What Minecraft Should Learn From Valheim
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- čas přidán 5. 06. 2024
- Let's talk more design over on Discord: bit.ly/3wI5ovB
There's no doubt that Minecraft is still one of the best building games, but there certainly is room for improvement... While on the quest to try and answer the question “What makes a good base building
game” through the perspective of Valheim, I'll be taking a look at a few different building mechanics from games like Terraria, Rust, Sims 4, Subnautica and even Garry's Mod.
Relevant Links
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Patreon: bit.ly/2SwPWDB
Twitter: bit.ly/3wGQ1TR
Video Contents
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0:00 Intro
0:49 Reasons
1:11 Granularity Scale
3:31 Structural Integrity
5:30 Motivating Aesthetics
7:31 Maintenance
8:41 Rewarding Creative Expression
Footage Used
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Pharaoh ► FINAL Mission 38 Hetepsenusret (Kahun) - [1080p Widescreen] - Let's Play Game
[Rust] How To Make An Airlock in Rust
How to Build a Simple 2x2 Starter Base Design 2020 in RUST
Minecraft Longplay - Peaceful Survival, Gathering, Building a Simple Home (No Commentary)
Minecraft: All Living Room Decorations! [Fast Turorial]
Minecraft: Relaxing Gameplay Ep1 - Homesteading [No Commentary] [RTX] [60fps]
The Sims 4 Walkthrough Gameplay Let's Play Playthrough Part 2 - No Commentary
The FASTEST Keyboard Editing with HANDCAM (CRAZY Satisfying) - Hry
I'd have to disagree. Sure, Vallheim makes sure the player makes good-looking medieval looking structures, but Minecraft would only do itself a disservice by locking the player into one particular style.
Agreed.
Minecraft, valheim, subnautica, they have things in common. They all have building systems and they're all survival, but they're different games.
Valheim has a good base building system, really well made, Minecraft isn't, Subnautica isn't.
Subnautica has you stranded on an alien planet, decoration isn't a priority when you're trying to escape, and it's not meant to be a base building game, Making a base that feels like home when the character you play is trying to escape? Doesn't make alot of sense.
Minecraft is a sandbox, not a base building game. Sure you can build giant bases but you can also make complicated redstone contraptions, or walk for years to get to the world border without any home base at all. Forcing a strict building system into a game like that? Doesn't make alot of sense.
Comparing these games like they're all the same when they're actually different? Doesn't make alot of sense.
I like how this guy gave his arguements and didn't just "its facts because i say so", but the arguements would only make sense if the three games were all the same apart from the building aspect.
@@HuugTuub agreed honestly there is no best base building game or best game in general, we just have to appreciate the differences and similarities between them, there is no point in comparing two similar games, it just makes one or the other seem inherently worse, theyre all good games
Exactly Minecraft at its core is about player creativity it's not about a certain theme, minecraft has never been Medieval, it even goes as far as to have an entire mode dedicated to giving players the ability to create without limitation's.
@@HuugTuub You say decoration isn't a priority in Subnautica, but have you ever tried making a comfortable looking room? An actual door, a desk with some stuff on it, a plant pot, a few windows with a good view, and you already have yourself a much, much less barren looking room
@@lred1383 i have, but my point is that that's not what the game is about nor is the building system made for that, it's not a game meant to make decorated bases with. 99% of people will make a base out of a few rooms and a couple tubes and maybe a plant or poster here and there. Yeah some people have managed to make amazing looking bases, but the game's story has you leaving the planet. To build that base more then just essentials you have to postpone completing the story.
Get what i mean? It's unfair to critique a game on something that it's not meant to be good for wich is what this video does.
Rewarding creative expression can often actually limit players desire to create visually pleasing builds.
In a scientific study of kids drawing they took 2 groups of kids, 1 who would be rewarded with a sticker for their drawing and the other who received none. The first group expressed significantly less desire to draw once the rewards stopped and became focused on obtaining where as the second group kept drawing without any reward.
This effect can be seen in games where the player is rewarded with something for making the base look pleasant as the player will often try to game these systems and it often can limit some of the more outlandish creative designs. In oxygen not included it didn't reward making a well designed and creative looking build but just placing enough decor and this can lead to players just playing decor into random clusters to boost the system.
However, In games like Minecraft, there is no reward for creating making your base more than just a hole in the wall. However, since you are given a sandbox to play with most players build something better as the game goes on. The one mechanic that is both aesthetic and functional is lighting, which causes bases to often look ugly as players often place torches all over to make their base usable as it removes some options to be creative. Also, there are rewards that aren't gamified that come from making a nicer base, bigger bases feel less cluster, taller bases don't feel claustrophobic and there is the reward of creating something good looking, being able to be proud of your base and the satisfaction of showing to others and getting complimented by them is a reward within itself.
Finally, not all players want to make something that looks nice and forcing them to engage with a system that they are not interested in will make them view it as a chore to be done so that they can do what they came for and the players who want to build something aesthetically pleasing will not need to be encouraged to do so.
I can see this in my own personal motivations in games like Valheim versus Satisfactory. Satisfactory doesn't care if a structure looks like shit and couldn't possibly exist. And yet my creativity with design and aesthetics in Satisfactory far out-weighed what I did in Valheim. Partially because Valheim would restrict how crazy I could make a structure without resorting to materials I didn't want to use (stone looks shit) and once I realized I couldn't get higher than 18 Comfort I stopped caring about my house. But in Satisfactory I'm always adding new silly shit to my base for my own personal amusement.
THIS! This was what I was thinking the whole time I was watching the video. Minecraft succeeds at being fun regardless of your building skill because you aren't being forced to build X, Y, and Z in order to have a house, and then A, B, and C to do D or E. In Minecraft, a house is just wherever you build your bed and such. Hell, I'm pretty sure the official guidebook tells you to start by digging a hole in the side of a hill, the very thing Mental seems to despise.
