Just to put it simply, I wanted to know what everyone thinks about one of the newest features added in Alpha 15… that being the Resource Limit.
If you’re not sure what that is, or what I’m referring to, there’s a “Resource Limit” in the game now, disabling the ability for players to collect as many resources as they like. However, this also enables the game to be much more challenging in many respects and offers a whole new way to play the game!
Now before I go on though… I have to put in a disclaimer here.
I have not yet actually played through the game with this new feature. That said, I’m not sure if this Resource Cap can be upgraded or increased by getting a higher population and or town net worth… whether this feature is used in an entirely different way than I’m assuming right now… and just general stuff like that.
Honestly, I’ve just started a game, saw the Resource Cap in the ‘Inventory’ screen and, well, wanted to talk to you guys on what you think about the feature, or even better, learn more about it!
So! With all of that out of the way, what do you guys think about this feature?
And moreover, am I correct in that it disables a player to collect as many resources as possible? Or is it used in a different way?
The current purpose of the resource cap is to prevent features with unlimited growth from hamstringing the performance of your game. For example, if you leave your farmers working and then go get dinner and a movie, you might come back to more food than you’ll ever need and a very laggy game! It’s very much a fast, performance oriented limit at the moment; more gameplay features should be coming in future alphas to make managing your resources something you want to do, as opposed to something you have to do. There will also be a user setting so you can adjust the cap if you have a beefier box.
I never came close to my cap in A15, but then again, I was playing as the Ascendancy - with very limited tree farming - in the desert, so I probably had even less resources than normal.
Like I mentioned, or at least tried to point out… I’m stupid with word and stuffs… in my original post, that I had no idea about this new feature, just the very basic concept of it.
But yeah, in that case, great! I cannot wait to see more!
Seriously… I cannot wait to see this game completed!
HUH! Just take my money already!
And I agree with you. I’m playing now and have just made it past the half-way point… so… yeah…
But again, I was just asking about the basic concept of the feature. Although, it does seem to be working pretty well with the game and with the community.
At first it sounded really restrictive to me and I didn’t like it. But thinking about it, it will only be reached if you do some really excessive item farming, so I don’t mind it that much anymore.
Just to make it clear though, do items placed into the world, like chairs, tables, beds, decorations etc. count towards the inventory, or only “stored” resources?
I guess so far I am in the minority, I constantly hit my cap, though I had already established my town when 15 hit. Some criticisms:
If we are going to be limited, it would be nice if we could have more control over what our guys gather. Maybe a global collecting menu like the container checkboxes. If I clear out my inventory of crafted items, that opens up space for the hearthlings to collect whatever is lying around, especially if I have newly emptied containers for those resources. Even If I dont want my guys to grab them. For example, I was trying to get under the limit and sold off all my stock building materials like windowframes and excess silkweed. My hearthlings immediately went to go pickup all the excess wood that I had on the ground from the last time I cleared my forests, even though I wanted that space for food.
The limits actually encourage more messiness not less. Since the counter only checks what I have in my stockpiles or containers, and not what I have on the ground, this mechanic encourages me to collect resources and delete stockpiles or simply not clean up resources like wood in the first place.
Well, the good news is that, as Ms. Stephanie Dee pointed out in an above comment, that this is only the first of this feature and will later be reorganized and refit for the game in future updates. So, we’ll see!
But thanks for the comment! To sort of repeat myself, I was worried this was going to be an issue with some… if not maybe most players, so hopefully we can work together to figure out the perfect balance for future updates!
… I don’t think my last sentence made sense… Oh well! Hopefully you get the gist of it.
I think as it is now implemented, a resource cap is kinda counter intuitive. Logically, we would want to build up both raw and refined resources. A blanket cap prevents this. A limit isn’t a bad idea in itself, but I think maybe something more nuanced, like maybe not count food toward that limit since food already rots. Or maybe ai manufactured goods would not count toward that limit, since by their very nature making things consume resources, and usually at a greater degree than 1:1. You could try a limit based on hearthling count, or a “resource” limit, and a “goods” limit. Moreover, we often end up with large portions of material while in pursuit of other materials. Stone for example, but we don’t always have a consistent method of removing it aside from vendors that do not show up enough sometimes. Maybe we could train one of our hearthlings in a vendor or merchant class, and have a permanent trading post where we can sell our goods?
@yshan mentioned in the above linked thread that part of the goal of this feature is to encourage you to build in order to increase your net worth, instead of simply hoarding items. The limit has more gameplay planned to go with it, it just hasn’t been fully implemented yet. For a possible hint at something to do with stored items, check out the new translation items in A15 that @Wiese2007 posted…might have some hints in there
The limit is based on Hearthling count. Currently (and subject to change), the limit is 1200, or 150 x number_of_hearthlings, whichever is greater. Essentially, you have 1200 with up to 8 Hearthlings, and you get then you get 150 more for each Hearthling after that. If the limit affects people’s gameplay too much, feedback is good to help tweak the formula. @Communistpenguin, you have an interesting angle looking at this because your save came from A14, with no limit implemented, and thus played the game differently than you might have with the limit the whole time.
You can always use the “clear” tool to simply delete it…
It’s the total, like you can have 400 carrots, 400 wood and 400 stone. If you get your ninth hearthling, you can get another 100 carrots and 50 wood, if you get your tenth hearthling you can have another 150 stone etc.
The problem is that the resource cap doesn’t really encourage building, it encourages selling. Gold in this game has a lot less uses than resources do, so it is more in the players best interest to hoard resources than gold. So if/when I hit a resource cap, my options are build more, sell more, remove resources from my stockpile, or do nothing. Of these options selling and removing are both the most advantageous, so i would do a combination of them.
Now it would be nice if gold became more useful. If we had more reliable traders, via say a merchant hearthling? The biggest problem imo with selling in this game, is that its usually not worth buying anything, and the stuff that you do want is usually in very low numbers. being able to acquire steady streams of resources or finished goods would be nice. So If I wanted I could focus on one aspect, like mining, while using a trader to supplement myself with food.
Now from my understanding, part of the goal of the resource cap is also to have less stuff lying around to increase game performance. To this end the resource cap doesn’t really work, because instead of having my stuff in neat little boxes, I now have it spread out over the map. Now I get that this is only step 1 of this feature, but I am just pointing out what I think are obvious problems with it.
A better solution might be instead of having a hard cap, maybe if we exceed the cap the game warns us that having too much stuff lying around will attract unwanted attention, and from that point until I get under the cap the game starts spawning more and more goblin raiders who come and try and take my stuff. This would be doubly nice, because players with more mature towns can have more challenges to play against.
Again, I get that this is very early implementation, but I feel that it seems to be much more of a stick solution rather than a carrot one. If we should increase our towns worth instead of hoarding, give us reasons to do so, rather than punishments for not.
Please let’s just wait and see what the developers have planned for this. There is almost no threat to your village right now, so of course you can eventually produce and sell wood decorations, cloth and food endlessly. I think this will be balanced out as threats will cost you gold/resources to defend or restore your hearthlings and village.
I have no doubt that the des have interesting stuff planned, I am just giving my constructive criticism. I don’t feel this mechanic is useful, so much as annoying. It is easy to get around, and doesn’t stop me hoarding in the least.
