The Conclusion. Part 2
After everything said in the previous post, it is time to talk about improving some parts of the game. I have decided to separate all of this into four categories:
- Things I haven’t talked about since they are planned already
Lysosomes - I have never explicitly said that but hunting and scavenging is the go-to strat now, since organelles give you a huge reward on eating. Lysosome is a beatuful solution to that.
Patch differentiaiton - well, I dont know many details now, but it is a really interesting concept. Changing the environment might make some of the less-useful organelles and playstyles more viable. Dont want to speculate however.
Resources would become more scarse over time - seems cool, idk how it will affect the gameplay. Probably just means more hunting
- Things that are already planned
Every species derives from player species - now this is a game changer. In the current version the competition comes from the fact that you’re catching up to everybody. That means that other cells can change way slower than player and still get away with that since they have a headstart. I cant wait to see how everything will turn out in the new version.
Other cells pushing you shouldn’t count as moving - nothing to add there
Progress bar - just cool
- Things that are might or might not be planned.
ATP bug fix -for those who dont know, your ATP production doesnt grow when your cell grows. This essentially means that your cell needs twice as much ATP-producing organellles. This bug is the biggest reason behind the current ATP-centered meta. But, after fixing it, ATP production of everything should probably be nerfed since 0.4.1 was balanced around that bug.
ATP production rebalance - since ATP production is the variable the game is balanced atm, I want to say how I see the game work: Everybody already kind of agreed that 15 generations is about enough for a cell stage. I want to divide it further. I think it would be cool to have first five generations be centered around prokaryotic gameplay. The player shouldn’t be really able to afford the nucleus until gen5 (maybe gen4 if he is willing to take a risk). Next five genetarions should be centered around producing enough ATP to have a surplus you can spend on other organelles. The late game is where you can start putting really good organelles.
While I’m not really confident in how I see the mid and late game, I am fairly certain in my vision of early game. So:
Oxygen levels on start should be low enough for glycolysis to be better than oxygen respiration - this would make metabolosomes and mitochondrias the investment for the future, since they’ll only be better with time.
Glycolysis should also be nerfed, since 4cytoplasm+ nucleus produces 20 ATP while draining 14. That means that gen3 nucleus is possible. If the ATP bug is fixed, glycolysis should probably become twice as slow (1 organelle makes only 2.5 ATP per second). This would prolong the early game, which is very much needed for prokaryotic organelles to shine.
Glucose consumption should increase for every ATP-producing organelle. Also, I don’t like that cytoplasm has its own glycolysis now, it adds complexity, but no depth to the game. Might be just me though.
But, increasing glucose consumption will also make chloroplasts even more OP. It is ok for now, but later it would be great to add some more ways to acquire glucose (for example hunting could give you some, idk). Overall, this decision will do more good than harm to the balance.
Severe buffs to F-tier organelles are needed.
Toxin vacuole should be nerfed. Increasing ATP cost is an easy solution, but there is another one. It would also be cool to make them less accurate. For example, give it a random(-20, 20) degree offset, so the player would not be able to really aim. Offset decreases with the number of toxin vacuoles.
I think it wont be a huge nerf, since the shooting distance is not that big, but right now you only need one toxin to easily kill everything. Accuracy debuff would make getting a second toxin a valid option.
- Other stuff.
Auto-Evo should be more aggressive in changing other cells, especially since everything starts with the single hex of cytoplasm.
AI-controlled cells of the player species should also have an impact on player population - while not a big concern now, it might become a huge limiting factor later. I’ve talked about that in that post (last paragraph): Lets figure out Thrive 0.4.1 guys
Well, I suppose that toxic prokaryotes won’t be able to evolve from a single hex of cytoplasm, but if they are - prokaryotes should not be able to get eukaryotic organelles.
Amount of distance you can zoom out should probably be nerfed.
Well, I hope this list is not too long and complicated.
Thank you for sticking with me for these two weeks and farewell, until Thrive v0.4.2