Character Age

[Demonic_Kat]

So I'm not sure if anyone's suggested this yet, I haven't seen it, but it'd be neat to be able to pick your start age when you start the game. Of course it'd exclude children, so 18+.

 

Age could effect a great deal of things, running speed, learning speed, resistance to disease, even durability of skin against attack.

 

Also, currently, the way the game works is that you scale up to an awesome threshold. In reality your skill and health often decline with age. I think this would be a nice balance for those who have been living for years.

[King jjwpenguin]

So I'm not sure if anyone's suggested this yet, I haven't seen it, but it'd be neat to be able to pick your start age when you start the game. Of course it'd exclude children, so 18+.

 

Age could effect a great deal of things, running speed, learning speed, resistance to disease, even durability of skin against attack.

 

Also, currently, the way the game works is that you scale up to an awesome threshold. In reality your skill and health often decline with age. I think this would be a nice balance for those who have been living for years.

This has been recommended but its been a while. I believe it was mixed on opinions since people wanted to traits to change that but ascetic age changing was a pretty popular idea.

[silents429]

I think this is an uneeded feature.

Doesn't really add that much.

Plus I am 17, would bother the hell out of me if my character was older.

[hrot]

I think it would be only good if there was 2 option:

 

1. Young 20+

 

2. Old    60+

 

If you pick old you get more knowledge ( more points to spend to when creating character) at cost of fitness, stamina, slower healing etc.

So you get cheaper traits like first aid, farming, foraging, fishing, carpentry but traits like fitness, stout, athletic cost you more.

If you pick young option then it would be without changes.

[Zeek]

I would say young would be more towards the ability to learn and old would inhibit these. There's a lot of things that could be brought in for these types of traits, but it would be kind of cool.

[MrZombifiedGamer]

I think they should just remove age entirely and let you role play it. To be honest it's kind of pointless.

[Sliderpro]

I think that age is ok but it shouldnt change. 99% people will hardly live through 6 months

I agree with young-old thing, like younger is physically better and learn faster, but older people have naturall bonuses to points, skills, etc and are more fragile

[MrZombifiedGamer]

I think that age is ok but it shouldnt change. 

 

Umm... What? Best way to break immersion of 2015.... What if they do live through a year? They should either take it out or make it change and allow you to choose age. But ideally just take it out entirely. I already role play my characters age anyway and there's plenty of ways in game to do that too. Just add some traits like "old age."  Or ones that appropriately correspond with old age.

[Sliderpro]

 

I think that age is ok but it shouldnt change. 

 

Umm... What? Best way to break immersion of 2015.... What if they do live through a year? They should either take it out or make it change and allow you to choose age. But ideally just take it out entirely. I already role play my characters age anyway and there's plenty of ways in game to do that too. Just add some traits like "old age."  Or ones that appropriately correspond with old age.

 

As I said, 99% wont live through 1st year. I won't even try to imagine how many survive 2 years. My point is, that idea to make character visually change regarding its game-time is totally not worth it for the reason above . Other point is that that young or old age can't be a trait on the same lvl as high strength, etc. Age selection should be beyound traits, because age selection will determine traits price, avaliability, etc.

[MrZombifiedGamer]

 

 

 

I think that age is ok but it shouldnt change. 

 

Umm... What? Best way to break immersion of 2015.... What if they do live through a year? They should either take it out or make it change and allow you to choose age. But ideally just take it out entirely. I already role play my characters age anyway and there's plenty of ways in game to do that too. Just add some traits like "old age."  Or ones that appropriately correspond with old age.

 

As I said, 99% wont live through 1st year. I won't even try to imagine how many survive 2 years. My point is, that idea to make character visually change regarding its game-time is totally not worth it for the reason above . Other point is that that young or old age can't be a trait on the same lvl as high strength, etc. Age selection should be beyound traits, because age selection will determine traits price, avaliability, etc.

 

 

I role play age all the time. You have yet to give me a reason why we need age beyond because. We can make things as dirt simple as possible by saying you're old and then choosing traits to align with your age. Yes, you can pick traits that are the same as old age, I know you say you can't but you're wrong. 

 

Age doesn't need to determine trait price or availability. Traits manage the other traits. For example, if you have a frail character who is an old man you shouldn't choose the strong trait. Age is really just pointless.

