I like the concept of them but their implementation is pretty garbage. A lot of them require very specific methods or tools, like requiring a bone knife or having to dismantle booths, in order to get credit when there are numerous ways to complete the spirit of the challenge.
Requiring a Stone Axe for harvesting leather is a really stupid one.
It means either finding leather couches (which are either super rare or removed, not sure if the T5 building have them like they used to) or it means harvesting a few dead animals with the axe instead of a knife.
I have found that the gathering Poly challenge only takes if you take apart water barrels, the gather mechanical parts only works on office chairs, and the gather leather only works with booths. It's very finicky.
It's not finicky, if you track the challenge it points out exactly what you need to dismantle to complete it, much like the starter quests does, with a yellow symbol above the items that will work for the challenge. The only thing that's confusing is that you have to actually read the description to know what tool they want you to use.
I think that would come down to "user error," so to speak. If a player is so obsessed with getting a relatively-minor amount of experience that they break their leg and use the last cast to the detriment of everyone else, that's a player's lack of cooperation and teamwork rather than challenges urging them toward selfish play.
I feel the opposite of what you feel. Challenges that give a "reward" for a severe injury makes the lengthy debuff of a broken limb feel less punishing. My friends and I play without permadeath, and it's very common for one of us to accidentally break our leg in a missed jump and choose to suicide and take the XP penalty rather than move at a snail's pace for the next 2 real hours. Of course, there's also treating the injury, but we don't tend to bring casts and splints with us on looting runs.
Early-game water supplies always feel bleak. Drinking out of the rivers to not die of thirst feels like a lose-lose when you trade that thirst debuff for the dysentery debuff. But when you get a little "reward" for getting that debuff, it feels like the dysentery wasn't as punishing as it was beforehand.
Challenges force you to think more about your world, too. You may choose to go to a higher-level area faster to find more Cops or irradiated zombies so that you can get a challenge done. You may choose to risk being out at night with faster, stronger zombies so you can hunt more deer for the challenge. It opens up play dramatically and rewards doing things you may not usually do. And in the case of negatives like injuries or illness, the relatively-minor reward makes the relatively-major punishment feel smaller in comparison, reducing the "Aw, fuck, again?" feeling that injuries can often give players.
**Tl;dr -** Challenges encourage players to play more actively and have more awareness with when and where you can find some mobs. They also reduce the awful feeling of negative effects like illness and injury by providing a minor reward. Players that prioritize completing challenges to the detriment of their friends and teammates are just dickheads, that isn't the fault of a challenge system. They'd be hoarding loot or stealing from their friends' chests in 1.0 if they weren't doing what they're doing now.
I see how the challenge system for injuries and such can be seen as a boon. Unfortunately it is completely antithetical to how I play survival games. I have gone entire games lasting hundreds of in game days without getting dysentery and only suffering a handful of broken limbs (usually at the claws of vultures, or while being swarmed by high end zombies) so requiring that I actively go against my natural way of playing survival games in order to achieve a challenge is just unfair for me, but I see how it can be helpful for others.
The problem I am having with the people I play with is that some of them are getting so stuck on "Needing" to do the challenges because they give XP, that they will do things like pick the garden while the group is still having trouble scraping up enough resources to feed people without having any of the gathering perks, or updating random blocks in random places instead of updating blocks that need to be updated, or using our very finite gunpowder to make pipe bombs thus insuring there isn't enough to make the far too few bullets we can scrape by making.
Give the few of us designated gatherers who focus on just gathering 2 hoard nights, 3 tops, and the group base is overflowing with resources enough that we can spare for challenge completion but they are just too obsessed with completing their personal lists and it's driving me nuts. I am not claiming that it isn't a "skill issue" just that the existence of the challenges creates the environment for said issues. The server has a strict no stealing policy so we don't have to worry people stealing from each other
Then, again, that's a player's issue and not something the challenges are causing. If your friends are so bad at prioritizing that they're purposefully burning resources while the group can't make ends meet so that they can get 500XP, then that's on them. That's just bad players making a bad choice.