The point is, Minecraft isn't trying to be a game like Rust or Valheim. I didn't even know Valheim existed until I watched this video, and I only know about Rust because some of my friends have played it before. Minecraft is the best-selling video game of all time. Maybe Rust and Valheim should learn from it. ;P
@@jerryorg1 If someone wants some building constraint playing minecraft... there are mods for that. I remember one that made buildings collapse if you made a ceiling too large and flat.
I personally enjoy the building restrictions. Without them I would struggle to build anything at all.
In games like Minecraft, taking the effort to build nice-looking structures that follow consistent logic ultimately feels meaningless to me.
But with Valheim, it's more like the structure is already there, I just need to uncover it.
yeah y'know any sort of reward or punishment for a player's choices encourages a meta, which discourages creativity. players will optimise the fun out of a game if given the opportunity.
that being said, having no rewards or restrictions can actually create a form of choice paralysis, as if youre sitting there with a blank piece of paper 'n a pencil.
i think the idea that a single game design can be objectively "good" or "bad" is just... no. a game's experience is subjective, and the same design played by a hundred different players, is a hundred different experiences. y'know?
I feel like the title is a bit clickbaity- this is a cool video on the good points of Valheim's building system, but it doesn't actually suggest how Minecraft would and should implement these ideas like the title promises
Most game design videos are like this. An intriguing title and a debatably related list of things the creator likes.
@@zappodude7591 At least with Game Maker's Toolkit, he tries to give possible solutions to problems presented.
One block at a time takes awhile, a lot of people don't want to dedicate 40 hours of their life just to finally have a megabase with mockery from the community and unguided guidance, they try to guide but run too far ahead without breaking it down to bite sized pieces.
A comment critiquing the video at the top?? I like that!
@@WorriedTheif foreshadowing
Weird thing is, you can literally just put a bed down outside in minecraft and it would work perfectly fine. No need for a hole in a mountain.
Minecraft isn't a base building game, it's a sandbox. It doesn't need a complex dynamic base building mechanics if the most important part of the game is just to do... things.
You can also never make a bed in Minecraft and it would work perfectly fine.
But the mechanics of the game module encourage base building as a major element of play.
To discourage just placing a bed on the ground and calling it a day (my preferred base style), the presence of nearby hostile mobs disables the function of the bed, so you are encouraged to modify the nearby area to keep jobs away.
@@matthewparker9276 jobs is already dead, why try keeping him away?
@@HuugTuub because zombies prevent you from sleeping.
@@matthewparker9276 you missed the joke my man.
You misspelled mobs as jobs, the joke was that you're trying to keep steve jobs away.. who is already dead.. just like the undead minecraft mobs..
Now the joke is kinda ruined cuz i had to explain it, woooosh.
@@HuugTuub yes, I got what you were going for, but Steve jobs being dead is reason to keep him away, as opposed to reason to not keep him away.
I don't think this is something Valheim does better than minecraft, but rather something Valheim does differently. Placing restrictions on your building system can of course lead to a greater appreceation of impressive buildings, and breed creativity but they are also, well... Redtrictions. Minecraft is much more focused on being a sandbox do-anything-you-want sort of game and i feel like minecraft wouldn't benefit from a building system similiar to Valheim enough to justify limiting the player's creative freedom. Valheim and Minecraft are simply too different to say that one does this better than the other. If Valheim had a building system similiar to Minecraft it would be considerably worse, but that would also be the case if minecraft used Valheim's system. Both systems are designed for different games.
Agreed.
Minecraft, valheim, subnautica, they have things in common. They all have building systems and they're all survival, but they're different games.
Valheim has a good base building system, really well made, Minecraft isn't, Subnautica isn't.
Subnautica has you stranded on an alien planet, decoration isn't a priority when you're trying to escape, and it's not meant to be a base building game, Making a base that feels like home when the character you play is trying to escape? Doesn't make alot of sense.
Minecraft is a sandbox, not a base building game. Sure you can build giant bases but you can also make complicated redstone contraptions, or walk for years to get to the world border without any home base at all. Forcing a strict building system into a game like that? Doesn't make alot of sense.
Comparing these games like they're all the same when they're actually different? Doesn't make alot of sense.
I like how this guy gave his arguements and didn't just "its facts because i say so", but the arguements would only make sense if the three games were all the same apart from the building aspect.
and either way, if you want valheim's building system in minecraft,
modded got you covered
I dont think he's arguing for minecraft to be changed. Minecraft is just a well known example to compare too.
I don't think he necessarily meant that the building systems have to be the same or even as restricted. His main point seems to be that restrictions can help a game to make creative freedom flourish and to overall help with understanding a base building system. Minecraft and Valheim are indeed two different games, but that does not mean similar principles can't be used or considered.
I think he knows that. But tilting this way draws in the Minecraft crowd. I’m interested in a video about Minecraft and less so a video about valheim.
This video is really pushing me to buy Valheim, I love the base building in games like Minecraft and Stardew but never feel too motivated to do it early on. Giving passive buffs for being creative or decorating your base is such a neat concept.
Get friends, farming materials in valheim is tough
@@lucierogge4807 Merry Christmas Dave! I bought you this game I want you to play so I can have a slave-I mean... friend.
@@SpaceSoups Suspicious...
Don't be afraid to use mods to make farming faster, it makes the game a game and not a chore
@@SirPolarr What do you mean!?!?!? Can't you just be happy I want to spend time with MY VERY BEST FRIEND?
I feel like Minecraft would just be annoying with Valheim-like building, they’re not the same kind of game.
Minecraft is a Sandbox Game, I don’t really think Valheim is a true Sandbox Game
I think Minecraft on its own is good enough, for the total freedom it stood for.
Valheim should be the example of most of other base building games.
Agreed.
Minecraft, valheim, subnautica, they have things in common. They all have building systems and they're all survival, but they're different games.
