Feedback from a new player, and lover, of the game.

Feedback and general discussion of Slime Rancher

Feedback from a new player, and lover, of the game.

Postby Minandreas » Mon Nov 27, 2017 4:58 pm

Just picked the game up a few days ago and already reached the credits in adventure mode. Such a fun and addictive little game! But not without its shortcomings. There are two primary issues I feel really hurt it and prevent me from recommending it to most of my friends.

ISSUES
1. Daily maintenance of the ranch is far too time consuming. I had to revamp my ranch to leave half of it deserted in order to free up enough time each day to explore at all.
2. Over all satisfaction of activities is low.

I know the development roadmap references drones coming in the future to potentially help with issue #1. But I feel there is a much better and intuitive solution, and it comes in three simple parts.

SOLUTIONS
1. Introduce a random food surplus event.
2. Cut plorts in half.(Non-favorite food means only a 50% chance they make a plort. favorite guarantees they produce a plort.)
3. Reduce deflation of plort values to compensate for the part above. (Basically, make plorts worth an average of twice as much to compensate quantity being cut in half)

DESIGN GOAL
To create a more varied and satisfying feeling game flow.

Having maintenance tasks that need to be done every single day means that you can never just take a day off to go explore. Harvest Moon always had an elegant and simple solution to this when it came to watering your crops. Some days it would rain. You would walk out your door and just like that, you notice you have a MUCH more freed up schedule that day. Hense a random food surplus event.

The first time I woke up to a glow morning I didn't know what to make of it. But now I consider that occasional glow one of the most beautiful things about the far far range. I don't know how it works or why. But a lot of my best stories and adventures started with one of those amazing mornings.

-H


When you wake up on a glow morning, the skybox looks different for a little while, to make it clear the event has occurred. And all of the produce, chickens, etc, that day produce twice as much as normal. This would allow the player to stuff the pens with double the usual amount of food. So the next day, they would be just fine ignoring the usual food gathering chore. They could take a day off and go explore.

The changes to plorts are to reduce the sheer amount of time one has to spend standing at pens and market stands holding the mouse button down, and to make it actually feel GOOD. I rather quickly started to feel like I was hauling massive jars filled with pennies around. There were so many plorts to collect it could take hours and hours of in game time to do it, and then I'd just stand there spewing huge streams of the stuff in to the market and feel like I was getting chump change for them. Harvest day is supposed to be exciting! It's the reward you've been working hard and waiting for! But in the current game, EVERY day is harvest day, and you're harvesting and hauling giant penny jars. It really doesn't feel good or rewarding. And its incredibly tedious.

I feel these changes would address the issues drones are intended to address, and do it in a way that doesn't mean giving the player a way to automate their farm and remove themselves from the core gameplay. It also does so in ways that improve the over all experience of the game, rather than just sort of put a band-aid on a sore spot.

EXTRA CREDIT
Just a couple other ideas that I feel would improve the experience, but are less crucial in my mind:
  • I would really love to see variety in hunger buildup and plort production of various slimes, and have plort values reflect that. Maybe crystal slimes only eat once a day. Period. But pink slimes eat 4 times a day. And Mosaic slimes eat a normal amount each day, but even with their favorite food, they only have a 25% chance of producing a plort. Largo's simply merge these statistics in some way. Variety is what allows the player to feel accomplished about even the daily chores. Because its not the same every day, and how you lay out your ranch and when you do what could really be rewarded by thinking ahead! This could add some more strategy to what largos you want to produce too.
  • Silos. An entire structure taking an entire plot of land can only store as much as the upgraded vacuum I am literally carrying around the entire island with me...? Silos are absolute rubbish. They need to store a larger variety, and more of it, to be worth their plot of land. I don't see why they can't have 8 slots instead of 4. And be upgraded to hold 500 or more items per slot.
  • Make going to sleep a thing. I didn't realize until near the end of the run that there is NO penalty for just staying awake constantly. That is totally unintuitive, unimmersive, and I really hope the game isn't being balanced around you never sleeping... Trying to beat the clock and get things done each day before you have to sleep is one of the primary driving forces of this style of game.
Last edited by Minandreas on Tue Nov 28, 2017 8:44 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Feedback from a new player, and lover, of the game.

Postby tyrantlemon55 » Mon Nov 27, 2017 5:38 pm

Minandreas wrote:Just picked the game up a few days ago and already reached the credits in adventure mode. Such a fun and addictive little game! But not without its shortcomings. There are two primary issues I feel really hurt it and prevent me from recommending it to most of my friends.

