Complains from a solo player

[cachalote]

Hi, I had been playing the game for some time. I have stopped playing it after a wipe (I don't like studying everything again) and this week I went back to see the changes in the experimental server before they came out. I realized that there are no people on any server and after playing for a while I think I know why.
The game is too hard from the beginning and pvp is unbalanced. Playing against the Russian players, these past weeks IΓÇÖve noted that having a group to play with is too much of an advantage in this game. Are no tactics for solo players.
The players IΓÇÖve met and tried to make a group with donΓÇÖt have enough hours in the game to make consistent progress, others simply got frustrated with the attacks from the other better equipped players and stopped playing the game.
ThereΓÇÖs a youtuber called Rekenbeker, he and his team of more than 5 players started wiping every base in their path, dominating the desert, taking oil and lithium at will, even claiming resources they wouldnΓÇÖt use or destroy when he would need a new one available.
With help from another player and a lot of effort I’ve managed to get one oil pool. That player left the game the next day… I have a lot of free time in this moment of my life, so as a strategy I opted to travel from north (where the oil is) to south (where I had my base). Every one and a half hours, which is the time it takes to get 100 oil, I would obtain 115 lithium on my way back, from an extractor that I took on my own.
If you think about it a person that works or doesn't play as much as I do will never obtain 100% of an oil pool due to the oil limit or the time that runs out. Limiting the quantity that the person will be able to obtain depending on how many hours they play.
The game has a lot of potential and I like it but not being able to hide the inside of the base makes it easy to simply count the walls doors and safes, calculate the explosives and that's it. With a big group dominating the resources It's relatively easy to craft explosives, while a solo player would have to get resources for weeks to plan a big attack.
HereΓÇÖs a list of the things that bother me the most:
-Exaggerated time for oil stacks, 100 in 1 hour and 20 minutes
-Exaggerated time for lithium stacks, 250 in 2 hours
-The safest zone for new players is in the South where there aren't many players with a lot of gear. They used to be too lazy to go there to kill and raid noob bases but now that there's vehicles they do it without hesitating.
-To make plastic I need coal, which is only in the north. ItΓÇÖs very hard to get it due to the advanced players in the area because if one of them sees you, youΓÇÖre basically dead. Same problem with primitive bombs, getting lithium and pragmium, and completing the last quests.
-I have died in the desert and I had to walk for 20 minutes until I reached my tomb, too much time to realize someone stole everything I had. The game leaves you too far away from your tomb and it gives you a penalty every time you die, for example if a wolf killed you while walking to your tomb you get 2x the penalty. ItΓÇÖs very unfair.
-Problems with the limit of 3 claims per player: If youΓÇÖre a solo player you would need to use 2 claims for your base. If you want to claim oil and a lithium extractor you would be left with just 1 claim for your base and it would be too small. The advantage given to players who are in groups and use their claims together is too big, allowing them to have hallways and exclusive rooms for defense.
-Too much difference in gear tiers. If you have a tier 2 or 3 armor without buffs and someone attacks you with a tier 4 weapon, youΓÇÖre dead in seconds with no time to react.
-It is so wrong that people are able to see whoΓÇÖs online and who isnΓÇÖt. IΓÇÖve been named many times in RekenbekerΓÇÖs videos as their next target due to the hours I had been online playing. Players like him wonΓÇÖt just steal your things and leave, they destroy everything inside your base. If youΓÇÖre able to repair the claims, you should also be able to repair other things in your base. Even if youΓÇÖre very optimistic, itΓÇÖs better to just stop playing the game than starting from zero again.
In short, I had convinced at least 7 people to buy the game and theyΓÇÖve all stopped playing it by now. You should think about where you want to lead the game to. If itΓÇÖs just going to be a game for groups or if youΓÇÖre going to add something to give the solo players more chances of surviving.
Btw, I would rather not play at all than change to the PvE server. I bought the game for the PvP mode. Thanks

[ai_enabled]

Hello!

Official PvP servers (including the experimental server) are very tough if you don't have a group and/or cannot spend a lot of time in the game. We recommend playing in a group of at least 3 players thereΓÇöthat's even included in the Global PvP server's welcome message, warning newcomers about the risk of playing solo and suggesting to post a message in our Discord #looking-for-party channel (https://discord.gg/cTEcwXU) to find team buddies.

While making CryoFall, we're trying to ensure that the game mechanics are working in such a way to provide advantages to smaller teams where possible. For example, a base of any size has only single safe storage (24 slots) so if a large team sharing a large base they still cannot store safely a lot of stuff inside. Electricity generation has a big penalty as the base's size increases (up to -50% energy generation for a 3*3 land claims base).
However, there are simply not many ways to ensure that larger teams have some reasonable disadvantages. If you have suggestions we're always listening and discussing the ideas. Please join our Discord (https://discord.gg/UsdFYy4) or post hereΓÇöeither way, we are reading everything players telling us, often replying, and do our best to improve the game. An incredible amount of changes and improvements were done thanks to the community feedback.

