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ChubbyPitbull posted:Not sure if this plays into voting or is just some character building, all I know is Estelle is a good sport: I would be as well if my extra appendage was amputated and left me with a normal number of digits.
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Apr 16, 2024 04:14
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Old Doggy Bastard posted:I would be as well if my extra appendage was amputated and left me with a normal number of digits. Her entire leg got eaten is the joke
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Apr 16, 2024 07:11
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Overall, I'm really enjoying the beta. Game is good, and I like the challenge of establishing a thriving society in this hellhole instead of eking out a living with a small colony. Placement of buildings and districts is pretty straightforward, but that plus the frostbreaking mechanic gives some good early game planning dilemmas as you try to get your budget to work. Some observations from a playthrough I just finished of the Frostpunk 2 Beta: It's far better to go for the iron deposits than the wood deposits. Since extraction districts have their own output, you can basically just build 2 expanded extraction districts on the 2 iron deposits and forget about materials entirely. Goods are the same way, and you can place the goods district wrapped around the iron extraction district to save on labor. Foragers get extremely silly midgame - you can run the +15 exploration team building, then when you get a second logistic district, get 2 of the forager building that reduces the number of exploration teams needed. I had those + a law that reduced the number of teams and exploration suddenly was free, which was hilarious. Your coal will run out, especially if you throw down two mines on one patch. I'd recommend tapping both patches ASAP and trying to reduce the amount of heat you need as much as possible to keep the coal on site as an emergency backup for when the storm hits. Getting a coal mine or two out in the frostlands can help significantly with that. As far as I can tell, Foragers/Icebloods are just straight up better than the Machinists. Everything they have is more coal-efficient, and after the very early game, workforce ceases to be an issue quite quickly (especially if you bring in a group of refugees or two). Also the heatstamps generation from the Merit laws makes the whole run a lot easier because being able to build more stuff solves almost every problem in a city builder. Hopefully there's a balance pass before release that addresses some of the discrepancy.
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Apr 18, 2024 15:15
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I was a little shaky on the change to Frostopolis rather than a scrappy shanty town but it sounds like they pulled it off fairly well. Imo a lot of it will come down to balance in time, which is something that games in a similar vein have lived and died on, like Ixion. The political system seems like a natural extension of the game and also makes more sense for approval ratings. The original always had this weird feeling where you would put something unpopular in place that was the only thing that was keeping people from dying and get hated for it, or even killed if things are going badly enough. Having the population be much larger makes that kind of thing make more sense since there is more distance between the people and the politics.
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Apr 18, 2024 16:05
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Please don't mention Ixion, remembering trying to play that gives me stress headaches. I don't think it's a bad game, but if you think Frostpunk is hard that thing is laughing at you.
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Apr 19, 2024 04:11
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Waiting for full release to play, but it sounds very cool that they've designed the new gameplay around the evolved premise rather than just rehashing frostpunk 1.
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Apr 19, 2024 05:47
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SlothfulCobra posted:Politics are part of everything in real-world city building, but they're kind of absent in the game genre, with the main games that do try to address them being fairly anemic in how they effect a lot of the gameplay, so something that tries really hard to make it a major factor instead of minor flavor is going to be interesting at the least, whether or not it's fun. I've never seen this done well. I have seen it done poorly - looking at you, Urban Empire - but sadly I don't expect it to be any different from what I've seen of the FP2 beta. It's just trivial to keep all the factions happy, and if you make it hard to do that then you run a very large risk of not being able to sign laws/progress. I'm not sure this kind of feature is even balanceable, but if it is then 11bit hasn't unlocked the code yet. Unfortunately FP2 looks like it's going to be an ambitious failure in terms of trying to blaze new ground. It's possible it will be more mainstream/commercially successful, but with how much of the worldbuilding is getting thrown out the window I'm skeptical of it being interesting. I'll see what the full release in July looks like, but I expect to pass on it.
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Apr 19, 2024 13:34
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What makes you think they're ditching a bunch of the worldbuilding.
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Apr 19, 2024 13:46
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I would assume that they would greatly customize the political challenge for individual scenarios like they did with the original, but it's definitely possible that the politics could end up trivial and more of just an aesthetic thing to give flavor. That's kind of how it was in Tropico. It's very hard to be at risk of losing an election unless something crazy has happened, but it is neat to be able to go to the politics screen and see how you can pander to the factions to help direct your play.