Valheim has a good base building system, really well made, Minecraft isn't, Subnautica isn't.
Subnautica has you stranded on an alien planet, decoration isn't a priority when you're trying to escape, and it's not meant to be a base building game, Making a base that feels like home when the character you play is trying to escape? Doesn't make alot of sense.
Minecraft is a sandbox, not a base building game. Sure you can build giant bases but you can also make complicated redstone contraptions, or walk for years to get to the world border without any home base at all. Forcing a strict building system into a game like that? Doesn't make alot of sense.
Comparing these games like they're all the same when they're actually different? Doesn't make alot of sense.
I like how this guy gave his arguements and didn't just "its facts because i say so", but the arguements would only make sense if the three games were all the same apart from the building aspect.
I highly disagree. Limiting the choices of players by forcing them into build a certain way hat the developers think to be "right" only diminishes the amount of players that will like your game.
I for certain quit Valheim very fast because I didn't like its building system at all, and I am not the only player this game lost because of that.
So no, it most certainly should not be the example for most other base building games.
@@mementomori5580 yes it should be. the building system is hard and you have to get around it. thats like saying dark souls is a bad game because you died once. you have to adapt and learn which is the good part, if you quit valheim because of that you also quit dark souls, any puzzle game and any game which has anything hard. games are there for you to find solutions not for you to get mad when the solution isnt there. did you leave a moba game when you lost once? an fps where you got shot? an rts where your structure got destroyed? games are about learning, improvising and coming back. when you get shot in an fps you try to take a more strategic way to the fight, in a moba you are more defensive and play with your teammates, in an rts you take the highground and use abilities to kill your opponents army and in valheim you build a god damn roof
@@Willdroyd You're making a false equivalency here. Your argument is moot.
"Dying once in Darksouls" does not AT ALL equate to "Restricting build system of Valheim".
That doesn't even begin to make sense.
So no, my point stands, what Valdheim did should most certainly NOT be the standard for all game that have this kind of building in it.
@@mementomori5580 I didn't understand what you said, I'm sorry. You just talked very objectively, you have an opinion thats fine, the reason that simple non-realistic games exist is because some people like simple non-realistic games(or not simple but unrealistic like: minecraft). Still tho, what you said sounded more like "all of valheims building sucks people should make the oposite" . What you said was that valheim enforced certain things which you didnt like, it forced buildings to have things but in my opinion it makes it better when you get around those things. I said "dying once in darksouls" as i thought you meant that you left after you found out that Stress was a thing and didnt wanna deal with it, im sorry about that. They shouldnt be the standart as there are other playerbases but alot of things should be taken into account. Valheims building is expansive, which you have to learn through experience and slowly deal with rules and walls and i think that maybe not exactly Valheim's rules should be a standart but slowly making players adapt should be.
TL;DR: i didnt really hear what you said, valheims building mechanics shouldnt exactly be forced, i think that learning and getting around mechanics in building should be a thing and the game shouldnt let you have the tiniest base with no consequences
Popular opinion: you're criminally underrated ❤️
agreed
@@MentalCheckpoint Yeah this content is like at least 240k subs. Love the artstyle of the icon btw
Tbh I thought I had somehow missed this channel for years, that "even though this channel was started a few weeks ago" really surprised me.
The couple videos, this and the marketing one, were so well put together I'm sure you'll do great!
Without a doubt 💯
Yes
Sometimes that green top is all you need, but it never hurt anyone to place a half slab, that's where we all start :)
Once someone started calling slabs "*half*-slabs", you know it is too late for them.
Sometimes you don't even need the green top. A base is a base as long as you have a furnace, crafting table and bed. Even if it's in the middle of a field
@@anneaunyme I feel called out and confused. I am now horribly aware that nobody calls them half slabs and I have no idea why I call them that now, nor when I started calling them that. You have shifted my world in a way I wasn't ready for, or ever will be.
@@totaltakeover I think "nobody" is a bit extreme: afaik most old minecraft players do call them half-slabs. Maybe you caught on the trend watching let's plays or simply talking about the game with your friends? Personally I say "demi-dalle" (literal translation of half-slab in french) because it sounds nice, even though I know it doesn't make sense.
@@anneaunyme I say slab in english, but demi-dalle in french... hm
whilst not as in depth as valheims base building system, I think rimworlds is pretty good, especially with the ideology expansion, there's a lot of factors the game rewards/punishes you for, there's factors such as looks, how clean it is, flammability etc etc all while having to plan the base in a way to save time, the only real downside of this is its a lot harder to get into because of the complexity, at least for people who are new to the genre of games
You know, as a person who didn't play this type of games... I was amazed as Rimworld's complexity but scared because I thought it was too much for me. But when I played it, everything was pretty intuitive. Rimworld somehow made complex mechanics, that is not that hard to remember.
@@TheMich0 yeah I didn't like it the first time I played it, took another try to get me into it
Colonists: "why are those walls ugly with mixes of different types of stones?"
Also colonists: "Haha, look at that poor quality Jade statue of my friend grossly mauling a rat, what a beauty"
Somewhere Todd Howard said the most developed part of your game is what your game is about. The horse system in Skyrim was initially going to much more developed, however they realized that having so much functionality in the horse made Skyrim into a game about your horse. I would say for Valheim the most developed part is the base building. Everything else in comparison is pretty weak.
The combat is so-so. Most bosses aren't really designed around being able to outskill, unless you use cheaty building exploits. Bonemass, for example, is basically a stat check to see if you have gear/potions. The gear/food/potion system is pretty straightforward. The day after the Hearth and Home update came out they buffed the food, showing that they really didn't put much consideration into how food effects gameplay.
The exploration and resource gathering are probably the next most developed parts of the game. It has some of the best sailing in video games. Chopping trees down is interesting due to them having physics and dealing damage. Metals are challenging due to the portal restriction, which feeds back into the exploration/sailing.