For solo and duo players we're recommending to play on CryoSmallΓÇöa featured community server which is listed together with the official servers (Discord link (https://discord.gg/cTN93ug)). It's configured to ensure better-balanced gameplay for solo/duo players. But most importantly, it's a moderated server so there is an enforced rule of no alliances (you can report when you see other players violating the rule by playing in a group of more than 2 players). It also has an increased number of land claims per playerΓÇöup to 4, two of which are immediately available.

Such a level of moderation is not viable on the official servers due to our limited dev team size and frustrating controversy caused by moderationΓÇöas it never leaves everyone happy. The problem is that some unhappy players (even when they're clearly wrong) prefer to blame admins, so when we previously attempted to moderate the game it always backfired in the worst way as players simply blackmailed us and made revenge reviews, making it really hard for us and the publisher.

Now, let's answer to the problems you've mentioned:

-Exaggerated time for oil stacks, 100 in 1 hour and 20 minutes
-Exaggerated time for lithium stacks, 250 in 2 hours

Yes, but increasing it will favor large teams even more. They can simply place a dedicated player there just to watch the extraction, quickly take the output, place fuel, etcΓÇöwhich doesn't work the same way if extraction takes considerable time.
In A24 we've increased the number of spawning deposits on 50% but decreased the oil/Li production speed on 50% (as a bonus it's also much harder to control too many of them; previously some large clans were able to hold almost all of them). Alternative oil and Li sources (oilpods and salt flats) are also more valuable due to this change. As there will be very high competition for the oil and Li deposits, the bombs and best equipment facilitated via the extracted resources would be directed toward raiding the largest enemies (to undercut them and to take the best loot) and not wasted.
BTW, you can find more details on the Resource domination mechanic in this guide (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1741743411).

To make plastic I need coal, which is only in the north

Also in the east (swamp biome). The resource distribution is adjusted in such a way to ensure there is no single perfect spot to establish a base. Each area has its own advantages and disadvantages (currently tropical area is a bit lucklaster but it's also where most new players are spawned and thanks to absence of top resources it's relatively safe). Also, the north area is fairly large (you can find the map here (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1704305623)). Though with addition of hoverboards travel time decreased dramatically (to their owners) and it might have affected the balance. We're planning to expand the map (as now it makes sense thanks to transport) and consider further improvements!

-I have died in the desert and I had to walk for 20 minutes until I reached my tomb, too much time to realize someone stole everything I had. The game leaves you too far away from your tomb and it gives you a penalty every time you die, for example if a wolf killed you while walking to your tomb you get 2x the penalty. ItΓÇÖs very unfair.

The penalty is very minimal (just two versions ago people also lost their unspent LP!) and short (yes, on PvP servers it's increasing x2 on the second deathΓÇöbut not further), and doesn't affect your travel time. And we've also added notifications if somebody is taking your loot. What do you propose?

-Problems with the limit of 3 claims per player: If youΓÇÖre a solo player you would need to use 2 claims for your base. If you want to claim oil and a lithium extractor you would be left with just 1 claim for your base and it would be too small. The advantage given to players who are in groups and use their claims together is too big, allowing them to have hallways and exclusive rooms for defense.

There is a good reason for it as when players had an extra land claim the world was getting too crowded (on servers with over 100 players online, and we expect we're going to see such numbers again with A24 update release). Reducing it to 3 claims per players minimized the issue. Alas, we cannot make it larger for the official servers, but you're not expected to play there solo anywayΓÇöjoin a group, try CryoSmall, or play PvEΓÇöthese are the options we have.

-Too much difference in gear tiers. If you have a tier 2 or 3 armor without buffs and someone attacks you with a tier 4 weapon, youΓÇÖre dead in seconds with no time to react.

Surprisingly, we got very mixed community feedback about this. Some people telling us that T4 are oneshooting everyone, others are making negative reviews in Steam telling that there is no difference between T2 and T4 weapons at all! Just recently a player wrote here (https://steamcommunity.com/id/GhoulishWolf/recommended/829590/): "To top it off, the gun progression is just terrible. I had crafted the best weapon with the best ammo, and shot a player with no gear on, to test the damage. Not much different than some of the weapons you start off with from the very beginning of the game." (I've responded there and linked the ammo modelling spreadsheet which was created by our game designer to balance the weapons and armor)
The truth is somewhere in between, of course. The difference is not large and not small, but decent (and worth the effort to craft the better equipment)ΓÇötwo T2 players can fight successfully against T3 opponent, and T3-vs-T4 is not always a clear win for T4 player. We've balanced the combat duration (by modifying PvP damage rate) and for now satisfied with the current number as most players agreed it's reasonable. Also, with the recent ballistics update (for A24 experimental) the automatic weapons are no longer 100% accurate as they were beforeΓÇöthey have noticeable spread and losing accuracy quickly in full auto mode. We're still analyzing how exactly it turned the balance and will consider further changes.

