the servers won't be populated enough in the right places, or because the person you're raiding is into his black steel while you just made some bows and arrows. The alternative is the highly unfun; "I steal while you're gone" shit. That shit sucks both to perpetrate, and to be the victim of.

I'm also aware of TFC2, I'm hyped, but I'm also highly disinterested in waiting for the game to get it's polish, you know? I'm already waiting on a lot of things in my life. I'll be there when it's done, but hopefully what we're going to see is something with a bit more life to it.

I think that hostile mobs should be redone entirely, maybe allow more love towards animal husbandry, or some new concept enemy that isn't too hard to dispatch, but comes in varying flavors that will wreck your shit.

Anyways, I'll be posting a coop thread soon, and I'll be looking for a handful of people who are interested in something a smidgeon off the beaten path.

>inb5 bioxx is reading my thread

h-hi

Edited by T3HL33TB34T
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Without expounding in depth, the OP makes some good points. Many of which I'm specifically attempting to address by designing TFC2 to have a more directed approach while still allowing the player to do whatever they want. There is, as others have pointed out, something to be said for adjusting exactly how you approach the game. I've always stated for instance that Steel is the final tier in TFC1 and everything beyond that is pure luxury. But if you want to shoot for the colored steels then the option is available to you. As for the depth in other areas, we just don't have the manpower for that. Finding someone that I am comfortable coding along side is not an easy thing, so probably 90% of content is done by me alone.

 

Anyways, hopefully TFC2 will address some of these concerns.


Edit: wierd double post

 

Edit 2: I'd say more but Fallout 4 is calling me back.

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Some of these issues, and fact that it has been made clear TFC is maintenance mode only,are why we've forked TFC to tweak.

For our pack we've added in stone, sticks and nuggets respawning. It happens slowly and only when it is cold. This means area around spawn, if not too far south, has stuff for new players. It also means ore nuggets will mark veins, so hiding or losing them is harder. It only happens on chunk loading too, so it they don't pop up in front of you. We will also be making seaweed respawn as well.

There are a lot of changes that can be made, even simple ones like a 2x2 recipe for boats, that make it more server friendly.

Unlike modpacks servers are allowed advertising on forums with unofficial and unsupported TFC builds, so you are free to tweak without having to delete your thread.

But in the end most things are determined by player behaviour. The difference between a good server and a great server is the dedication and creativity of players.

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There are a lot of tfc features that would need to be rethink for the mod to be truly geared towards Multiplayer.

 


  • Now, onto my point; I don't care if this is in the wrong section, but this needs to be read by anyone who plays TFC multiplayer, or anyone who hosts a server.

    The basis of the game you're playing is flawed. The ability for new players to join in and have the same amount of fun as veterans in the community is hampered by the fact that TFC is a very single-player or close-knit type of overhaul. Regardless of how you feel about this, you have to be smart enough to understand that bronze alloys require that metal to be obtainable to new players, while still being equally available to those set up. Bronze is a requirement to reach steel, steel ends up being a pseudo requirement to reach end game gear. While it's nothing to talk light over, this is quite an achievement, the costs are high, and it's rewarding to get somewhere that you can have all that going on for you, but here's the big deal.

    Only a few people or groups can realistically achieve this tier per server, unless new players are forced to spread farther and farther from the center where the old folks would have likely set up. To put it super clearly; all the metal that is reachable from the surface would be gone in about two IRL days on a big server like Outlast, if not shorter. The large biome size seems to be both immersive to traverse, and effective at making sure that X stone type and X ore is present aplenty, which is nice and dandy, only 50% of that ore is hidden under the second layer of rock below, and being a particularly educated player, I can safely say that without some measure of luck, nobody would really be able to detect a lot of the ore deposits that they may even be living ontop of, simply because it's just not an easy thing to do, nor is it easy to get to. It's fun as fuck, no doubt, but it aint achievable to players who are going to have a shit time casting their first tool in the first place. A simple solution would be to bring back the shitty tool metals like Zinc and Tin, sure they're absolutely garbage, but they're something that a player could use to get at heavier duty stuff. Gold panning could be changed to be player specific rather than relevent to the chunk, this way players could of course pan in areas that someone else depleted for their first metals. 

     

    Actually the metal is there. You just have no idea, because the previous players collected all the nuggets.