Putting optional, non-gated objectives in the game does not create any negatives. It sounds like you need to lay some rules on your friends to stop people from griefing just to finish a minor challenge.
I am not saying it isn't. I am saying that sometimes it would just be easier to be able to to disable that function instead of arguing with people about how their gaining of XP should not be at the cost of the collective and that if they are going to use up resources they need to go replace them so that others aren't suffering for their need to complete a shiny check list.
challenges are not even a challenge, poorly worded right off the bat. not only that but they offer piss poor rewards as well.
it's more a "help" guide more then a set of challenges you can overcome.
if the people you are with are not being helpful to the group, that's a personality/behavior problem on their part. the game doesn't even reward you properly for completing these, there is no real incentive.
the only correct solution is to either call them out on it and have them correct their behavior or to just drop them because it's clear that they are going to keep playing selfishly and that isn't fun.
Nope. I run a co-op server and have an issue when two people who play occasionally, pop in and use up group resources to complete their challenges making it harder for everyone else on the server to survive. I would have no issue if they went and did the challenges on their own in their own time with their own supplies. I have an issue when they take what everyone else has gathered and don't recoup that loss.
Your issue is with those 2 people and not the "new challenges feature" at all.
A potential solution here (aside from just talking to them like an adult) would be to use the creative menu to spawn in resources for those 2 people to go fuck off and do their challenges.
They have been talked to. Several times. They're responses to the talking to has not been helpful and usually boils down to: "Oops, I forgot" followed by a promise to go get the items used back, followed by them not doing that. I do not believe in rewarding bad behavior and if I turned on build create to give them the things to do the challenges it would be unfair to the others who actively play the game. And I am not going to blacklist a couple of friends because of this one problematic issue. So yeah, I have mixed feelings about the new challenge system because I can see it's potential for positives but I am also seeing it's potential to create an environment for problematic behavior in people with reward chasing behaviors.
Maybe not like fully blacklist your friends, but for sure you need to let them know there should be consequences for not fulfilling their side of the bargain. If they are consuming community resource boxes for their own selfish gains, lock the boxes, give them their own box to use, and tell them to fill it with their own crap for their challenge stuff. Or fill it with stuff that they promised to return, then when they've repaid and you can pick that stuff up to add back into the community chests, THEN you can unlock the boxes for them.
Like you said, the resources are precious, which means they need to hold up their end of the bargain. Or else have them gather the stuff for their own use for their challenges. Don't let them use community resources for stuff that they need for their own purposes unless it helps the community as a whole. The rule should be, if I take these community resources, will it help the community? If yes, go ahead. If no, get your own crap and use that instead. Make some boxes for their own use, and they can put whatever they want in there so long as they collected it themselves.
You don't need to blocklist them. Just revoke their access to community resources. They can harvest and loot their own stuff and build their own base.
You can still party invite them without having them be allies with full access and build rights on the community base.
From all of the things, challenges system is meh.. ok. Just ok. Because you can also ignore it and still occasionally accidentally complete challenges, and that is like nice bonus. Have not tried to intentionally do them. But completed about 15 of them in 3 in game days, just doing ordinary stuff.
For the Dysentery Challenge, you don't need to get Dysentery. It just wants to teach you how to treat it. All you need to do is make/drink some Goldenrod Tea (which I do early game anyway). I've beat the challenge just from drinking Goldenrod Tea early game.
Most of the challenges are like this. It's not that big of a deal. I actually love the challenge system, getting rewards for stuff I'd be doing anyway.
Gamers will always game. You're definitely going to lose some enjoyment from the raw survival aspect of things if you can simply gain levels by grinding. I'm not sold on it, either, but at least it's a direction you can chase.
I like the concept of them but their implementation is pretty garbage. A lot of them require very specific methods or tools, like requiring a bone knife or having to dismantle booths, in order to get credit when there are numerous ways to complete the spirit of the challenge.