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Apr 19, 2024 14:06
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Imagine a demo of Frostpunk 1 being 100 days of the default Endless scenario. It'd be neat, but shallow, and with little to no story or flavour. I'm convinced that the real meat of Frostpunk 2 is going to be in the story mode. Just like the first game.
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Apr 19, 2024 14:24
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SlothfulCobra posted:I would assume that they would greatly customize the political challenge for individual scenarios like they did with the original, but it's definitely possible that the politics could end up trivial and more of just an aesthetic thing to give flavor. Yeah, trying to get laws passed and the impacts of doing so has been one of the highlights of the beta for me. If you make concessions you get what you want now but it knocks back your money, or now you have a future problem either in terms of passing a law you didn't want, or handing over agenda control to another faction when you already have an open promise to an opposing one. I had a few times when I had pissed the Icebloods off enough they staged protests at one of my districts, shutting it down and I believe increasing tension and/or decreasing trust until they could be placated. Similarly the technocrats were so thrilled at one point they were holding rallys in my support. My takeaways from the beta were that the game engine and performance seemed flawless, at least for me, and like Groetgaffel said it was essentially a sandbox feedback-collector for the balance and the mechanics. There was just enough worldbuilding and story to have a basic goal for beta players to drive them into the areas 11bit are looking for feedback on vs. it being act 1 of a full story mode.
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Apr 19, 2024 14:35
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Strategic Sage posted:I've never seen this done well. I have seen it done poorly - looking at you, Urban Empire - but sadly I don't expect it to be any different from what I've seen of the FP2 beta. It's just trivial to keep all the factions happy, and if you make it hard to do that then you run a very large risk of not being able to sign laws/progress. I'm not sure this kind of feature is even balanceable, but if it is then 11bit hasn't unlocked the code yet. I suspect the different colonies are going to make things very interesting (as they are their own map, I suspect we will be managing multiple cities and transport routes), and that we will end up with far more than just the 4 factions that are in the demo - you can see a number of other starting factions in the option to start up a new game, but we can't actually play with them yet. The resource scarcity is also a major concern; the coal deposits dry up quickly, and while the external sources of coal are vast, they are also finite. I'm also not sure what you mean by the worldbuilding being gone - everything I've seen in the demo squares well with Frostpunk 1, just on a larger scale. There's even automatons running around, and some voice lines talking about how one of them has seized up and is blocking traffic, which is amusing. There's also some tantalizing law sections that are blocked off, including what appears to be an option to install yourself as a dictator. The game isn't particularly difficult, but neither is Frostpunk 1 when you're on normal difficulty, and we don't go far enough into the scenario to really hit the point where everything in the starting area is used up.
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Apr 19, 2024 14:38
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Groetgaffel posted:Imagine a demo of Frostpunk 1 being 100 days of the default Endless scenario. Yeah they're absolutely not going to spoil much lore-wise in the beta.
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Apr 19, 2024 14:48
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Strategic Sage posted:I've never seen this done well. I have seen it done poorly - looking at you, Urban Empire - but sadly I don't expect it to be any different from what I've seen of the FP2 beta. It's just trivial to keep all the factions happy, and if you make it hard to do that then you run a very large risk of not being able to sign laws/progress. I'm not sure this kind of feature is even balanceable, but if it is then 11bit hasn't unlocked the code yet. I found it extremely difficult to keep them all happy lol, I'm just bad I guess e: a big problem I had was I didn't realise that those those free researches of law options put a timer on passing that law or the faction gets mad at you. I had to break like 5 'commitments' in quick succession because I wasn't micromanaging the research/council timing Cassian of Imola fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Apr 19, 2024 |
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Apr 19, 2024 14:55
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ThomasPaine posted:Please don't mention Ixion, remembering trying to play that gives me stress headaches. I don't think it's a bad game, but if you think Frostpunk is hard that thing is laughing at you. I deeply disagree with this because all of the difficulty in Ixion is a facade thanks to how literally every event and resource in the game is fixed. There is a correct answer to every decision, no significant trade-offs needed. Frostpunk can at least throw you some curveballs so that extreme/faustian decisions make sense, but if you know the answers to all the exploration sites in Ixion... nah, there's no difficulty there. Cassian of Imola posted:I found it extremely difficult to keep them all happy lol, I'm just bad I guess The impression I got over 3 runs was that you're expected to sacrifice some decisions you don't care/feel strongly about to keep the factions happy while you use that good will to pass the things you do care about, and game the system a bit to take advantage of situations where the factions want to do something you're already planning to do. "Oh, you want a Biodrum Hothouse in exchange for supporting my mandatory schooling law? Absolutely. I totally wasn't expanding that food district to build one in the next week..." If you can adequately manage faction sentiment, you'll have a much easier time handling the resource management parts. I'm looking forward to the finished product because it looks like there's enough meat in the mechanics to keep things interesting. It also feels like much of the game is going to surround the colonies, which aren't playable in the preview.