    I always hated the mentality of going exploring and just collecting all the nuggets you find. The worst is that the next player has no idea that there is a vein right there. Not sure what the best solution would be, but something need to be changed to make this work  better in a true multiplayer environment. For me the nuggets are just to mark the location of the veins. Maybe make then yield no  metal so people would not pick them up. Or have a specific flower only grow directly above veins. ( It is proved that certain plants are related to the existence of metal veins. ( This way people can get the nuggets, but the next player will at least know that there is a vein there.) Also the prospector pick could have it's range extended to at least the same as the requirements for nuggets. ( So we have so much mineral down there that nuggets are appearing on the surface, but the prospect pick cant see? )

    This is just one issue that is quite a big deal wrong with TFC as a largeish scale multiplayer game. We're already somewhat hampered by a small, closed community (Possibly good servers are whitelisted, additional plugins, etc) and little hurdles for the little bambi players make the possibility of a popular server staying in favor long very very unlikely, as the game can pretty much "be completed" in roughly two days of gameplay if you're somewhat lucky and proficient, or have some friends and such. But that amount of gameplay is going to deplete a lot of resources on the map, and possibly encourage players to hoard what they have because they recognize the scarcity and troublesome nature of acquiring any substantial amount of metal.

     

    It gives me the impression whenever I hear Kitty talking about Multiplayer servers that she disapproves the way most servers work, with people pretty much playing hermit. In that sense I have to agree with her. If you want to play by yourself do it in single player. At the same time a small group of 3 to 5 players do not really represent Multiplayer in my mind. I like the interaction between people that have never met, to know that the people in my town have different backgrounds, from other countries, languages and cultures, that can only be achieved in an open server. On the other hand as a server owner I am prepping a new server, where town creation will be very limited, at the start everyone will be part of the same town, after the spawn area is build small groups will be designated to go and start towns, but there will be no hermits.

    But wait, there's more. Even handling animals is pretty much "more time = more animals", sheep are as rare as they come, and cows are a necessary way to not end up with 700 health, pigs are great starting food, so they're slaughtered early because they don't have much more use. The mob spawning rate is as well, very very low. Which, in one case; is pretty good to give players urgency towards a resource, but in another sense, it is very harsh to new players looking for their stake (and steak) because they simply aren't going to be able to handle as much as the next guy.

     

    This is an issue that many people complain in almost every servers, most servers set up markets where people can buy animal eggs. Not the best solution, but we work with the tools that we have.  Everytime we bring the subject in the forum they tell us the wild animals respawn, but in every server what we hear is that after a while no one can find cows or sheep. What I think would work is to have more control over mob spawning. maybe just a bigger rate of spawning.. One way to make it so is not a dependable food source would be to minimize the meat harvested from wild animals. ( It makes sense, since wild animals are usually very thin from running from predators, farm animals yield a lot more meat.

    To put it plainly, first person in, last people out. If you're the first guy to a server and you decide you're gonna get swole there, it's all yours, nobody is generally able to stop you because the community is too small, and nobody is likely to get at you.

    Don't even get me started on map generation, I understand it is supposed to be random, but in my experience, it is always unfavorable in the most ridiculous ways. I've had maps so abundantly rich with metals that I was pretty much ready to start handing it out, when otherwise the trees are practically nonexistant and the only mobs I'm seeing throw spears at my noggin, flip it full circle and I have the same issue. Stupid little problems like a lack of flux, or the inability to get your hands on a starter metal always seem to arise. A simple solution to a lot of problems that I've seen would be to allow players to make lumber with some stone age implement, this would allow water manipulation and storage solutions (Give the player the ability to settle down and get the bench) without causing too much trouble. If that isn't quite fair, then change some recipes to require the saw so that it keeps it's importance.

     

    With a big enough map you can have all the resources needed. In my new server we changed the recipe for the crafting grid, all it requires is 4 sticks, but we are holding back metals so it will take longer for people to reach copper age.

    The last major issue I can think of is a pretty shitty one; devotion.

    Who wants to devote all their time into something big like a nice statue, or a rad home design, etc when it's entirely possible that it will be taken away from you, or reset and lost to the ages? It's fun while it lasted, sure, but it is something I can't blame someone for getting upset about.

    So far in most servers I have ever played the world file is made available when a new map is reset. I for one intend on uploading the file when resetting the map, so you would be able to open the map in single player.

    This game is a really fucking fun experience. I will never forget the seriously fucking cool adventures I had, but unless there was some way to fix or alleviate the stress of scarcity and relative cost for metals, or some sort of reason to need to even do all this cool shit, I don't know if this mod will last very long in general. Here's a thought for you if this hasn't quite clicked in already; There's no point to playing TFC other than the possible creative aspect. There's no big bad guy to fight, and there likely isn't going to be any fun combat to be had, even if they tried pretty hard to give the combat better depth, it'll still just be "I saw you first, I get to kill you." and generally cheap nonsense. It'll always be feast or famine, and there will always be that desire to start over in the back of your head eating away at those precious, precious metals you spent stupid amounts of time mining without supports for.