 

Now let me tackle this bit. 

 

 

"My point is, that idea to make character visually change regarding its game-time is totally not worth it for the reason above ."

 

I believe the devs talked about dynamic traits. In other words, your character will (theoretically) change visually anyway as you play and gain different dynamic traits unless the devs ditched that idea.

 

Final Judgement  : Age is worthless, get rid of the number. That can be RP'd just fine. Instead, replace it with some traits that mimic old age. Not only will you not be allowed to contradict traits cause the devs will make sure you can't, it's as dirt simple as possible.

[King jjwpenguin]

I just say make it a way to keep track of years survived. Make the age changeable from between 21 and 55. Possibly usable in roleplay but i mean there is no real use to age anyway besides a nice handy little touch. Still I like the idea of age.

[Demonic_Kat]

I would say young would be more towards the ability to learn and old would inhibit these. There's a lot of things that could be brought in for these types of traits, but it would be kind of cool.

Just so you know, people never stop developing through life. Old people are just as apt to learn something new as young people; we as a society tend to force these stigma on older people that they can't learn new things. However, physiologically your body does change as you age. You have less fat, your skin tears easier, your eyesight/hearing may be impaired from years of use etc.

[Demonic_Kat]

I think this is an uneeded feature.

Doesn't really add that much.

Plus I am 17, would bother the hell out of me if my character was older.

Well.... you do know that the main character is a fully grown man with a bald spot right? Anyways, I was thinking about choosing age not it being forced upon you.

[Demonic_Kat]

I see a lot of "this is pointless" in this thread. If you want to go down that route, why do we have model changes at all? Aesthetically we can choose to be one of two genders, a range of colors, have different hair styles, but we're all the same age. Physically we can have strengths and weaknesses and a range of traits that could be perfected with age and time.

E.g. at 50+ characters gain "well learned": traits come with 1(or two) extra points. They also gain "thin skinned" more susceptible to scratches and bites

[OffitJim]

Just so you know, people never stop developing through life. Old people are just as apt to learn something new as young people; we as a society tend to force these stigma on older people that they can't learn new things.

Well said! Never too old to learn.

To the point on baldness, I have numerous friends who started going bald before leaving college, aged 19. Fortunately, I'm not amongst their ranks but did feel for them at the time. Must have been grim!!

I think our characters should have as many aesthetic changes as the engine can reasonably handle. Why not? Would make each character we play as feel more unique. If these changes/looks can be linked with age, I see no reason not to. I'm sure TIS have their own ideas in mind.

[Evilwuun]

First off, I like the idea that a character who is 20 is going to play a little differently than one who is sixty. The more variety we can incorporate into the game, the better.

Secondly, for the sake of realism, it makes sense that a 67 year old is going to have more difficulty learning a new skill than a 20 year old.

It's called neuro plasticity, if I'm not mistaken. Basically, as you age your neural pathways get more and more defined, making it easier to do things you've done over the years, and harder to learn new concepts. Think about your mind as a forest. If you start making paths through it in the forests infancy, you will blaze a new path with relative ease. Fast forward a while, and the same forest has become overgrown, thick, and inhibiting to new trails.

The human brain functions, more or less, the same way.

[silents429]

Okay having a gameplay element like this is one of those good ideas on paper annoying in practice. Just like adding bathing or any form of hygiene. This would be more suitable for a mod, but I don't understand why you are all big on aging, you have any idea how rare it is right now to last any more then a year or 2 in game as it is?

By your ideas hardly anything age related is going to occur in 2 or 3 years anyway so yes, it is somewhat of a worthless addition other then just a simple number.

Keep the idea barebones. Type your birthday at the start and that is it. A number changes, Maybe physical differences but we don't need to modify traits or make your character walk slower as he gets older, or throw out his hip trying to get out of bed. This means people can roleplay but we don't have to add a slew of aging affects that 90% of the playerbase won't ever get to see occur.
 

[Evilwuun]

Okay having a gameplay element like this is one of those good ideas on paper annoying in practice. Just like adding bathing or any form of hygiene. This would be more suitable for a mod, but I don't understand why you are all big on aging, you have any idea how rare it is right now to last any more then a year or 2 in game as it is?

By your ideas hardly anything age related is going to occur in 2 or 3 years anyway so yes, it is somewhat of a worthless addition other then just a simple number.