ISSUES
1. Daily maintenance of the ranch is far too time consuming. I had to revamp my ranch to leave half of it deserted in order to free up enough time each day to explore at all.
2. Over all satisfaction of activities is low.

I know the development roadmap references drones coming in the future to potentially help with issue #1. But I feel there is a much better and intuitive solution, and it comes in three simple parts.

SOLUTIONS
1. Introduce a random food surplus event.
2. Cut plorts in half.(Non-favorite food means only a 50% chance they make a plort. favorite guarantees they produce a plort.)
3. Reduce deflation of plort values to compensate for the part above.

DESIGN GOAL
To create a more varied and satisfying feeling game flow.

Having maintenance tasks that need to be done every single day means that you can never just take a day off to go explore. Harvest Moon always had an elegant and simple solution to this when it came to watering your crops. Some days it would rain. You would walk out your door and just like that, you notice you have a MUCH more freed up schedule that day. Hense a random food surplus event.

The first time I woke up to a glow morning I didn't know what to make of it. But now I consider that occasional glow one of the most beautiful things about the far far range. I don't know how it works or why. But a lot of my best stories and adventures started with one of those amazing mornings.

-H


When you wake up on a glow morning, the skybox looks different for a little while, to make it clear the event has occurred. And all of the produce, chickens, etc, that day produce twice as much as normal. This would allow the player to stuff the pens with double the usual amount of food. So the next day, they would be just fine ignoring the usual food gathering chore. They could take a day off and go explore.

The changes to plorts are to reduce the sheer amount of time one has to spend standing at pens and market stands holding the mouse button down, and to make it actually feel GOOD. I rather quickly started to feel like I was hauling massive jars filled with pennies around. There were so many plorts to collect it could take hours and hours of in game time to do it, and then I'd just stand their spewing huge streams of the stuff in to the market and feel like I was getting chump change for them. Harvest day is supposed to be exciting! It's the reward you've been working hard and waiting for! But in the current game, EVERY day is harvest day, and you're harvesting and hauling giant penny jars. It really doesn't feel good or rewarding. And its incredibly tedious.

I feel these changes would address the issues drones are intended to address, and do it in a way that doesn't mean giving the player a way to automate their farm and remove themselves from the core gameplay. It also does so in ways that improve the over all experience of the game, rather than just sort of put a band-aid on a sore spot.

EXTRA CREDIT
Just a couple other ideas that I feel would improve the experience, but are less crucial in my mind:
  • I would really love to see variety in hunger buildup and plort production of various slimes, and have plort values reflect that. Maybe crystal slimes only eat once a day. Period. But pink slimes eat 4 times a day. And Mosaic slimes eat a normal amount each day, but even with their favorite food, they only have a 25% chance of producing a plort. Largo's simply merge these statistics in some way. Variety is what allows the player to feel accomplished about even the daily chores. Because its not the same every day, and how you lay out your ranch and when you do what could really be rewarded by thinking ahead! This could add some more strategy to what largos you want to produce too.
  • Silos. An entire structure taking an entire plot of land can only store as much as the upgraded vacuum I am literally carrying around the entire island with me...? Silos are absolute rubbish. They need to store a larger variety, and more of it, to be worth their plot of land. I don't see why they can't have 8 slots instead of 4. And be upgraded to hold 500 or more items per slot.
  • Make going to sleep a thing. I didn't realize until near the end of the run that there is NO penalty for just staying awake constantly. That is totally unintuitive, unimmersive, and I really hope the game isn't being balanced around you never sleeping... Trying to beat the clock and get things done each day before you have to sleep is one of the primary driving forces of this style of game.

My thoughts:
Minandreas wrote:b]DESIGN GOAL[/b]
To create a more varied and satisfying feeling game flow.

Having maintenance tasks that need to be done every single day means that you can never just take a day off to go explore. Harvest Moon always had an elegant and simple solution to this when it came to watering your crops. Some days it would rain. You would walk out your door and just like that, you notice you have a MUCH more freed up schedule that day. Hense a random food surplus event.

The first time I woke up to a glow morning I didn't know what to make of it. But now I consider that occasional glow one of the most beautiful things about the far far range. I don't know how it works or why. But a lot of my best stories and adventures started with one of those amazing mornings.

-H

Harvest Moon was really great, so I see why you want this to happen. The Devs wish to add weather into the game, so I see why you want this.

