[Suggestion] World Generator options - "Do not duplicate POI's."

[Debosy]

Hello,

 

I want to suggest something for  World Generator. 

 

There is one thing that i really dont like in generated maps - duplicated POI's.

Its really dissapointing when you met the same POI on map multiple times.

 

Because of that:

- worlds are builded with less number of poi's.

- boring exploration in late game.

- less number of unique poi's on generated map

- less diversity in generated world.

 

So my suggestion is to add option that force generator to not duplicate POI's? (ONE poi can occur on map only ONE time)

It will be really nice to generate worlds with maximum number of POI's where every POI used by generator can occure on map only one time.

I think it make maps a little more unique and not so repeatable especially on end game.

[zztong]

You have the ability to make a small map and you can minimize the number of settlements and wilderness POIs in RWG. That would be the closest thing possible today. Combine that approach with community POIs if vanilla doesn't reach the mark.

 

I suspect that's probably not what you'd like to hear, and believe me I don't like saying it. I've thought about this goal several times in the past. The trouble is math. It is amazing how many POIs fit into a world. If they all have to be unique, and you want a big map, then TFP faces a massive labor shortage. TFP + Community? Still not enough. Maybe somebody could automate POI development... (extended pause). Machine learning and POI creation... anyone?

 

But let's say they implemented this feature. I think RWG might even support it today, kind of. There appears to be some mechanism that keeps POIs from duplicating within a certain distance from each other. Say TFP changes that distance to be 20k (larger than the map). What does RWG do when it has a need to place a POI but there's none available? It places nothing.

 

The only way I can currently envision a large map AND coming close to unique content, is to allow players generating maps to select "one central city", "two country towns", "one western town", and "sparse wilderness" options. In this way you would hopefully get much larger distances between settlements and larger gaps between wilderness POIs. Alas, many players hate spending a lot of time traveling so we're going to run into competing priorities, like those who want really large and dense cities and those who hate "walking simulators."

 

Sorry if I've carried on too long and I hope I've not offended you or made it seem like I don't like the suggestion. I think it's a wonderful goal. I love talking about RWG. I find it to be one of the more interesting aspects of 7D2D.

[Diragor]

Well at least the RWG should first take every available POI before recycle them. That would be nice. But still they did an amazing job with RWG and I Love it.

[enkephalin07]

I'd like to see procedurally generated traders instead of duplicates. They don't even need to be voiced. Most of my experience with RWG has been Dwarf Fortress, so I can appreciate depth and sophistication in world generation at the expense of audiovisual sophistication.

 

Procedurally generated town names would be a nice touch, too.

[Syphon583]

I think this also largely depends on the type and tier of POI that you're talking about. Are you saying you don't want ANY POI to repeat, including non-questable POIs? As zz stated, the math just isn't there. They would need thousands of POIs depending on the size of the map.

 

I do think it would be nice if questable POIs didn't repeat in the same city/town (Would be really nice if T5 didn't repeat at all in the world). However, there are some POI types (even some that are questable) that I think are fine being repeated: gas stations/retail/stores (in the real world, multiple gas stations/retailers owned by the same company regularly have identical layouts), and some residences (think neighborhoods that are built by a single builder, so the home models often repeat with some color/material variation). Building on zz's idea, I think it would be cool if they had some POIs like homes that are identical (or reversed) layout and had some aspects like paint color be randomly chosen during RWG. Might extend the time it takes to complete the generation, but if the generator pulled from a specific set of textures, I doubt it would increase by much. You could also randomize the type of fence used, or the foliage that appears in the yard. They already do this to an extent with helper blocks that are used from randomized loot containers and piles.

[zztong]

On 7/5/2022 at 1:51 PM, Syphon583 said:

or reversed

 

Interesting. (Reversed or Mirrored POI placement.)

 

I wonder if a reversed POI would be enough to make it fresh. The human brain is pretty good at recognizing patterns, but if you've not seen a POI a bunch of times a reversal might be enough.

 

I wonder if a reversed POI will end up with some arrangements of blocks that don't make sense. It seems viable, but reversing a door's palcement doesn't necessarily reverse the direction it opens. Something that would have been behind an open door might not be anymore. Maybe that's good.

 

Also interesting is that you don't have to make reversed versions of POIs. RWG just reverses them as it copies the blocks.

 

Something that is possible today would be to assemble a House entirely out of Parts. For instance, you standardize the size of the kitchen for a ranch-style house, put in a default, then make 6 variations of the kitchen any one of which can replace the default. Repeat for the living room, bed room, bath room.

 

Quirks:

• You can get an impressive number of variations, but the human brain will still recognize the patterns even if the furniture changes locations.
  • (Kind of like how RWG cities seem repetitive to folks now after 6 months even though there are millions or billions of combinations.)
• If you want the walls to change textures, you'll have to double the thickness of the walls. (A one-block think wall has textures for the rooms on both sides.)
• RWG will still think all House_Random_01s are the same POI, even though it scrambled the Parts.

Trivia: Stallionsden used Parts to make the upper floors in his Casino different each time.

[Syphon583]

5 hours ago, zztong said:

Interesting. (Reversed or Mirrored POI placement.)

 

I wonder if a reversed POI would be enough to make it fresh. The human brain is pretty good at recognizing patterns, but if you've not seen a POI a bunch of times a reversal might be enough.

Oh for sure. I guess I was thinking more in terms of what I'm used to seeing in the real world, and not necessarily as a way to "trick" the player into thinking there are more POIs than there really are. I still think it will might work as an inexpensive way to add some variation.

 

Didn't think about doors though. Those can't truly be reversed since there's not separate "left" and "right" variations like there are many other blocks.

[Laz Man]

A20 Is probably the best iteration of "less POI duplication" to date in RWG maps.  AFAIK, I have never seen a duplicated POI within the same city in A20.

 

I would imagine we are not at a point yet where we can have map with multiple cities without duplicated POIs anywhere unless you tone down the number of settlements way down.

 

Certainly, modding in community created POIs like the compopack to the mix can help.

 

It would be amazing for us to reach 100% unique vanilla  POI RWG map one day.

 

*goes back to making another POI...😅*

[zztong]

8 hours ago, Syphon583 said:

Didn't think about doors though. Those can't truly be reversed since there's not separate "left" and "right" variations like there are many other blocks.

 

It occurred to me last night that words on buildings, reversed, would become gibberish.