Overall I think that the reason the building system in Valheim shines so brightly is because there is nothing else in the game to challenge it. If Valheim had an amazing combat system, or more interesting fight dynamics, I don't think players would care about building as much.
In my opinion Valheim handles building rather greatly, regardless of the quality of other activites! It does force you to make a base and make expansions, but I don't see it as a problem. Even games like Minecraft force you to do this. The feeling of arriving home after a big adventure is really like no other. And Valheim cleverly plays right into it by making portal restrictions and "forcing" you to build bigger and mightier halls, so each time you arrive home with riches, you can't help but wonder at your home.
I do agree that other aspects of the game are not as great, even though they are meant to be more integral. Even the devs acknowledge that the bosses are too easy to fight and they are also trying to make the combat better. They did just that with the H&H update. (On this note, they DID put gameplay into consideration when they were designing the food system. The difficulty didn't change much, but the freedom is way bigger when it comes to choosing playstyles.)
We shall see how the devs will change the aspects of the game over the years, don't forget it's still in early-access. I have high hopes for this game and so far the devs didn't disappoint.
great stuff mate! building is one of my favourite things about survival and this is great breakdown
the sims, rimworld, and maybe some tycoon-style games always reward players for decorating rooms, but in my experience, these can be cheesed based on number of decorations you can stuff in a room rather than actually making things look good. on the other hand some base building games and maybe even some 4x games seem to reward more of room placement and adjacency. not sure if any of those meet your criteria, but just some games i thought of while watching
and forgot to add - great vid!
I remember a quote from a video that went "it doesnt matter how WELL its decorated, just how MUCH its decorated"
@@literallyglados Valheim is kinda the same way, you just need 1 of each decoration within a certain radius. But since your base is your own in-game home, there's some motivation to make it look nice.
In defense of Subnautica, I don’t think freedom of expression was ever the point of base building in that game. The game is intentionally very isolating, and the building prefabs play into that by making all of your structures very sterile and bland, actively discouraging creativity so that when you decide to be creative anyways, you’re genuinely sticking it to the man.
I loved this video, and the building system of valheim actually seems super interesting and fun. That being said, I strongly disagree with the idea that minecraft should adopt any elements from it.
One of minecraft’s best features is the freedom you have when building. While it doesn’t include any specific mechanics that encourage creative expression, it accomplishes this in other ways, notably by not including mechanics that would limit creative expression, such as realism or physics. These mechanics would also mess with the technical side of the game, which isn’t a downside you see in games like valheim or terraria since their “industrial processes” (I sat there for 5 minutes trying to think of a better term) are much more predefined.
Minecraft’s building experience is not intuitive in the slightest, which I suppose is a fairly negative aspect. I started playing the game almost a decade ago and I’ve only started making builds that looked sort of okay in the last year or two, and certainly not without the help of hours of tutorials and guides. It’s definitely not beginner-friendly, but it allows seasoned builders to make incredible things. If minecraft had a building system like valheim, practically none of the amazing builds people have made would exist.
At the end of day, systems that punish you for building “wrong” just don’t fit with minecraft’s theme of exploration and freedom. I do think it would be cool if it included some sort of mechanic to encourage pretty builds, but nothing should limit the player’s freedom. Even the least restrictive system in valheim - the home comfort buff thing - is still punitive in some way. The game presents you with a choice: build the way it wants you to, or play with decreased stats. While it doesn’t give you a debuff for doing things wrong, it’s essentially giving you a constant debuff that you can alleviate by playing a certain way.
I don’t think any of these mechanics are bad, and they work very well for valheim. Valheim, however, is locked into a single aesthetic. It’s also not a technical game in the slightest, as far as I know. There’s a reason minecraft has such a huge player base. Maybe it’s not the mind-blowing experience that other games provide, but it caters to an absolutely massive audience by virtue of it’s tendency not to restrict the freedom of gameplay.
Again, this was a great video, and I’ve been burning through all of your other ones as well. I’m really looking forward to the sequel to the one about invisibility balancing :)
Dwarf Fortress is a base building masterpiece which probably inspired 99% of this subgenre mechanics we see today.
huh. you talking og askey character version?
Came here to ensure that Dwarf Fortress was already mentioned.
While Dwarf Fortress is my personal favorite game of all time (despite it's litany of flaws and fails), I disagree there's a single inspiration line. Yes Minecraft was inspired by Dwarf Fortress, but The Sims by Maxis predates DF by 6 or 7 years. And while they are on the opposite end of the gameplay building vs painting esthetic spectrum, both of these influence are strongly present in modern building games.
And I'm sure we could fine early part of those mechanic in even older games... some aspects could probably be traced back to Populous and the god game genre for example.
I love this channel.
Never in my life I would expect this lil' scandinavia-themed game to be filled with such level of creative mechanics
I feel like "What makes a good building game" or "what makes a good building system" would make a better title, because that's what you answered and mostly discussed throughout the whole video, while making comparisons to Minecraft only a few times. So it didn't feel like that was the main topic.
I also would like to disagree, Valheim doesn't have a "better" system than Minecraft, both are good systems that appeal to different types of players.
Minecraft is less realistic with almost to no restrictions, and while that can demotivate a player to build something fancier, it allows for more creative freedom. You can build crazy structures that defy physics, you can try making more realistic structures (just for aesthetics), you can make different architecture designs (modern, rustic, medieval, fantasy, etc), or just live in an ugly box house for those that don't wanna build fancier stuff.
Holy shit this channel is a hidden gem! The quality of these videos is something you’d expect out of a 2 - 10 million subscriber channel! You have future mate, absolutely! Keep at it, your content is amazing!