    We are trying to make combat harder, not sure if it will really work, but we will try.

    Next time you go to play a server, think about this for a moment; Either someone's been there first and has depleted a good amount of the area you can access within two days walk, or you're the first person there, regardless, you're forced into a very fun, but ultimately hollow experience that serves to be nothing more than a mental wank. Sure, that wrought iron is really fucking good, but it just means the next guy aint gonna get any, or that you'll just lose it, or it'll never get put to use on anything non-creative.

    Now before you post and get mad, you gotta know, I love this shit dearly. I wish more people would play it, I wish there was a heavier team behind it to see it to it's full potential, I also wish there was something to do other than labor monotonously for a cause that will ultimately disappear.

    I believe if the mod had as much depth to the other aspects of survival as it has to metallurgy it would be a whole new game. The way the mod works now is like you have a smith able to live by himself and from having absolute nothing is able to survive, build a castle and research high tier metals, and quickly.

    The ideal situation would be one where we had as much steps in creating a farm and producing food as we have to make steel. the same could be said for animal husbandry. We should have a  minimum number of people working together that would be able to barely survive and to make the great monuments more people would be needed.

    Just imagine how a real village behaves, how many people are needed to work farming the fields and tending the animals just to be able to support one smith.

    On one thing at least I think everyone agrees with you. we all love this mod, and the critics that we have are more about the fact that it is so great, but it always feels like something that is not finished. Maybe if we had 10 developers working full time for one year they would be able to really finish this mod. Right now we can only be grateful for the amazing work that was done for people donating their spare time. 
    tl/dr: metal is expensive

     

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Some of these issues, and fact that it has been made clear TFC is maintenance mode only,are why we've forked TFC to tweak.

For our pack we've added in stone, sticks and nuggets respawning. It happens slowly and only when it is cold. This means area around spawn, if not too far south, has stuff for new players. It also means ore nuggets will mark veins, so hiding or losing them is harder. It only happens on chunk loading too, so it they don't pop up in front of you. We will also be making seaweed respawn as well.

There are a lot of changes that can be made, even simple ones like a 2x2 recipe for boats, that make it more server friendly.

Unlike modpacks servers are allowed advertising on forums with unofficial and unsupported TFC builds, so you are free to tweak without having to delete your thread.

But in the end most things are determined by player behaviour. The difference between a good server and a great server is the dedication and creativity of players.

I love this idea. would it be possible to tweak animal respawning in the same way?

On the crafting grid I really think the way to go is to make the full grid available on first login and limit the progression using other mechanics.

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Here's something I wish I could do; I wish that I could round up a group of three or four guys, get on horses and do a lightning raid on some small hamlet. Think of the cultural impact that could have on the server, they'd gain a wartime mentality, they'd have an enemy and a clear reason to seek them out, and they'd spread that with the people they meet. Spin it around, it provides a possible gameplay perspective for me and my boys, we're mongols, we like pillaging!

Things like that can't really happen in any fair way because the servers won't be populated enough in the right places, or because the person you're raiding is into his black steel while you just made some bows and arrows. The alternative is the highly unfun; "I steal while you're gone" shit. That shit sucks both to perpetrate, and to be the victim of.

I'm also aware of TFC2, I'm hyped, but I'm also highly disinterested in waiting for the game to get it's polish, you know? I'm already waiting on a lot of things in my life. I'll be there when it's done, but hopefully what we're going to see is something with a bit more life to it.

If you like going on raids, grieving and stealing from other players then joining a Spigot server with Factions or a similar plugin to facilitate that would probably be a better idea. On pretty much any TFC server people who do what you want to do get banned quickly. It's just not fun being the victim of a bunch of pillaging mongols after you've put in hours of work just to get some precious metals.

 

I don't think there is a scenario where a meaningful balance can exist between griefers and non-griefers on a TFC server. You are starting your own server. I encourage you to try what you want to do and find out how well it works. You are certainly not alone in your wish for a 'chaos' server where people can raid, grief and steal. I get asked to allow this kind of gameplay quite regularly. I'd like to be proven wrong in my assumptions because I think it's always a good thing to have as many different servers as possible. It gives people choices on how they wish to enjoy the game.

 

Also I don't mind if you think our servers are bloated. Although I am interested in knowing what you think is bloated about our Hardcore server. Basically it's TFC + the bare minimum to prevent griefing and theft.

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Edit 2: I'd say more but Fallout 4 is calling me back.

 

lol  I've got 38 hours in and have only scratched the surface.  Good thing I don't have a life. ;)

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