Minandreas wrote:The changes to plorts are to reduce the sheer amount of time one has to spend standing at pens and market stands holding the mouse button down, and to make it actually feel GOOD. I rather quickly started to feel like I was hauling massive jars filled with pennies around. There were so many plorts to collect it could take hours and hours of in game time to do it, and then I'd just stand their spewing huge streams of the stuff in to the market and feel like I was getting chump change for them. Harvest day is supposed to be exciting! It's the reward you've been working hard and waiting for! But in the current game, EVERY day is harvest day, and you're harvesting and hauling giant penny jars. It really doesn't feel good or rewarding. And its incredibly tedious.

I feel these changes would address the issues drones are intended to address, and do it in a way that doesn't mean giving the player a way to automate their farm and remove themselves from the core gameplay. It also does so in ways that improve the over all experience of the game, rather than just sort of put a band-aid on a sore spot.

Slimes are like an AND gate: Input (food) goes in, Output (plort) comes out. Changing this would make it more tedious to do things like 7Zee or buy more upgrades. It's fun, but frustrating over time. What I think will happen is that the bots will sell plorts for you, as well as feed. All you have to do is feed them.
Minandreas wrote:EXTRA CREDIT
Just a couple other ideas that I feel would improve the experience, but are less crucial in my mind:
  • I would really love to see variety in hunger buildup and plort production of various slimes, and have plort values reflect that. Maybe crystal slimes only eat once a day. Period. But pink slimes eat 4 times a day. And Mosaic slimes eat a normal amount each day, but even with their favorite food, they only have a 25% chance of producing a plort. Largo's simply merge these statistics in some way. Variety is what allows the player to feel accomplished about even the daily chores. Because its not the same every day, and how you lay out your ranch and when you do what could really be rewarded by thinking ahead! This could add some more strategy to what largos you want to produce too.
  • Silos. An entire structure taking an entire plot of land can only store as much as the upgraded vacuum I am literally carrying around the entire island with me...? Silos are absolute rubbish. They need to store a larger variety, and more of it, to be worth their plot of land. I don't see why they can't have 8 slots instead of 4. And be upgraded to hold 500 or more items per slot.
  • Make going to sleep a thing. I didn't realize until near the end of the run that there is NO penalty for just staying awake constantly. That is totally unintuitive, unimmersive, and I really hope the game isn't being balanced around you never sleeping... Trying to beat the clock and get things done each day before you have to sleep is one of the primary driving forces of this style of game.

All of these I agree with, except sleeping. Maybe sleep isn't necessary, but you gain a passive stamina and HP regeneration speed boost for the day. Sleeping is necessary for Gordo Snares to work.

All in all, very nice. Welcome to the Fourms!
aw frick
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Re: Feedback from a new player, and lover, of the game.

Postby Minandreas » Mon Nov 27, 2017 5:57 pm

Slimes are like an AND gate: Input (food) goes in, Output (plort) comes out. Changing this would make it more tedious to do things like 7Zee or buy more upgrades. It's fun, but frustrating over time. What I think will happen is that the bots will sell plorts for you, as well as feed. All you have to do is feed them.


Thanks for the welcome. =)

Unless I'm misunderstanding, I think you missed the part about making the plorts worth more to counterbalance halving the production rate. The idea is you shouldn't see a change in overall amount of money made. You'll make just as much. You'll just be making it by selling fewer plorts that are worth significantly more. All it really cuts out is the sheer amount of time spent hauling around vacs full of plorts.
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Re: Feedback from a new player, and lover, of the game.

Postby EmeraldPlay » Tue Nov 28, 2017 8:25 am

Nice suggestions.
My avatar was taken from Miomilla's chart.

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Re: Feedback from a new player, and lover, of the game.

Postby TheGreciansHousehold » Tue Nov 28, 2017 9:14 am

Minandreas wrote: There are two primary issues I feel really hurt it and prevent me from recommending it to most of my friends.

what's that?
Minandreas wrote:c:

S U G G E S T I O N S ? !
oh.
O H .
les do dis.

1. Daily maintenance of the ranch is far too time consuming. I had to revamp my ranch to leave half of it deserted in order to free up enough time each day to explore at all.

Fair enough. I too had this problem; carrying 2 stacks of plorts twice (50 item limit :c) for all 6 of my corrals.
However, this is easily solved by a few solutions already in the game:
1: Unlock the Tank Boost Ultra via the 7Zee Awards Club. Sure, it does cost ₦291,500 (honestly I think it should be Treasure-Pod-unlocked, but oh well), but it makes everything ten times easier.
2: Try freeranging more slimes. Of course, it is harder to manage freeranged plorts, but as long as your farms are numberous enough and you clear up every few days, it becomes so much easier to maintain. Alongside this, you can easily keep at least thrice as many slimes in one area.
3: Try placing your most productive slimes closest to your plort market. This way, it won't matter if you skip a few corrals during your rounds.