You really didn't care to explain the title of this video... Is it clickbait? Or have you indirectly gave a correct reason for the title? Does it mean minecraft needs to have a similar building system to Valheim? Personally I would not like for that to happen because:
1. It would make minecraft feel more modded
2. Minecraft is all about creativity and having restrictions will demotivate players
3. Benefiting players for creating buildings(with restrictions) will cause less creativity and also demotivate players
i agree!
I agree with your point that Mental Checkpoint didn't address the title but some of your points seem to be easily countered.
1. Every update in Minecraft has been referred to as modded, that's just what comes with new things in the game.
2. Having restrictions doesn't necessarily demotivate players, this only happens if the mechanic is done wrong, what was demonstrated in this video is what Valheim got right about using restrictions and benefits to promote creativity and motivation.
3. This point is mainly a lead on from the second point, as said previously, restrictions and benefits don't have to demotivate players, it just needs to have been implemented correctly.
imo there should be more structures like enchanting tables, that encourage the player to add to their base, this wouldn't discourage creativity
@@bananycus379 1. I just disagree
2. I don't see how "restrictions" and "rules" have to be or are different. Restrictions really just are a byproduct of rules.
3. You aren't wrong that minecraft is about playing however you want but there already are restrictions to the game that don't necessarily demotivate players like, lighting to stop monsters spawning, redstone is destroyed by water, fire can destroy flammable bases and much more, I don't see how these can be further improved on.
@@distendedmist5840 yes, this is a good way to make the player decorate his house more and this is what minecraft has been doing recently, many recipes have their own "crafting tables" instead of being stuck in the old crafting table, I believe systems with npcs (similarly to terraria) would also work in minecraft.
5:15 this blew my mind. I played the game for around 15 hours and I never imagined the builds in the game could reach THAT level. my house was just a cube with a little dock.
there's no source for that footage, so I assume you made it. if so, nice job on it.
15hours don't seem like that much
or is it just me having a bad perception of time ?
I rarely count hours as I play
@@sajeucettefoistunevaspasme I guess I didn't get addicted as hard... to be fair, I just got bored because I was playing alone
@@Remyria I just look up and
the tropico 5 solo mode is about 16 hours
so it's a lot of time
Only an hour ago found your channel and already a new video!
I like Don't Starve Together's system, although it's depth starts in mid-game!
:)
I don't like how open and flat DS is. I wish we could create higher walls and roofs, so there would be actual houses to go into, and elevated surfaces. It'd be hard to implement in the game currently, but it exists in the Hamlet expansion, so it's possible
Dragon Quest Builders 2 has a really robust building system, where the furniture you place not only raises the room level, but the mix of furniture decided what the room becomes - and there are over a hundred different room types, each with their own purpose and need, with NPCs needing or wanting certain ones!
counterpoints:
*Structural integrity:* I don't think Minecraft would benefit from structural integrity being added, as that would limit design the design of things that are supposed to look strange by a lot.
*Beds need a room for them to work:* Your point where a bed needs to be in a specific situation or it won't work, I don't think that would benefit the game either, as it's not supposed to be the most realistic game in the first place and it would confuse people.
*Maintenance:* I actually think this could be pretty cool, but it should only apply to certain blocks, like the workstations. Minecraft actually kind of already has this in the form of anvils breaking or copper rusting.
*Creative expression:* I think it should just be up to player choice whether they want to decorate their house or not, like it is right now.
Building in games is one of the aspects which is very satisfying, making things organized and look pretty is something we all strive to complete. For me, more creative base building is mostly my thing, like Terraria, you have so many options and blocks that allow to make great and beautiful structures, but its just my opinion. But the video is very well put together, very good quality, hope you channel grows and you continue making great content, the channel has so many great and educational content, i already love this channel as how well its put together.
Personally, when expanding the base-building concept of a game, the devs will come to a split in the road: cater to those who value realism; or those who value creative freedom. Having a game that cater more to realism will makes beautiful structure more appreciated, aesthetically or from an engineering PoV. On the other hand, focusing on near-limitless freedom for creativity will allow the players to express themselves, without needing to concern about structural limit. The difference between the two is huge, but i think the significant part is: realism-focused base-building limits the creations by structural integrity, in exchange of satisfaction; while creative-freedom base building doesn't have the structural integrity limit, but *can still* be applied to the user's building if they ever so desire to achieve the same satisfaction.
Loved the video, but I didn't recognise it immediately in my feed. Probably because your channel is so new I just might not have recognised the style, but with a channel of your quality and calibre I could definitely see a logo on the thumbnail helping to get people to see your videos. Either way it's up to you and keep up the good work, can't wait to see what else you have in store
Another good building game is "Dig or Die" a hands-off 2D base defence story driven survival game with a progression similar to subnautica but underground and with the addition of polywater and it's corresponding water cycle. A good example of what the game's capable of is my underground water colum that uses the fact that stone is impermeable to water to collect it in a deep shaft to generate electricity via a hydroelectric generator that gets more efficient the higher the water pressure on one side compared to the other, driving you to a chasm lower down where the water collects.
The game also has a system where wild enemies you've killed come attack you at night, and pushes you to explore further and further for better items, turrets, and guns to finally escape the planet.
I think a better example than Oxygen Not Included for decorations is Rimworld. In that game keeping your colonists happy is a critical game mechanic, people living in ugly, dirty conditions work slower and are more likely to have a psychotic break and start killing and burning
This is the kind of video I need to pause to take notes on my personal game dev trello, and then rewatch. These guidelines (or more like "important considerations to take into account when designing and developing a game") are worth their weight in gold.
cant wait for this channel to blow up, content is really interesting and informational, pls keep making more!
There's pros and cons to each system though. One thing Valheim did really well was giving you a reason to build the base out. Your base _will_ get attacked, even when you set up in the friendliest parts of the world. On top of that, it's your respawn, your source of buffs, and the most logical place to build out your crafting area. It's a home that you kinda grow attached to over the course of the game. Then you throw in the structural integrity checks, and now your base is forced to have more grounding in reality. Not only do you need the base in order to succeed in the game, you have to think about what you're building rather than just slapping down a simple, ugly box. And the way they implemented snapping and rotation means that you can get very complex without getting tedious. I think it's the combination of those factors that drives people to build really spectacular things in Valheim. And of the games I've played with building systems, it's probably the most satisfying one to finish a build in.
