I made an account just to beg for a phosphate and ammonia revamp

I saw a post on the dev forum suggesting the removal of compound clouds. I’d never thought about it before, but now that I have, I am DEAD SET on seeing this done.
I sincerely believe that like some of the devs suggested, many of the devs who are apprehensive to remove them are simply too used to them. This isn’t supposed to be an insult. I can’t blame them.

But as someone who just casually plays the game, and has been frustrated by the growth system many times (especially due to the impossibility of sessile gameplay which I constantly attempt to do,) as soon as I saw the post’s suggestions I had 0 qualms. In fact, seeing what we could have gameplay-wise, visual-wise, and realism-wise actually sort of… spoiled some of the fun of the current game? I’m not blaming the devs, I just now know what sort of experience I could be having, and it saddens me to know that it might not happen.

That sadness is why I made this account.
Please, I IMPLORE all the devs who are hesitant on this revamp to read my post. I do not think making some of the clouds passive will make the game any less fun. In fact, I think it’ll be much more fun.
For one, it opens more opportunity for a changing environment, bringing more opportunities to evolve.
For two, more strategy in both your builds (so you can absorb and utilize passive compounds more quickly or slowly,) AND in the patches you choose to live in.
For three, it looks significantly prettier AND more realistic. The bubbles and rocks floating around rather than gas would be much more dynamic, interactive, and aesthetically appealing.

You don’t limit the gameplay. If you aren’t able to produce your own food, you still need to hunt. You need to search for food and you need to fight and you need to be able to move on a whim if the compounds in your area become depleted and are no longer sufficient to be passively absorbed in the area. At the moment there is little reason to move to new patches, because the compounds remain more or less the same and can be found by just exploring. The only time I’ve moved patches was because I didn’t like how little glucose there was and decided to become an iron eater.

If you DO produce your own food… Then, you’re probably going to want to be sessile! Which means for those of us who want this, it’s actually a huge damper on the fun when you’re forced to move around regardless because you need to find your own phosphate and ammonia. It’s not fun at all.

My thoughts were extremely rambly and I was basically repeating what the devs in support of the revamp said, so let me just summarize.

As it stands, the gameplay is not dynamic, supports just one playstyle, and does not encourage evolution.
Simply adding passive growth via the removal of clouds will add more playstyles, survival strategies, and potential threats. It removes the monotonous process of collecting clouds manually to grow, in favor of other, funner gameplay mechanics, AND makes the game significantly more gorgeous.
It isn’t just a good idea, it’s a necessary one.
I need this revamp.

Finally, I just want to say… You’re doing great work. These updates are coming faster than ever and they’re legitimately game-changing. An (extremely early) macroscopic prototype? First I thought the furthest you could possibly get was early to late multicellular stage. Then I thought that the furthest the game could POSSIBLY get before development ceased would be early macroscopic stage! But now, I’m convinced you’ll at least reach mid to late macroscopic stage. And hopefully, further.
The digestion revamp was a game changer! It’s so fun to play with. It’s super exciting to see the screenshot of an experiment with the macroscopic animals. It looks really good! Looks like an animal you’d see in real life. I’m really looking forward to the release of a playable macroscopic stage, even if it’s the most minimal gameplay in the world. Excited to see how you’ll make the cells you developed in the microscopic stage impact the macroscopic version of the organism. Especially since there are items like spikes. Do you think offensive things like this or the toxins could be utilized to develop special tissues that can cause stings and the like? Heh… enough of the speculation, it’s not relevant. Just wanted to remind you guys how good you’re doing. The game is looking great.

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Just to clarify, are you advocating more for the complete removal of clouds or just making phosphate and ammonia generation possible? I feel like the latter achieves most of what you are describing while the former carries with it some negatives we would like to avoid.

I also think revamping phosphate and ammonia would help with a lot of Thrive’s problems, but there are some design questions we first need to answer that are brought up towards the end of this thread:

So all this is to say just be patient if that’s what we decide to go with as we iron out this concept, and ideas will be welcome.

You can’t generate phosphate as a organism.

well, the idea isn’t that the microbe will produce phosphate, but rather the microbe will slowly absorb it from the environment

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Appreciate your feedback man! It’s good to hear what the players think of such a change. I also really believe completely replacing the clouds with passive absorption and chunks will greatly help the game, but I know it’s a very big change to consider.

As such, we’re going to start by looking at smaller intermediate steps, like only removing clouds for Ammonia and Phosphate and making them passively absorb from the environment. This should alone fix sessile gameplay, and solve many of the problems posed in the original post I made on the thread on the dev forum.

Then separately we’re going to look at adding chunks (bubbles, crystals, grains, and other particles), which could add a lot more visual realism and also cool interactivity to the gameplay.

If we implement these changes and like the direction it takes the game, then we’ll reassess and look at whether we should remove clouds for the remaining compounds as well.

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Sounds great! I don’t mind baby steps. What matters is the end result. I wouldn’t want the devs overworking themselves. This game is a passion project, not a prison cell lol.

I think starting with just ammonia and phosphate is best, like you said. They’re the most important ones for fixing the game right now, and it’ll allow a lot of feedback from other players and devs as well. It would be a shame to revamp all the compounds only to find out we were wrong all along and the compound clouds are actually good.

What I would like to see is the removal of ammonia and phosphate clouds, and the addition of bubbles and chunks. I can definitely see that this could pose design problems… I’ve just got my fingers crossed hoping all of this can be done and that it’ll work out as well as I think it would!

As for patience… Yeah, there’s no rush! I’m not saying you have to do the update just because of my post or something. Rather, I believe that with all changes to a game like this, having a voice as a player is important. One post advocating for something means little, but multiple saying the same thing means a lot. My hope is that the community will voice their opinions, be it in favor or disfavor of the ideas posed in the post. If they do, it can help you- the developers- to come to a decision that will improve the game for everyone.

That said I am biased and hoping other people agree with me that this revamp is a good idea…
Anyways, take your time. Even if this revamp turns out to be a good idea, if you take your time, you might find ways to make it even better. So, it doesn’t even benefit ME for you to rush… let alone the developers. Never overwork yourselves for this game. It’s supposed to be fun making it, not a punishment.

(Edited to combine a double-post into one as I didn’t know about the rule at the time of writing)

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