Me too! Having to build in different levels and choose seasons to produce different things while.some parts are flooded or figuring out how to divert water seems cool! Because so far my goal is to get all the map green, no brown areas

i kinda hope the add wet seasons where water goes very high compared to normal

This game is still early access, have you given your feedback to the developers?  I don’t think the game even has a “final goal” yet, so there may be something they can do to break the repetition.

>	Just because the game doesn’t shove it in your face by having the beavers scream “WE WANT MAPLE PASTRIES” doesn’t mean there is no demand for them

This is incorrect, there is no demand for any food beyond the basic offering.

>	C:S basically holds your hand when it comes to th

C:S has a gameplay loop which evolves the demands, making the tech tree relevant.

I unfortunately don't know how better to educate you on this. If you're interested in learning about gameplay loops there are probably videos or articles out there about it.

Game design is a lot more complicated than you are acknowledging. If merely adding content was all you needed to do, then most game developers wouldn't be spending considerable time designing and evaluating the gameplay loop.

Thanks for your thoughts though

But there are demands to be met in the form of well-being. It's just more sandbox-y; they don't specifically request things in a specific order, but you can still go down those paths.

Continuing off of your C:S comparison, it would be like if I set up the bare basics and stopped expanding the city (ignoring the signs that more people *could* move in, just like ignoring the well-being tab entirely) and said "well, all my citizens are all having their basic needs met, so technically I'm fine forever now." Like... yeah, if you don't want to ever expand I guess?

Just because the game doesn't shove it in your face by having the beavers scream "WE WANT MAPLE PASTRIES" doesn't mean there is no demand for them. C:S basically holds your hand when it comes to that, and that's fine if that's the route certain developers want to go. But game developers not holding your hand and guiding you on what to do doesn't suddenly mean there isn't anything to do; it just means you're supposed to figure it 

> The only real challenge is playing different maps or changing difficulty to make it take longer to get stable.

Yes. That’s the game. You just don’t enjoy it, that’s fine, go play something else

I get what you're saying but I'm not sure you recognize what a gameplay loop is.

Minecraft has an infinitely generated world and gearing up allows you to explore more of the world more easily. There are clear gameplay loops between acquiring items and improving your base. It's not really a fair comparison.

I would compare this game more to something like Cities Skylines. I'm C:S the gameplay loop has your city constantly reaching new population thresholds at which point the citizens begin demanding new things which require you to continue to grow and invest in various tech/services or the citizens get upset and you might go bankrupt.

There is none of that in Timberborn. Once your colony is stable, nothing about the game loop changes. There are no new demands which require going down the tech tree.

The only real challenge is playing different maps or changing difficulty to make it take longer to get stable. Once stable, even if you do it without going down the tech tree, there's no 

I mean sure, if all you're doing is basic survival. But by that logic, in Minecraft, "all you have to do is find one seed and grow your farm, then you're set for life." Completely ignoring the rest of the features and covering basic sustainability is possible in every game; if that's what you call "beating the game" then every game is very easy to complete lmao

I agree we need more to the game! I think that it will be fixed as early access progresses. But the phrasing of the issue is not one I agree with. It comes across as going out of your way to find issues, and then being surprised that you found issues.

Maybe that’s true for simply keeping your beavers hydrated, but once you need a consistent source of power the mechanics get a bit more complicated. That’s why I was pleased with the addition of batteries. Some users have suggested a flood mechanic which I think would be a cool challenge.

It totally depends on what you want from the game. I really enjoy building mega cities and the verticality of it all keeps it interesting in making new designs. If you’re playing it as just a survival colony manager then yes, I understand what you’re saying.

Got example screens? Upsetting to hear as i managed hard year 60+ after multiple attempts

As I already stated in my post, the game needs more than just droughts as a challenge.

It would be different if the environment changed over time, or demands changed over time, so that the solution you use for surviving droughts earlier on in the game would no longer be sufficient later in the game.

As it stands, that's not the case.

I'm sorry for the people that are triggered by anyone criticizing the game, but the reality is that the game has plenty of opportunity to mature into something good even if some players are content with treating it like a box of legos and inventing their own win/failure conditions.

I have a similar issue where, once survival is no longer in question, my interest in a run really diminishes. 

Try using difficult custom difficulties, self imposed limits, and or challenge maps.

If you don't like that a 3 block high reservoir will outlast any drought, make droughts last 1000 days with a 5% handicap over 20 cycles. The max drought duration will go up by 50 each cycle.