Having played a few different building games, I generally like structural integrity checks, but they don't fit in every game. Obviously Valheim did it well. I also liked the way structural integrity was implemented in ARK: Survival Evolved. You had to consider structural integrity, but it wasn't as limiting as Valheim. That game had too many limitations on placement though, which, combined with the PVP aspect, kinda drove the building meta toward boring, uncreative builds. On the other hand, we have games without any kind of structural integrity check, which can be both a good thing and a bad thing. I've seen and done some cool looking floating fantasy builds in Minecraft that just wouldn't be possible if there was any kind of structural integrity system. But Minecraft isn't so much a survival game as it is a creative sandbox. A survival game should have some bearing in reality, including structural integrity. I lost interest in Raft when I watched Lets Game It Out and realized that game has no integrity system whatsoever.
But that brings me to my latest big time sink, Satisfactory, where I keep finding myself very, VERY frustrated with the building system. On the surface, it doesn't seem bad, and people have shared some pretty impressive stuff. But the more time I spend playing, the more I'm getting annoyed at how much that game forces you toward floating builds. For a game where the automation processes are so clearly based on real-life, it feels like something is missing when the building system doesn't consider any kind of real life inspired integrity check at all. Second, this game has one of the most gorgeous maps out there. It's about 1/4 the land area of a Valheim map, which is a pretty huge sandbox to work in. Despite the size, there's only a few places big and flat enough to build a late-game base at ground level where you can enjoy the beauty. Why bother having a map at all if the only way to build anything significant is to be dozens of meters above it? And although there are almost no limits to where you can place, rotate, and clip building pieces, it's very tedious to do anything other than a box. (Aside, why does a 1m thick foundation cost the same as a 2m thick, which also costs the same as 4m thick? There should definitely be some scaling there.) Admittedly, machine automation is the main point of the game, and you only _need_ a building system to make a flat floor to organize the machines on. But that's really where the problem comes in. It forces you to choose between ugly and functional builds, or spending several hours tediously doing something that doesn't improve your progress in the game.
4:51 yes, as a mindustry player that not just simply bluiding and having to think what could work or what would fall apart fells realy nice because at the end if it works and it looks nice or if its eficient makes the players fell proud of what they made
I have a love hate relationship with valheim's building system. It is amazing when it works. At the same I have never raged so much in any other game. The first 15 minutes of my first building was basically me screaming, "I'm not leaving a god damn hole in my floor" at my monitor. That is to say nothing of the hellish experience that is using a boat.
The fact that you only have 3500 subscribers is a crime, your videos are amazing!
It’s amazing how high quality your videos are given how small of a Chanel you have! Keep up the good work :)
Man, its so pleasing and easy to listen to you. Great and informative video!
You really deserve more subs !
You research, narration, and progression are amazing !
Been on a streak of finding underrated channels recently, glad to add you to the roster mate :)
Excited to see what you come up with! Good luck!
I hadn't even heard of this game but this fantastic video sold me. Excellent production!
I like the building in Valheim but I personally will take Satisfactory base building over it any day. The structural integrity can be interesting but also very limiting in player expression. Meanwhile nearly any dumb thing I think up to try in Satisfactory I can go do. Additionally I feel like Satisfactory does a much better job of gradually encouraging you to build bigger structures because you start to learn about scaling up production, delivering materials for more complicated automation and increasing capacity for the growing list of items you will want to have stockpiled.
Rust, has a comfort system which makes you naturally heal quicker, you gain comfort from places campfires, rugs, bear skin , teddy bear etc. Most people dont care about it tho
You just started this channel and your videos are already pretty high quality!
In the game sheltered, one of my favorites, you are building a bomb shelter in the middle of the apocalypse. you have very limited resources, and base expansion is difficult. You can create decorations and leisure furniture, such as bookshelves and jukeboxes, but they take up valuable space and lots of resources. The catch is, your player characters are always getting stressed from things like dying survivors and low resources, and if their stress reaches critical levels, they go catatonic. Catatonic survivors are completely useless until they come back to their senses days later. With constant invasions by gangs and intruders, your survivors are always on standby for combat, and if they go catatonic, they could be killed. They also become dead weight, breathing valuable oxygen while not giving anything in return. while the stress mechanic is almost nonexistent on easier difficulties, it becomes a challenging thing to balance on harder ones, as you constantly need to juggle your space and resources. I find it very engaging when I am forced to decide whether to build another bed to keep my survivors rested, or a book shelf, to keep the adults from edging closer to despair.
I dont know how i found your chanel but i allready watched all your vids and just realized how new you are on yt. Keep up the good work mate
This is the third video I am watching and I anjoy them more and more over time! The content is good and I like the presentation, keep that up! :D
I'm i mistaken or something ?
546 views for such a great video ?
You missed one real thing Valheim is missing, defending what you build. Yes there are "Raids" by monsters but they are pathetically weak. Something closer to 7 Days to Die would be amazing in Valheim. Look it up.
Youre really good at making videos, ive only watched two and theyre great!!!
ooh, you actually inspired me to play Valheim again lol! Thanks to you mentioning the abandoned structures, and showing cool bases that seem somewhat medium in difficulty.
Nice interesting video, I love the high quality editing.