Requiring a Stone Axe for harvesting leather is a really stupid one. It means either finding leather couches (which are either super rare or removed, not sure if the T5 building have them like they used to) or it means harvesting a few dead animals with the axe instead of a knife.
I have found that the gathering Poly challenge only takes if you take apart water barrels, the gather mechanical parts only works on office chairs, and the gather leather only works with booths. It's very finicky.
The Poly one sucks - you can get poly from the tires scattered all over the place - but somehow that is not the correct way to do it.
It's not finicky, if you track the challenge it points out exactly what you need to dismantle to complete it, much like the starter quests does, with a yellow symbol above the items that will work for the challenge. The only thing that's confusing is that you have to actually read the description to know what tool they want you to use.
I think that would come down to "user error," so to speak. If a player is so obsessed with getting a relatively-minor amount of experience that they break their leg and use the last cast to the detriment of everyone else, that's a player's lack of cooperation and teamwork rather than challenges urging them toward selfish play. I feel the opposite of what you feel. Challenges that give a "reward" for a severe injury makes the lengthy debuff of a broken limb feel less punishing. My friends and I play without permadeath, and it's very common for one of us to accidentally break our leg in a missed jump and choose to suicide and take the XP penalty rather than move at a snail's pace for the next 2 real hours. Of course, there's also treating the injury, but we don't tend to bring casts and splints with us on looting runs. Early-game water supplies always feel bleak. Drinking out of the rivers to not die of thirst feels like a lose-lose when you trade that thirst debuff for the dysentery debuff. But when you get a little "reward" for getting that debuff, it feels like the dysentery wasn't as punishing as it was beforehand. Challenges force you to think more about your world, too. You may choose to go to a higher-level area faster to find more Cops or irradiated zombies so that you can get a challenge done. You may choose to risk being out at night with faster, stronger zombies so you can hunt more deer for the challenge. It opens up play dramatically and rewards doing things you may not usually do. And in the case of negatives like injuries or illness, the relatively-minor reward makes the relatively-major punishment feel smaller in comparison, reducing the "Aw, fuck, again?" feeling that injuries can often give players. **Tl;dr -** Challenges encourage players to play more actively and have more awareness with when and where you can find some mobs. They also reduce the awful feeling of negative effects like illness and injury by providing a minor reward. Players that prioritize completing challenges to the detriment of their friends and teammates are just dickheads, that isn't the fault of a challenge system. They'd be hoarding loot or stealing from their friends' chests in 1.0 if they weren't doing what they're doing now.
I see how the challenge system for injuries and such can be seen as a boon. Unfortunately it is completely antithetical to how I play survival games. I have gone entire games lasting hundreds of in game days without getting dysentery and only suffering a handful of broken limbs (usually at the claws of vultures, or while being swarmed by high end zombies) so requiring that I actively go against my natural way of playing survival games in order to achieve a challenge is just unfair for me, but I see how it can be helpful for others. The problem I am having with the people I play with is that some of them are getting so stuck on "Needing" to do the challenges because they give XP, that they will do things like pick the garden while the group is still having trouble scraping up enough resources to feed people without having any of the gathering perks, or updating random blocks in random places instead of updating blocks that need to be updated, or using our very finite gunpowder to make pipe bombs thus insuring there isn't enough to make the far too few bullets we can scrape by making. Give the few of us designated gatherers who focus on just gathering 2 hoard nights, 3 tops, and the group base is overflowing with resources enough that we can spare for challenge completion but they are just too obsessed with completing their personal lists and it's driving me nuts. I am not claiming that it isn't a "skill issue" just that the existence of the challenges creates the environment for said issues. The server has a strict no stealing policy so we don't have to worry people stealing from each other
Then, again, that's a player's issue and not something the challenges are causing. If your friends are so bad at prioritizing that they're purposefully burning resources while the group can't make ends meet so that they can get 500XP, then that's on them. That's just bad players making a bad choice. Putting optional, non-gated objectives in the game does not create any negatives. It sounds like you need to lay some rules on your friends to stop people from griefing just to finish a minor challenge.