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Apr 20, 2024 16:52
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Yeah there’s an important difference between a game being difficult versus punishing. Games that feature rote memorization, or random luck, aren’t really difficult per se - they just reward foreknowledge.
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Apr 20, 2024 17:08
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Groetgaffel posted:I'm convinced that the real meat of Frostpunk 2 is going to be in the story mode. Just like the first game. Based on what? Utopia Builder is what they showed the press initially and it's also what is in the beta. It could have been anything, but that's how they chose to introduce the game. Combined with how FP1 post-release development went, I think Endless/Utopia is what they are focusing on. If it's not, they're doing a real good job of hiding their intentions. Thomas Paine posted:What makes you think they're ditching a bunch of the worldbuilding. Dirk the Average posted:I suspect the different colonies are going to make things very interesting (as they are their own map, I suspect we will be managing multiple cities and transport routes), Worldbuilding may not have been the most accurate term to use. The whole gravitas/core of the setting is undermined by the changes being made, like Colonies for example. My perspective is the franchise is moving to a situation where it's trying to be a bunch of different things that don't fit together. Frostpunk 1 Tagline: The City Must Survive. Similarly, Frostpunk 2: The City Must Not Fall. That made sense in Frostpunk 1, though less so as more expansions came out. 'The last city on earth' ... then we found out it wasn't, but Tesla City failed, Winterhome, etc. Human civilization, at least to the limited extent the lore is known, was on the line. Now? Well, who cares if the city falls, the people can just move somewhere else not that far away and at worst have a somewhat reduced standard of living. Survival of humanity/civilization is no longer on the table. It's also not a grand strategy game in the sense of Civ or whatever where you're competing with other civilizations in a cage match for supremacy. It's more like, in a setting sense, something like Cities Skylines only with worse conditions/different tech, and a focus on the city succeeding for the sake of the people rather than just designing what you want, but again it really doesn't matter if the city succeeds in the grand scheme anymore so why do we care if the city falls or not? Basically just the whole outpost/colony/whatever else approach eliminates the urgency and importance of what you're doing in the city. It just doesn't matter much anymore, which takes a lot of the weight away from the various moral conundrums/societal breakdown emphasis that distinguished Frostpunk from just another 'find the meta strategy' builder game.
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Apr 20, 2024 21:08
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Strategic Sage posted:Worldbuilding may not have been the most accurate term to use. The whole gravitas/core of the setting is undermined by the changes being made, like Colonies for example. My perspective is the franchise is moving to a situation where it's trying to be a bunch of different things that don't fit together. I get where you're coming from, but I feel like the fate of humanity is still on the line. We don't know how the colonies will work out, and the current situation for the city that we see in the beta is unsustainable. We have no method of ensuring long term food supplies, heating supplies, or materials. There's plenty on the map to sustain the population for a long while, but it's worth noting that your population continues to increase over time (unlike the first Frostpunk), and so that demand created by escalating growth is going to be a problem that needs solving. I can see the focus being more on rebuilding than on just surviving, but there is a very real risk of building too much too quickly and being knocked back down to the point where humanity can no longer survive, especially if the generator is destroyed in the process. Also, we have no idea what was happening with other countries in Frostpunk - we did encounter the French a few times, but odds are that other civilizations managed to get at least a couple of settlements to survive. It's not like the survivors in Frostpunk had the ability to traverse countries, let alone continents. A Frostpunk colony in Arkansas would likely be wholly unaware of a colony in Nevada, for instance.