Does that not actually make the game harder because water dumps irrigate practically the entire world for almost 0 water? Don't use them. Better grow enough food and store enough water before your reservoirs go dry because there's no way to get more.
 

Did you replace your workforce with golems, now you can just let the beavers die out then regrow them in vats? Play as the folktails. Now not only do you need to keep a breeding pair alive at all times, even your golems are fueled by food and water.

Survival games like Frostpunk can drive away more casual players though, I certainly get frustrated with Surviving Mars where it feels designed to make you fail. I guess that comes down to personal taste though.

You need to be careful of making busywork as well. Things like crop rotation would become a manual chore so you’d need a long term solution, perhaps requiring an upgrade or more resources.

Thinking about it more there is certainly room for more mid game. It’s too easy to get to the stage where you totally master the environment, flattening mountains and building towering dams. Different terrain like immovable rocks, swamps that need draining and rivers that change course without management might give more problems to solve.

There are countless games I could use to provide examples of how designers actually make their content relevant to the gameplay loop... but another one off the top of my head is the game "Frostpunk" -- another game with a survival loop and tech trees.

As the game progresses and the difficulty increases, it gets colder and for longer, and resources get exhausted along the way. Meaning you can't use the same tech you started with to keep the colony alive, you **must** research new tech, and you must figure out how to progress in the game before you lose.

This is why tech trees exist, to support the progression of gameplay.

Timberborn does not change the survival loop in any way other than increasing the drought duration. There is no real "severity" of drought other than that. The state of the game at any point is "does my colony have food/water or not?" and since you can solve that problem using only the tech you get at the start, there is no incentive to progress past it whatsoever.

As I said in another comment, games like Cities Skylines didn't just cram the game full of tech tree and figure out why it was needed later. They started with the demands, defining clear steps as population increases where additional demands are added which then require the need for the tech trees.

Timberborn is doing the opposite. They are just adding tech without having a need for it.

What is missing is an environment or a colony that matures in some way throughout the course of the map (like many of the ideas you suggested).

Ideas off the top of my head, therefore not "good ideas", but very simple examples of the depth of complexity that is missing:

- ground solubility changes over time so you can't keep re-using the same reservoirs

- the soil only supports various plants for X seasons, requiring you to rotate crops

- beavers get bored of basic foods and start requiring better foods to be able to work in specific buildings. e.g. you can't make gears until your beavers are eati

>Maybe there is another way of grading colonies with a quality of life multiplied by population calculation.

I really like that idea.

So there is the main gameplay loop and the win condition. Both of these need to be right for a game to be good.

The main loop is the water management and, as you say, this is too easy to cheat at the moment. Build some ridiculous walls out of the most basic material and away you go with almost infinite water. Perhaps you fix this by requiring walls over a certain height to be built with metal, or introduce concrete as a new resource requiring lots of Earth and water and time to set. Maybe water goes stagnant if left too long so you need to maintain currents. Maybe wood rots so your huge walls become a maintenance burden.

What really helps is instability and imbalance. Factorio does this well where you cannot reach a perfect state, there is always excess and shortage so the desire exists to tweak which leads to more imbalance elsewhere. I’m not sure how you approach this in Timberborn.

The win condition is harder as it is really an individual choice in this kind of game. The performa

FYI, you can have science points without beavers working, either with mines or numbercruncher, depending if you play folktails or ironteeth

My “goal” since the new update is to create a beaver utopia where every need is accounted for and golems are doing most if not all of the work (once science is maxed out I remove my observatories). It makes the game not only challenging for survival but also for progress.

>It's okay to not understand the finer points of software development or what a sandbox actually is

Jesus Christ you're insufferable.

Then how about using it as an argument to talk about software development rather than just writing off critical feedback entirely because you disagree.

You can make whatever assumptions about me you want, but I have yet to see you provide any feedback that is relevant to the discussion.

I've met plenty of experienced CS degree engineers who know nothing about software development and design beyond working on whatever ticket is in their queue for the week.

Early Access is a form of agile software development, which means a feedback loop with the customer base is a critical part of the design process. Guess what I'm here to discuss? Feedback on the design of an evolving game.

Okay Mr Superior intelligence.  You really sound like the cliché of the obnoxious IT nerd with no social skill,  you're not making our profession any favor dude  (I'm an CS engineer with almost a decade of experience as well, but I don't use this as an argument to appear superior).