One thing I love about No Man's Sky:
Generally, basebuilding is pretty similar to Valheim or Ark. You can build individual walls, floors and ceilings, and there are also some complete prefabs like biodomes, and all of these pieces snap together. But since the game's launch, players have been finding all sorts of glitches (like the wiring glitch and blender glitch) to allow you to place building pics together in ways that were never intended. In summer of 2021, Hello Games overhauled the base building mechanics, allowing players to toggle whether they want pieces to snap together or not, thereby making these building glitches an actual part of the game.
just discovered your channel recently from Devil Dagger. I really like this type of content. It helps me understand more about game than just fun and dopamine. Thank you so much for the contents :3
dwarf fortress is an endlessly intriguing and complex (mostly) subterranean base builder.
i cant even begin to screatch the surface, without writing a rambling essay. but it's much about designing and micromanaging for the comfort and safety of your citizens, economy and logistics of supply chains (including those for trade and warfare), and defendability .. all while keeping the whole thing overseeable and pleasing to look at for you as the player.
My problem when I started a base in Valheim was that I thought a lot about what the game would qualify as a roof, and it never occurred to me that the game might respect a gapped roof like you showed. So in the end I was just janking positions of things until the detection accepted a fire and bed on opposite sides of a wall.
The fact that I was dealing with a game system made me totally ignore the realistic logic of creating a gap to let smoke out, and conclude the housing system was junk.
Awesome video! This is high quality content right here. Keep it up!
Rimworld. Rimworld is honestly one of my favorite base building mechanics ever. The way the psychology of the pawns needs to be accounted for as a main mechanic (while very unforgiving for beginners and even intermediate experienced players) is something that just draws me in no matter what, due to the intriguing yet fulfilling learning curve. The game is so good I have to ensure I only start a new game when I have sufficient time in my life lest the addiction take over my daily duties.
Man you are so underrated these videos are really well made! Hope you become popular one day
And valheim looks like a sick game, might buy it one day
My god stylised video game analytic vids are so fucking addictive, I love this so much.
I recently found a mod that implements some actual physics for blocks, and it's absolutely amazing. Now instead of just slapping together hollow dirt cubes in midair i have to actually consider what materials i use where, and what i build it on. Try to build something heavy on ground that contains a cave and it results in a cave-in!
The quality of your video is so good. Waiting for more video.
I loved choking on smoke in Valheim.
It was such a cool tutorial!
The thing that makes me play Valheim instead of Minecraft is because Valheim has more activities to offer, it has more bosses, places to explore, and I also love that the building in Valheim requires actual structural integrity as suppose to adding pillars to make the illusion of structural integrity.
I'm waiting for the whitelight "diamond is king" moment
back in alpha/beta i actually spent time building houses. these days building a house just seems like the most trivial thing you could even do.
1. mobs are easy to fight, you can even run past them (remember back when sprinting wasnt a thing and skeletons made everyone spoil their pants? not in modern mc)
2. you dont even need a house to sleep, you can literally sleep out in the open with good timing
this is a lot of freedom that ultimately means you dont _need_ a house or any kind of structure. when you build one, its usually only for the _convenience_ of not dealing with mobs. that's a lot less powerful than being afraid for your life and ultimately will lead you to have no attachment to your house. you wont care to make it look good and work functionally unless youre super into interior design and architecture.
i suggest mobs are given some kind of buff. right now any skilled player can survive a night without using any weapons or armor. there should be some way to nerf running as a strategy to avoid mobs (maybe running should attract mobs from farther away and especially in the direction youre running?).
at the very least you should more often be woken up to mob attacks if you sleep in an area dark enough for mobs to spawn in.
This video really sold me on Valheim. I like the inter-connectedness of the mechanics.
For other games with Home-Building aspects, I'd recommend the farms of Stories of Seasons Pioneer of Olive Town, which has you build a whole town, or SoS:Friends of Mineral Town for a basic Farm building. The structures are fixed, but the cleanup of your farm can feel like building a home. Just naming your animals and see your farm grow, can be very interesting.
Scrap Mechanic has a quite interesting Building System, for example, if you'd like to build a door, you can use a bearing and build the door with blocks, now, if you don't want to open the door every time with a hammer swing, you can add a controller that open/closes it. Another example is that you want to build a car for example. Sure, you could use a "gas engine" for example, or you could use bearings, blocks and Pistons to build an engine yourself. In the game, near everthing is possible, from these small mechanisms.
Wow! I had no idea Valheim had such a building system. I'm happy to see the structural integrity features and and wood weathering. I will have to pick this up.
I have a voxel simulation game idea that includes structural stress and wood rotting but it's not much more than a spreadsheet of concepts at the moment.
My problem with Minecraft is that all you need to protect yourself from mobs is a dirt hut, whereas players can break into stone castles with their fist.
I'm a writer and maybe an artist in the future, and I was considering building things in Minecraft as a visual aid for my stories and artwork. One of those stories is set in a fantasy medieval age, and while there are tons of amazing structures in Minecraft that I've seen many talented builders create over the years, seeing 5:14 is making me reconsider all that. I think I'll still use others Minecraft fantasy builds as some inspiration, but especially seeing that structural integrity mechanic in Valheim is really pushing me to use that game and others as part of my inspiration. So thanks man!
10:58 this reminds me industrialcraft 2 mod on Minecraft. You start with low amount things but by time, amount get bigger and cost more space. You need bigger and organized place. And removing things doesn't punish you (if you used wrench) so you can free to change everytime you want. It was my favorite mod and it's the reason why I played Minecraft worlds in a long term.
This wasnt only a good essay about building mechanics in videogames and what makes them great, its also a phenomenal Valheim ad XD. (gonna go buy the game now ;) )
Len's Island does this tileable prefab as well, but it's far more approachable because it has less resources overall, and they are caches instead of inventory slots so wood, stone and other materials are readily accessable and easy to use/refill in building or replacing, unlike say Minecraft where an entire wall will take 20 different block types and multiple full player inventories just in material space and cost alone, let alone gathering, placing, replacing, storing, and organizing all those materials.
That was such a nice and pleasurable video
god damn, this is so well made
Wow, this is a fantastic, entertaining, 12 minute video essay, and it only has like 450 views.
