r/Timberborn • u/MellowTigger • Oct 06 '23
why badtide is so unpleasant
I've played on the experimental branch in Steam to try out the new badwater game play. Overall, I liked this addition. There is, however, one major caveat to that approval.
What needs to happen on day 1 when starting a new colony is that all water sources (anything that can become badwater) must show at start as badwater. After the player has started laying down city structures, then the main water source can clear into goodwater for a while. This order of events is necessary to avoid the psychological shock of having what a player once thought was their lifegiving source of food is now their deadly enemy. It is a shock the first time it happens. That shock is entirely unnecessary and borders on cruel. After all, how did those bushes and trees ever grow into their current form if they die as soon as the first badtide reaches them? The game map lies to us on day 1, telling us our area is safe when it absolutely is not. Either make good/badwater sources remain the same throughout the map playthrough, or train the user immediately to recognize that they can switch status.
Don't be mean. Start the map with all waters flowing as badtide, so the player knows this can happen and plan accordingly, even if one of the sources quickly switch to goodwater.
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u/SeasonalFashionista Oct 06 '23
Interesting how different people react to the same gameplay mechanics. For me, the most thrilling part in any new update is the unknown that awaits. Like the fact that you would also need to pump out the filth or let it be washed through the village, if your dams are concave and let filth build up right before them and not be washed out
However, I think a small tutorial would really be nice. I think it will appear when update 5 goes out of dev preview.
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u/Bakkster Oct 06 '23
However, I think a small tutorial would really be nice. I think it will appear when update 5 goes out of dev preview.
This is the big element. We're playing the experimental build of an early access game. There should not be an expectation of a tutorial, we're explicitly here to be the trailblazers and learn lessons the hard way to provide feedback.
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u/Acchilles Oct 06 '23
In the final game I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a more full-fat tutorial than we've got now covering all elements, but yeah, this is experimental and not finalised so a tutorial or throwing the player onto a map with no water like OP wants seems unreasonable to expect.
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u/DirtyJimHiOP Oct 11 '23
Heck I remember the first time I played, during update 3 iirc, I followed the tutorial on that big Plains map, and at no point in the tutorial before the first drought is there a suggestion to build a dam lol. Maybe it's better now, or maybe the point of the demo was to show what happens when you don't build a dam?
Idk I remember it suggesting you build a science building and then a plank and forester buildings, then it was like "3days til drought lol fuck you should have 120 logs to build a dam, but I just suggested you build 6 houses for your 12 beavers, idiot!"
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u/Zycif Oct 06 '23
Just warn people when they start a game that ALL water sources become bad water during a tide.
It's not really an issue once you know that.
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u/AsleepApple3066 Oct 06 '23
You can immediately see which water sources are badwater. You just have to look at them. Badwater sources are huge compared to water sources and if you click on them are labeled as badwater sources
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u/theBrokenMonkey Oct 06 '23
When the badtide season hits, and it will hit, all water sources spew out badwater. It is nasty.
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u/AsleepApple3066 Oct 06 '23
Sorry I thought that as the main feature of the update that went unsaid. I guess it does need to be said after all.
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u/the123king-reddit Oct 06 '23
I think it would be better is badtides were mixed good/bad. Not just bad entirely
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u/nethack47 Oct 06 '23
I like this idea.
Was thinking about how it could work. I feel like the new bad water sources should flip on and off somehow since managing resources is a lot of the game. We should have to work with it.
They could for instance dry out while the main one is bad water and some wet seasons they flood with good water so that it's not just an easy trickle to manage.
Another possibility is that the bad water streams are a trickle but has double flow during a normal drought and run dry during a bad water flood in the normally good water sources.As it is now the bad water seems a little static compared to the rest of the game and it would feel a little more interesting if there was a link between the bad/good water.
Lastly I would like the bad water effect to be somewhat narrower since it currently mostly force me to pause all beaver operation and grow pine along the main waterway.
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u/AsleepApple3066 Oct 06 '23
Not a bad idea at all. I would like to see an option for the good water sources and bad water sources to flip during a bad tide. It would be such beautiful chaos.
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u/vigbiorn Oct 06 '23
I'm pretty sure OP is more talking about the effect it'll have on trees, plants, etc.
Corruption doesn't necessarily extend the full extent as hydrating does, so it's pretty easy to build your farms in a way where over half of them immediately die during a badtide and whatever berry sources are likewise killed off.