Keep the idea barebones. Type your birthday at the start and that is it. A number changes, Maybe physical differences but we don't need to modify traits or make your character walk slower as he gets older, or throw out his hip trying to get out of bed. This means people can roleplay but we don't have to add a slew of aging affects that 90% of the playerbase won't ever get to see occur.

I can see what you're saying; what's the point of putting a system in place that 99% of players will never even know about, since they don't survive long enough for age to exact it's attrition. I actually agree with that.

I'm more interested in starting age effecting you right from the beginning, and not as an "over-time" mechanic.

It should also be noted that I'm personally not THAT interested in age as a game mechanic at all. There are much more important mechanics for the devs to worry about in the immediate.

[silents429]

 

Okay having a gameplay element like this is one of those good ideas on paper annoying in practice. Just like adding bathing or any form of hygiene. This would be more suitable for a mod, but I don't understand why you are all big on aging, you have any idea how rare it is right now to last any more then a year or 2 in game as it is?

By your ideas hardly anything age related is going to occur in 2 or 3 years anyway so yes, it is somewhat of a worthless addition other then just a simple number.

Keep the idea barebones. Type your birthday at the start and that is it. A number changes, Maybe physical differences but we don't need to modify traits or make your character walk slower as he gets older, or throw out his hip trying to get out of bed. This means people can roleplay but we don't have to add a slew of aging affects that 90% of the playerbase won't ever get to see occur.

I can see what you're saying; what's the point of putting a system in place that 99% of players will never even know about, since they don't survive long enough for age to exact it's attrition. I actually agree with that.

I'm more interested in starting age effecting you right from the beginning, and not as an "over-time" mechanic.

It should also be noted that I'm personally not THAT interested in age as a game mechanic at all. There are much more important mechanics for the devs to worry about in the immediate.

 

Now if we do this, what actually is going to occur?

Most people want to choose their own age and roleplay as themselves.

But then we have the problem of dictating a lot of variables. I don't mean to be smug but I have retarded amount of endurance. But the average 17 year old wouldn't.

But then we have another problem what average do we go for? In Kentucky? US? World? What affects seem reasonable and don't blow someones immersion.

And I ain't a big role player, My brother killed off that creativity at a young age, but I can't see the huge appeal to picking a 65 year old character that can barely get around. You might want visual changes but just change the color of your hair and get a couple traits to reflect old age.

So then the final idea was just make old age traits. I don't honestly see why we would bother doing this, We have things for weaker/stronger   faster/slower learning etc. What possible thing could we add and why would we make it age related?

So again, my stance on this is just give people the option to fill out a birthday they can use, but leave it at that.

 

[Evilwuun]

@Silent429

We're essentially saying the same thing, I think. The concept of age being a factor is appealing, and at least fun to think about. As an actual game mechanic, though, it may be far too variable and multifaceted to for it to be worth the man hours to properly implement and balance.

[MrZombifiedGamer]

I see a lot of "this is pointless" in this thread. If you want to go down that route, why do we have model changes at all? 

 

THIS IS POINTLESS!!! (Kidding) But seriously, the reason for the other aesthetic changes is for customization. You don't need age for that, you can RP age using the traits function, c'mon mayne. 

[Sliderpro]

Well, I have to commend education of most people here, who say that elder people learn things as good as young. Because that isn't closely true and I believe that people should learn that in schools on biology classes or so. 

I'm not going to give lectures, because idc about most people education here. 

Generally, thing is, that elder people have a much harder time learning something new and the difference in learning time and efficiency becomes noticable even if you compare 14 year teens with 24 year people and I m not speaking of even older people. The older you become, the harder is the learning process. I m not regarding motivational differences, but THAT above is a fact.

Game itself makes changes to become more and more content-rich and from update to update it makes things more realistic and complicated in one way or another to make game more interesting. 

Why make old-young thing? Because we develop. Because game develops. If you need some mega-serious reason to develop one thing or another and add new content, or, as alternative, not developing anything at all because you're ok with what you have now, don't consider early-access indie games and don't bother people here with your "don't need that", "we are just ok without that' thing.  

[Evilwuun]

Well, I have to commend education of most people here, who say that elder people learn things as good as young. Because that isn't closely true and I believe that people should learn that in schools on biology classes or so.