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Apr 20, 2024 22:13
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Frostpunk was a strong story-focused experience, their development time after release was spent releasing 5 additional story modes plus 1 endless mode, so if they released a sequel that focuses on just an endless mode with no story that would be a strange and unexpected result imo
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Apr 20, 2024 22:15
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QuarkJets posted:Frostpunk was a strong story-focused experience, their development time after release was spent releasing 5 additional story modes plus 1 endless mode, so if they released a sequel that focuses on just an endless mode with no story that would be a strange and unexpected result imo I suppose it's technically possible that they decide to abandon the strong story focus that was the core of the first game, but that seems extremely stupid and unlikely.
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Apr 20, 2024 22:36
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Endless mode was one of their earlier releases, too; Last Autumn and On The Edge definitely came after. So it's not like there was a shift in priorities later, they released this Endless thing and then kept focusing on story content after that. They even patched story content into endless mode later!
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Apr 20, 2024 22:50
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Eh, the majority of the scenarios in the original didn't really put that much explicit weight on your society as the last bastion of civilization out there, even if it's easy to imagine that as a player if you like the gravitas that gives. Not only do most scenarios depict that there are other steam generator cities out there, the game is also kinda muddled at best as to what is happening in the rest of the world. The steam generator colonies were made up north where it was already colder than the rest of the world for some reason, so it seems vaguely plausible that the rest of the world could've put something together. Why it's important that your city doesn't die is because it's your city and those are your people who you can keep alive. Maybe there's some higher-minded goals for the rest of the world after surviving (especially with the seed vault scenario), but I feel like sheparding your one city is enough. Strategic Sage posted:Based on what? Utopia Builder is what they showed the press initially and it's also what is in the beta. It could have been anything, but that's how they chose to introduce the game. Combined with how FP1 post-release development went, I think Endless/Utopia is what they are focusing on. If it's not, they're doing a real good job of hiding their intentions. Mainly from the fact that the first game is heavily heavily based in scripted scenarios where all the fluff is, and their other games are pretty story and commentary-based, which you can't really do in depth without scripted scenarios. I think this time they've just realized that the people who like these kinds of games want a sandbox mode and releasing without one was a mistake in the original. If they're really calling the current mode "utopia" then I think that probably means that's the mode without extra loving around.
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Apr 21, 2024 01:01
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SlothfulCobra posted:The steam generator colonies were made up north where it was already colder than the rest of the world for some reason, so it seems vaguely plausible that the rest of the world could've put something together. Per the devs, the rest of the world in general, and specifically warmer areas had it worse off. A couple reasons for that; the Great Frost made it just as cold everywhere (scientifically impossible, but that's a detail). Another is that populations and wildlife were not as adapted to colder weather in those areas. People tried going there first, flooded them with refugees, they were less prepared ... you have to fill in the blanks from there but basically it didn't go well. The generators in the north are definitely a bright spot in the lore. Not the only places where people survived at all, but they had better success than the rest of humanity did. In terms of the 'utopia' name ... Utopia Builder = the new endless mode. DirktheAverage posted:There's plenty on the map to sustain the population for a long while, but it's worth noting that your population continues to increase over time (unlike the first Frostpunk), and so that demand created by escalating growth is going to be a problem that needs solving. Sure, but it doesn't have to be solved by the people in your city. It just has to be solved in general. One could argue that the city falling would actually help in that respect, since there'd be a lot fewer mouths to feed. SlothfulCobra posted:I think this time they've just realized that the people who like these kinds of games want a sandbox mode and releasing without one was a mistake in the original. It depends on what you mean by 'this kind of game'. Sandbox is inherently contradictory to the core mechanics of Frostpunk 1, very much a round peg square hole kind of thing. Something had to give. Groetgaffel posted:I suppose it's technically possible that they decide to abandon the strong story focus that was the core of the first game, but that seems extremely stupid and unlikely. I operate under the mindset that when somebody tells you what they are doing, you should believe them. It's kind of like how a number of people assumed that you'd be able to place your own buildings, see citizen details, etc. even though it was clear the game wasn't going in that direction from the early marketing. There's definitely going to be story aspects, but as one example quote: October 2023 Preview from IGN posted:The demo I saw was focused solely on the freeplay mode called “Utopia Builder,” so any details of the dedicated story mode remain a mystery, but after seeing the fascinating new direction they’re taking that focuses on politics, faction management, and greatly expanded building, I’m already extremely excited to don my winter jacket and dive back into a fresh new layer of apocalyptic snow. There was quite a bit about the political system/factions in the writeup. As I said before, if the main focus is the story then they are doing a great job of hiding it, because what they are talking about does not include that as a focus point at all. I guess we'll see in July.