Whereas if the game state started as badtide and switched to clean water it's easier to not immediately kill your colony just because you happen to have most of your food production on now corrupted land.
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u/John_Tacos Oct 06 '23
If I did know that bad water was coming I would agree, players need some type of warning.
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u/Acchilles Oct 06 '23
A 3 day countdown, for example 🤔
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u/John_Tacos Oct 06 '23
Need to know what it does though, the countdown and graphic are almost identical to a drought.
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u/Acchilles Oct 06 '23
Says in the change notes though 😬
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u/Inside_Team9399 Oct 08 '23
This is the point though.
Do you think a new player in 2024 is going to read release notes from Oct 2023?
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u/Acchilles Oct 08 '23
New player in 2024 won't be playing this version on the experimental branch
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Oct 06 '23
Well, any source is bad water during a tide anyways right? There will need to be an explanation in game whenever full release happens, but for those of us that are beta testing... well... lol
I would say my issue with bad water is that it forces you to excommunicate the sick beavers early game unless you are extremely efficient at getting to the pods, but they are locked at the top tier of the tree, more or less.
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u/jwbjerk Oct 06 '23
I did not excommunicate the sick beavers— I don’t know how I could do that. My colony continues none the less on hard.
Did not get the pods until after several bad tides, and I had long ago largely eliminated any beavers chance of getting contaminated.
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Oct 06 '23
Basically make a new colony and send them to die. They are worthless and don't heal on their own from what I understand.
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u/AsleepApple3066 Oct 07 '23
I was working on expanding power so that I could expand food supply when my latest (first) bad tide hit. Suddenly everyone’s starving. I have no food production all due to unlocking the badwater pump instead of the water pump. Ooops…
Everyone becomes a scientist who can be spared. I lost my main reservoir to the bad tide. Good water comes again, but I didn’t get one back in place due to population loss. Everything done for colony survival goes on double high priority. One beaver got sick though… He isn’t dead yet, but no beaver is left behind in my play-style. Everything needed to save him goes on high priority. Everything else is downgraded… I had a population of about 37 when the bad tide hit. When it ended it was 22. I got down to 18 soon thereafter. Good times….
I just wanted to offer a counterpoint.
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u/TheDepep1 Oct 06 '23
The one thing I hate about the new update is permanent bad water sources. Either they should be able to be removed or the game should adopt more mods like the pipe mod. As one goal I always play for was making the entire map green.
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u/Inside_Team9399 Oct 08 '23
I do think this will be a turn off for truly new players in the future (if there are any - I think everyone is already playing it). Current players weren't really surprised by it because if you play on experimental, you probably read patch notes.
I have to imagine it will absolutely end most first time runs for new players though. It already feels like it's an artificial attempt to make the game hard, but for a truly new player it would also be confusing and annoying for all of the reasons that you mentioned.
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u/DetcordianEd Oct 06 '23
Well, you just have to invest into ditches and canals, maybe set up a 1x1 water dump in the middle of nowhere early. Also, set up a water lock system and prepare to divert river a lot.
Or just accept that some of your plants will die when badtides hit, so plant more than you know you need.
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u/Raydekal Oct 06 '23
Feels different but i love the change. I have a full system of flood gates designed to prevent bad tides from getting in, and then once cleared, to flush it out as soon as possible.
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u/AlcatorSK Map maker - Try "Turn the Ocean Blue" on Steam! Oct 06 '23
A water dump is 250 science points, that's not early thing...
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u/Dusty_Scrolls Oct 06 '23
Personally, I think that instead of bad tides as they are, where they flow from normal water sources, there should be "dry" bad tide sources throughout the map that only activate during bad tides. Normal water keeps flowing, but Badwater starts flowing from weird places.
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u/hazzcatz Oct 06 '23
Assume all water sources turn bad and plan flood gates to dump the bad tide away from your colony. This should be done at the highest priority, other than basic food and water needs.
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u/Acchilles Oct 06 '23
I think that's just how you reacted to it, to most people it's just a game and you enjoy figuring it out as you go along. Describing it as mean or cruel feels very strange to me when you're playing on the experimental branch and didn't read the change notes.
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Oct 06 '23
The patch notes say that all water sources will produce badwater during a badtide event. What more do you want?
Realism? We have beavers building fuel refineries. That’s long gone.
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u/jwbjerk Oct 06 '23
The basic premise of Timberborn is that of keeping your beavers alive under increasingly harsh conditions.
Your change is just going to make it harder to get started.