I'm not going to give lectures, because idc about most people education here.

Generally, thing is, that elder people have a much harder time learning something new and the difference in learning time and efficiency becomes noticable even if you compare 14 year teens with 24 year people and I m not speaking of even older people. The older you become, the harder is the learning process. I m not regarding motivational differences, but THAT above is a fact.

Game itself makes changes to become more and more content-rich and from update to update it makes things more realistic and complicated in one way or another to make game more interesting.

Why make old-young thing? Because we develop. Because game develops. If you need some mega-serious reason to develop one thing or another and add new content, or, as alternative, not developing anything at all because you're ok with what you have now, don't consider early-access indie games and don't bother people here with your "don't need that", "we are just ok without that' thing.

I'm personally ok with people stating that they don't want to see a feature added. That's sort of the idea of early access forums, to get an idea of what the community does and does not want. Without input from folks that support AND oppose an idea, the devs have no way of knowing how in demand a feature really is. As long as opinions are presented with a reason, I assume the devs want to hear the NO's as much as the YES's.

(I support the idea of age in the game, as long as it doesn't inhibit gameplay unreasonably.)

[Sliderpro]

 

I'm personally ok with people stating that they don't want to see a feature added. That's sort of the idea of early access forums, to get an idea of what the community does and does not want. Without input from folks that support AND oppose an idea, the devs have no way of knowing how in demand a feature really is. As long as opinions are presented with a reason, I assume the devs want to hear the NO's as much as the YES's.

I support when people say, like "its not realistic\hard to implement\conter-balance', etc. When they say 'no, becuse ets stuped', I find myself quite emotional. 

[Demonic_Kat]

Well, I have to commend education of most people here, who say that elder people learn things as good as young. Because that isn't closely true and I believe that people should learn that in schools on biology classes or so. 

I'm not going to give lectures, because idc about most people education here. 

Generally, thing is, that elder people have a much harder time learning something new and the difference in learning time and efficiency becomes noticable even if you compare 14 year teens with 24 year people and I m not speaking of even older people. The older you become, the harder is the learning process. I m not regarding motivational differences, but THAT above is a fact.

Game itself makes changes to become more and more content-rich and from update to update it makes things more realistic and complicated in one way or another to make game more interesting. 

Why make old-young thing? Because we develop. Because game develops. If you need some mega-serious reason to develop one thing or another and add new content, or, as alternative, not developing anything at all because you're ok with what you have now, don't consider early-access indie games and don't bother people here with your "don't need that", "we are just ok without that' thing.  

 

First of all, I didn't learn that a person learns and develops well into their late life in any biology class. I learned it in psychology and human lifetime development (while getting my first degree). Yes, as someone stated earlier, the physical elasticity of brain cells does decline with age, but so does every other cell in the body. From a simple search on the web you can see that there are many people in peak physical condition well into their 40's and beyond. As for mentally, it's a stigma we put on our elderly, not an actual fact, that they can't learn as well as others. In my initial suggestion I suggested that age plays a factor in learning speed and it seems like nearly everyone took that in a negative way. Some may not have the physical capabilities anymore, but what age brings is the ability to adapt to learning in new and different ways. Age does hamper skills requiring dexterity in the later parts of life because of eventual muscle deterioration though.

 

Secondly my want of age is for aesthetic purposes as well as a little bit of variety. We didn't have women before, and now we do; it'd be nice to have more character customizations. Telling me that I can "role-play" an age basically tells me I can role-play whatever I'd like, we don't need color or gender either.

 

 

 

I'm personally ok with people stating that they don't want to see a feature added. That's sort of the idea of early access forums, to get an idea of what the community does and does not want. Without input from folks that support AND oppose an idea, the devs have no way of knowing how in demand a feature really is. As long as opinions are presented with a reason, I assume the devs want to hear the NO's as much as the YES's.

I support when people say, like "its not realistic\hard to implement\conter-balance', etc. When they say 'no, becuse ets stuped', I find myself quite emotional. 

 

 

Also yes. I'd like to hear that here. Give me good reasons why it'd be game breaking! 99% of people don't make it to sprinting lvl 10 (formerly lvl 5), but we still have it!

 

 

Also as a footnote, some people don't learn well. It has nothing to do with age. So there will always be those dumb old people, just like there's those dumb young people.