2. Over all satisfaction of activities is low.

Surprisingly, I agree. Although of course a game has to be a bit grindy just for game lifetime, but Slime Rancher is a bit ridiculous. It takes far too long to get some things in the game, most of which are somewhat filler.
The Wilds are a good example of what the game should be more like; it has challenges, but is still rewarding and doesn't take TOO long.

1. Introduce a random food surplus event. [Glow Morning]

I actually like this idea. It suits the game and isn't too OP. Weather is fun.
However.. there is a problem.

Further in the game, some things that are scarce earlier in the game become common. For example, I usually awaken in the morning to at least 5 chickens of profit. What do I do with 5 chickens?! I mean, I like profit just as much as any capitalist, but...

2. Cut plorts in half.(Non-favorite food means only a 50% chance they make a plort. favorite guarantees they produce a plort.)

U H H H H H
Ignoring the fact that a 50% chance means that there's actually a higher chance of getting a 1/4 of the current plort output, this is somewhat absurd.
As tyrantlemon55 said, it would really damage the forward flow of the game.

But in the current game, EVERY day is harvest day, and you're harvesting and hauling giant penny jars.

Like.. an actual ranch, especially of money-making machines?

I would really love to see variety in hunger buildup and plort production of various slimes, and have plort values reflect that. Maybe crystal slimes only eat once a day. Period. But pink slimes eat 4 times a day. And Mosaic slimes eat a normal amount each day, but even with their favorite food, they only have a 25% chance of producing a plort. Largo's simply merge these statistics in some way. Variety is what allows the player to feel accomplished about even the daily chores. Because its not the same every day, and how you lay out your ranch and when you do what could really be rewarded by thinking ahead! This could add some more strategy to what largos you want to produce too.

Honestly, this is just.. meh. Sure, it wouldn't make much difference, but after everything - all slimes are slimes. Unlike, say harvest moon, where plants are.. obviously not.

Silos. An entire structure taking an entire plot of land can only store as much as the upgraded vacuum I am literally carrying around the entire island with me...? Silos are absolute rubbish. They need to store a larger variety, and more of it, to be worth their plot of land. I don't see why they can't have 8 slots instead of 4. And be upgraded to hold 500 or more items per slot.

4*100=400, or enough gold plorts to amass ₦80,000
8*100=800, ₦160,000
8*500=4000, a ridiculous ₦800,000. That's A LOT OF STUFF.

Make going to sleep a thing. I didn't realize until near the end of the run that there is NO penalty for just staying awake constantly. That is totally unintuitive, unimmersive, and I really hope the game isn't being balanced around you never sleeping... Trying to beat the clock and get things done each day before you have to sleep is one of the primary driving forces of this style of game.

I agree. I really don't want this to become the kind of game where at 2:30AM a red screen screams at you to GO TO SLEEP or a stamina penalty, simply because this is the kind of game (and job) where you occasionally have to skip a night, or just go starspotting. I love this game's graphics.
Instead, I would quite like if after 3-4 days (1 hour 36 minutes, more than enough time to go for a snooze) without sleeping a small penalty, e.g reduced stamina refuel speed - I'm quite against full stamina reduction as it is quite important in this game - which then increases with each hour by, say, 10% (remember, increments are a thing), until you simply cannot recharge.

thx k bye
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Re: Feedback from a new player, and lover, of the game.

Postby TheLevens » Tue Nov 28, 2017 3:30 pm

TheLevens wrote:http://xboxdvr.com/albums/3111

Here’s my Slime Ranch. Rate it, like it, love/hate it, and ask questions if any of it confuses you.


Hi, welcome to Slime “Rancher”.

So coming from an End Gamer on this game, yes things get very tedious and time consuming. Which is why you need better time management and optimize your ranch.

My Ranch, linked above, is self sustaining at this point. I have access to every plort type and they all eat one type of food, except one which eats my chicken supply.
So given this, I rarely if at all go outside my Ranch. If I do it’s by teleportor to gather rare resources. I also only keep 4-5 Largos in a pen which is under the 7-10 recommended amount. But I found having 4-5 Largos produces 100 plorts in about two days if I don’t sleep.

I do agree with you that there needs to be more to the game for replay ability towards the end. At this point, the only thing I can really do is max out my science plort collector and gather money.

Best of luck to you.
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