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Apr 21, 2024 03:21
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Strategic Sage posted:I operate under the mindset that when somebody tells you what they are doing, you should believe them Have they said that there is going to be less emphasis on story? I don't recall seeing that anywhere
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Apr 21, 2024 05:17
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Strategic Sage posted:I operate under the mindset that when somebody tells you what they are doing, you should believe them. calm down bud 11bit studios isn't ron desantis
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Apr 21, 2024 14:05
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Cassian of Imola posted:calm down bud 11bit studios isn't ron desantis But what I imagine they said lines up so well with my prior beliefs!
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Apr 21, 2024 14:27
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QuarkJets posted:Have they said that there is going to be less emphasis on story? I don't recall seeing that anywhere In those words explicitly, no. By their actions, yes.
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Apr 21, 2024 17:53
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Strategic Sage posted:In those words explicitly, no. By their actions, yes. From the Steam page (emphasis mine): quote:“Frostpunk 2 is still a game about the City and its society,” states Jakub Stokalski, game Co-Director and Design Director at 11 bit studios. They literally mention telling a story on the steam page. Not to mention that there is explicitly a story mode that was not part of the demo. Also, most of the advertising is to tell prospective players what the differences between Frostpunk and its sequel are. Frostpunk is a game with a focus on its story. Frostpunk 2 is pretty clearly not going to be different in that regard. The demo that we had is light on story content in the same way that the sandbox in Frostpunk is light on story content. They're the same game mode, and we only have access to a fraction of the factions and mechanics that will be available (you can see many other factions in the game setup screen, greyed out on the bottom of the UI, and later techs and laws are greyed out in their respective UIs or explicitly said to be locked for the demo). And sure, it's entirely possible that the story in Frostpunk 2 ends up being disappointing and the writing ends up being poor. We won't know that until the game releases.
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Apr 21, 2024 18:18
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Strategic Sage posted:In those words explicitly, no. By their actions, yes. So they actually haven't said that? Okay then, I just wanted to make sure that this wasn't based on some fresh new interview or something. Because the Steam page lists "play story mode 72h before release" as one of the benefits of the Deluxe edition, so I take that as 11bit telling us that there is a story mode
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Apr 21, 2024 18:21
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There is some serious crossing wires going on here. Trying to clarify one more time: - I never said there wasn't a story mode. I did say there's less emphasis on it, and they are clearly and intentionally emphasizing other aspects of the game. Dirk Average posted:The demo that we had is light on story content in the same way that the sandbox in Frostpunk is light on story content. They're the same game mode, and we only have access to a fraction of the factions and mechanics that will be available (you can see many other factions in the game setup screen, greyed out on the bottom of the UI, and later techs and laws are greyed out in their respective UIs or explicitly said to be locked for the demo). Sure all of this is true. It's also true that Frostpunk 1 also had a sandbox/endless mode eventually so that's not a 'new change to emphasize' and yet that's what they chose to lead with in terms of most of the dev statements, the press build last year, and the public beta. My point is that those actions tell us what 11bit thinks is most important. There definitely will still be a story mode, and yes of course lots of features are turned off in the beta, that's known. I'm not saying at all that the beta shows us everything or that there's not going to be a story. At the same time it's evident to me that the story is not as important as it was in Frostpunk 1. It literally can't be from what we've seen of the mechanics themselves.
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Apr 22, 2024 01:30
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You're definitely jumping to some weird conclusions based on an early access demo.
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Apr 22, 2024 01:39
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There are also 3 story-focused expansions planned
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Apr 22, 2024 03:41
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That reminds me of the old aphorism: “If someone tells you what they’re doing, believe them; and if they don’t tell you then assume they are hiding the truth and immediately post about it on social media”. There’s plenty of time to complain about the game in the future. Don’t worry too much about the preview beta, and avoid pre-ordering. Just wait for the game to come out and see what it’s like. Kaal fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Apr 22, 2024 |
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Apr 22, 2024 16:55
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