You missed the point entirely. Early Access is irrelevant here.

The whole point is that they are just continuing to develop tech trees rather than working on the gameplay.

Maybe this is more obvious to me because I have almost a decade of experience working in software development, but this is about priorities (which is what 99% of software dev is). The devs are prioritizing simple tech tree content without addressing anything about the gameplay loop.

It's okay to not understand the finer points of software development or what a sandbox actually is, but if you think I'm just saying "stop having fun" you're probably taking criticism about a game personally for some reason. You're not the devs, so why do you care?

Consider adding something unique to the conversation

\-The game is in early access. That kinda renders your whole point void. You are complaining about missing parts in a game that is still being built.

\- For me it's a sandbox game, you can't "beat" the game, like you can't beat minecraft. The goals for me is not just to survive each drough. My goal is to develop a prosper and happy beaver civilization, to make big fun projects, and to max well-being. And for that, most of the tech treee makes sense. The part I use maybe a bit less is the terraforming, but it's still fun to play with.

I think you get downvoted because you're basically saying "stop having fun, the game is not THAT good, it's easy to beat". It's like saying skyrim is a bad game because you can rush the main quest in a few hours.  Well, maybe the game is not for you, it does not make it bad.


And your edit "I challenge any of you to provide a response that isn't just accepting the incomplete game for what it is "
IT IS AN IMCOMPLETE GAME, YOU SIMPLETON

You seem to want to play a game where the game tell you what you need to do (nothing wrong with that). I don't think timberborn is the game you would enjoy tbh.

Ok I want you to consider for a moment that you're not actually looking for more challenges like droughts, because I really don't think you are even though you think you are.

You're saying that this game essentially has a win-con of just... build a wall. Then I propose a question: why would the game give you the tools to exploit that if they didn't want you to do it. OF COURSE THE GAME WANTS YOU TO FUCKING BUILD A WALL YOU NUMPTY.

Jokes aside, the game doesn't feature any arbitrary limitations like disallowing you to stack levees, or y'know not having the ability to place dirt \*wherever you want\*. If they added these limitations it would solve your problem you have of "just build a wall." think of all the options you lose when you do that though.

You believe the game should have more mechanics, I agree, it would allow for more ways to engage with the terraforming system. It's not going to solve your problem though, you're wanting something that forces you to survive, mechanics adj

Your points are valid, but invalidated by the fact that this game is an early access. Literally a few days ago after your post a new update was announced on Steam. They are taking in community suggestions on the feature upvote site and refining core features. We must wait and see.

EDIT: Also, once sustainability is achieved, the game is a sandbox. That's the point. As of now, past that point you can create your own goals*, or quit playing if it's not your preferred game type?

*mega projects, beautiful city, automated city, highest population, highest wellbeing etc

That's exactly why I made my comment. I haven't played through the last few content updates because I've been waiting to see if they address the gameplay loop.

So far all they've done is enrich the tech trees and add better lighting.

Downvoted by fanboys who can't take anyone criticizing their precious beavers 😂

I understand that but still would have liked to see a lower price for the current features they do have.

I mean, it is in early access. It’s pretty up front that the game is still in development and that not all features are fully fleshed out.

I liked the game but I also felt like once you build dams it’s easily done. I wish the game was $10 because I didn’t get many hours out of it before it was just repetition.

**Edit: I expect the downvotes because it's reddit and you will downvote literally anything that criticizes something you like, even if it's valid criticism. However, I challenge any of you to provide a response that isn't just accepting the incomplete game for what it is and expecting other people to do the same. There are countless other colony sim games out there which do successfully progress the game and its tech tree in tandem. Timberborn does not, full stop.**

Take any colony, build walls along the river next to it so you can fill it 3-4 times as deep, and you've just beat the game regardless of difficulty and how far into the tech tree you are.

I had a ton of fun with the hard survival loop until I learned this.

Districts are half-baked and feel like an obvious attempt to solve performance issues with scaling a single district.

There needs to be some other kind of mechanic other than just droughts. There's very little reason to invest into growing multiple districts and evolving tech trees when you can literally just make a deep enough well and survive any drought.

It feels like the designers took a really good initial concept and then couldn't figure out what to do with it, and now they're just tacking on additional tech trees without considering the gameplay loop. "Oxygen Not Included" fell victim to the same problem... they just kept adding and adding tech while the core gameplay loop became boring and unchallenging.

This game's design is over-ambitious