-It is so wrong that people are able to see whoΓÇÖs online and who isnΓÇÖt.

There are pros and cons for showing and not showing the online players list. So far, we're not sure which approach is best so we keep it as is.

Players like him wonΓÇÖt just steal your things and leave, they destroy everything inside your base.

In A24 we've made that structures are MUCH harder to destroy. Previously it was possible to destroy just by using the melee weapon (though it took considerable time), but now people need to use bombs to destroy the buildings. Bombs, which are very expensive to make so people normally would not want to waste them. Though it's expected to happen on the experimental server as the server rates are high, some players there playing much more than you do, and they simply have no other targets to waste their bombs. I can definitely tell you that this would not happen on the non-experimental server as the players number would be much larger and bombs are much harder to acquire, and so they will be saved only to penetrate defense.

I hope my response is comprehensive.
If you have any ideas or suggestions, please feel free to share.

Regards!

[ai_enabled]

I forgot to mention that we're working on a design of Factions system which will allow players to group together into large alliances (with members of a faction effectively playing PvE with each other but PvP against enemy factions). It will help organize players to fight together against other groups, so even small teams and solo players might be able to enjoy our official PvP servers as they will be able to join a faction and get protection and help. We're planning to share the details soon so the community can provide their feedback on the idea before we will consider implementing it.

Regards!

[gaara]

hello all
3 suggestions:

1. autoturrets  (4 tiers 8mm 10mm .300. and laser)   ... 1 possible turret for 1 missing person in group ( 2/10 players can make 8 turrets for def base ,oil or lithium)

2. point limits which u can attack others( player who has total 10000 point spent for skills cannot attack player who has only 1000-2000 skills)

3. protection for offline base ( this 1 is hard because player who see the raid group can go offline.... but protection can be  set up 30min-1h after log out last player from group)


sorry for my eng

[ai_enabled]

@gaara, hi!
Thank you for sharing your ideas!
1. we're planning to add autoturrets in future updatse. However, limiting their number by the number of empty party member slots is a problemΓÇöplayers can easily circumvent such limitations just by not creating a party (or by building turrets before creating/joining a party). Before the Steam Early access launch there was no party system altogether and players still played together. So if we want to add such limitation we need to look for a bulletproof approach.

2. such an artificial limitation will make the game unplayable, unfortunately. If you cannot attack someone, this player is basically immune and could do whatever they want. They might harass you, mine your resources, pick up your loot (if another player kill you or you die from PvE damage), act as a shield for another (high-level) player (so you cannot hit them), went into your base by following you (and then take your stuff), etc. Putting exceptions to make this artificial system work is not viable as it will make the game rules fairly arbitrary and hard to learn and follow.
A good approach should not require such game-breaking artificial limitations, it should be intuitive and simple to understand by every player.

3. I'm glad to tell you that we're actually working on a new idea for offline raiding protection (which involves using electricity system/power grid) and will present it soon to the community to gather players' feedback before considering implementing it.

Regards!

[Jburg46]

Try CryoSmall if you have no interest in groups. It works out well as long as the other players playing during that wipe follow the rules and don't form alliances. In that case you can always just screenshot it quickly and send it off and report them.

[ai_enabled]

I just want to notify you that lately (in the past few weeks), the game received two patches with changes regarding the oil and Li resource distribution to ensure the small teams and solo players can have a good amount of them (without the risk of traveling far):
- Salt minerals (containing Lithium salts) will spawn in regular mining areas along with iron, copper, sulfur and other minerals.
- Oilpod bushes will spawn in the tropical forest, temperate forest, and swamp.

Also, the oil/Li deposits will always spawn in pairs during the initial spawn (which is evenly distributed during 48 hours after the server start/wipe date) so even if there is a large super-team it cannot capture everything one-by-one during the initial spawnΓÇöthey will have to split or focus on a single spot only.

Regarding the coalΓÇöplayers actually don't need much of it (if you mine just a few coal "minerals" you get plenty of it to make plastic). Considering that southern biomes have a single unique resource (rubber trees) we've decided to keep coal limited to the boreal and swamp biomes.

So far we're pretty satisfied with the players' feedback regarding these changes but we're constantly looking for further improvements.

Regards!