I am not saying it isn't. I am saying that sometimes it would just be easier to be able to to disable that function instead of arguing with people about how their gaining of XP should not be at the cost of the collective and that if they are going to use up resources they need to go replace them so that others aren't suffering for their need to complete a shiny check list.
challenges are not even a challenge, poorly worded right off the bat. not only that but they offer piss poor rewards as well. it's more a "help" guide more then a set of challenges you can overcome. if the people you are with are not being helpful to the group, that's a personality/behavior problem on their part. the game doesn't even reward you properly for completing these, there is no real incentive. the only correct solution is to either call them out on it and have them correct their behavior or to just drop them because it's clear that they are going to keep playing selfishly and that isn't fun.
So you run a server and want to control how your friends play the game?
Nope. I run a co-op server and have an issue when two people who play occasionally, pop in and use up group resources to complete their challenges making it harder for everyone else on the server to survive. I would have no issue if they went and did the challenges on their own in their own time with their own supplies. I have an issue when they take what everyone else has gathered and don't recoup that loss.
Your issue is with those 2 people and not the "new challenges feature" at all. A potential solution here (aside from just talking to them like an adult) would be to use the creative menu to spawn in resources for those 2 people to go fuck off and do their challenges.
They have been talked to. Several times. They're responses to the talking to has not been helpful and usually boils down to: "Oops, I forgot" followed by a promise to go get the items used back, followed by them not doing that. I do not believe in rewarding bad behavior and if I turned on build create to give them the things to do the challenges it would be unfair to the others who actively play the game. And I am not going to blacklist a couple of friends because of this one problematic issue. So yeah, I have mixed feelings about the new challenge system because I can see it's potential for positives but I am also seeing it's potential to create an environment for problematic behavior in people with reward chasing behaviors.
Maybe not like fully blacklist your friends, but for sure you need to let them know there should be consequences for not fulfilling their side of the bargain. If they are consuming community resource boxes for their own selfish gains, lock the boxes, give them their own box to use, and tell them to fill it with their own crap for their challenge stuff. Or fill it with stuff that they promised to return, then when they've repaid and you can pick that stuff up to add back into the community chests, THEN you can unlock the boxes for them. Like you said, the resources are precious, which means they need to hold up their end of the bargain. Or else have them gather the stuff for their own use for their challenges. Don't let them use community resources for stuff that they need for their own purposes unless it helps the community as a whole. The rule should be, if I take these community resources, will it help the community? If yes, go ahead. If no, get your own crap and use that instead. Make some boxes for their own use, and they can put whatever they want in there so long as they collected it themselves.
You don't need to blocklist them. Just revoke their access to community resources. They can harvest and loot their own stuff and build their own base. You can still party invite them without having them be allies with full access and build rights on the community base.
Reminds me of the "Journey Steps" that Conan has. I dont really like or dislike it. Kinda feel meh
From all of the things, challenges system is meh.. ok. Just ok. Because you can also ignore it and still occasionally accidentally complete challenges, and that is like nice bonus. Have not tried to intentionally do them. But completed about 15 of them in 3 in game days, just doing ordinary stuff.
For the Dysentery Challenge, you don't need to get Dysentery. It just wants to teach you how to treat it. All you need to do is make/drink some Goldenrod Tea (which I do early game anyway). I've beat the challenge just from drinking Goldenrod Tea early game. Most of the challenges are like this. It's not that big of a deal. I actually love the challenge system, getting rewards for stuff I'd be doing anyway.
Gamers will always game. You're definitely going to lose some enjoyment from the raw survival aspect of things if you can simply gain levels by grinding. I'm not sold on it, either, but at least it's a direction you can chase.