I'd like to point out Stonehearth - it does similar things as Oxygen Not Included ("aesthetic" points for furniture, etc), but it's incredibly granular in its actual construction because it's all voxel based. Still, you can use templates (including ones from the Steam Workshop) if you don't want to go the extra mile of making structures block-by-block. It is, in many ways, a "best of both worlds" implementation. I think it's criminally overlooked for a lot of the concepts it does well, and I'd love to see more games take inspiration from it.
Sadly, the developers more or less abandoned the game, so there's some hard coded elements that make it difficult to play for long (mainly insane memory and CPU bloating). Thankfully, modders have continued the development of the game through a sort of "passing of the torch" from the original developers (via the ACE Authorized Community Expansion) - it's not quite the same, but they've fixed some of the deeper issues with the game. I'd highly encourage looking into it, in any case.
so underrated
My favorite base building game is probably Planetbase. Its more about surviving in outer space and not so much about base decoration. So idk if that counts. It captures building an efficient network of buildings well. You need to make considerations like "how close are the beds to the work stations?" "Do I have enough oxygen generators in this area?" "How far do people have to travel before they can eat?"
I'd say the next step of that is the ignored factorio in which everything you build serves a function which informs the way it looks.
That is extremely important for base building games. More so that physics integrity whatevers or wood decaying in the rain.
The biggest part of minecraft building isn't the starter hole in a wall, it's the redstone autofarms you can make that save you all the farming work you'd have to do. Or the autosmelters. Automated doors. Monster farms. Entire transforming bases.
One game that does this extremely well is space engineers.
You build vehicles and buildings that help you gather materials to build bigger stuff to more effectively gather more resources so you can build bigger stuff.
That's basically it. That's the entire game. That's all it needed to be where it is now even though it is an opaque mess. You can sink hundreds of hours into it just with that.
The lack of this is also what holds starbound in which building is almost entirely cosmetic back even though the building blocks for something greater are there.
Why build a base if it doesn't do anything?
from what whitelight said in one of his minecraft videos, Notch actually did plan to encourage creative builds in minecraft. Diamond tools were only able to be crafted if there was an anvil, crafting table, and lava in a close vicinity
an IGN quality video having only houndreds of views just looks cursed
You have singlehandedly convinced me to put Valheim on my wishlist! 😉
Ok 2 things
1 - someone needs to make thes features into a minecraft mod
2 - I need to get valhiem CLEARLY
Imagine they have different requirement for the building for different area, like cold vs hot, flat vs inclined, near water vs desert
The top base-building games I played are:
Minecraft with mods:
I know its limited in Vanilla but also pushes you to use vanilla items to make stuff like furniture, but mods really pump it up from Chisel and Bits, MrCrayfish's Furniture, ArchitectureCraft, and more.
Terraria:
Just look at FuryForged's modded builds, its mesmerising
Starbound:
Like Terraria but in space
Rimworld:
Each and every structure has a purpose, from killboxes (structures and pathways that helps you to deter raids), to various rooms, to cleanliness, and colonist happiness based on material made (Silver walls looks better than Granite).
great video, that was really interesting
In terraria or minecraft your first base will probably not look good bcs it was build out of necessity not creative choices but when you progress and those mobs slowly become less enemy more annoyance, and you make your house better it rewards you as a sense of progression. To make your standard box into a nice-looking home makes it a natural progression instead of a necessity and makes it feel special while still giving you options and still letting you shine your creativity.
Or you just make a npc hotel with ton of boxshaped wooden/stone rooms with basic wood furnitures.
Well with journey's end you no longer had an hotel...you had a cluster of random boxes in every biome :)
I think one of the only time I got creative, knowing I would build half-assed functionnal housing, I decided to take a surrealist-fantasy approch and just throw off any form of coherence in the hope to make my npc hotel look like a ramshackle absurdity like you'll see in some Ghibli movies
In think the end resullt was acceptable
@@ballom29 I mean that's fine if you want to do that. It gives you choices you aren't forced to make it a good looking or a functional or even humane house. Not for you and not at all for the npc's.
@@Need_a_Creative_Name Yeah but video was about the topic on how to encourage players to be creative in their build.
And well terraria way fall really short on that matter. The minimum requirement to what is considered a suitable house barely change anything.
....
In fact it make it worse because you can have ONLY one npc per house, meaning the game force you to put lot of doors, table and chairs in lot of tiny rooms if you want to have all the npc.
If for exemple it was a bed per npc you could make NPCs being roomates in a house where you might be more invested into building it properly rather than making Room19ForNpcs. (well there would be obviously the ones who'll try to fit all NPCs in the same room then )
I haven't played a lot outside of some Trackmania. But your videos genuinely make me want to play some games. (Build a base :) )
This video was really well created, with a lot of research put into it, well categorized information and an amazing informational flow. If anyone were to ask me how to make the perfect youtube video, this would definately be one of my recommendations for inspiration! Great work man!
Valheims chimney problem goes actually bit further. So first your house is full of smoke. Very quick fix is to just make hole in the roof, which is fine for a while.
Then in starts to rain and your fire goes out. Fine, you put roof over the chimney. Then your fire starts to go out now and then. After lot of headscratching, you might figure out that smoke needs big enough hole to be able to go though.
Alternatively you accidentally do everything right for cosmetic reasons.
I didn't know valheim had these basebuilding features. Will definitely play it someday.
Unul dintre canalele mele favorite! Esti o mare inspiratie pentru mici "developeri" ca mine! Iti multumesc pentru aceste videoclipuri interesante si cata munca ai depus pentru a ajuta si pe alti sa poata crea jocuri de o calitate impecabila!
Very cool! That explains why bases look so good.
That portal hub is beautiful!
Man where did you come from? Your videos are so good and you just popped up out of nowhere
dude you deserve more followers keep it up i love the content