Me envisioning Multiplayer mechanics(and suggestions for said mechanics)

[Spazmatic]

Whilst not being extremely hyped for DST, I am guilty of envisioning the mechanics that involve multiple players on one island, the process of getting there, and a few suggestions that all reflect my own vision. This may or may not be the same for you, forumgo-er or dev! It is quite the read, hence there's bold titles that describe the section and topic at hand. Go to a specific topic and click the spoiler tag to see all the stuff I talk about! This OP can and will be edited with more stuff if I please, and there will be a "changelog" underneath this very sentence. When something new get's added to said category, there will be a *NEW* in the title of the category and the new sections will be added to the top of the section it belongs to!

 

PS: In my suggestions I enforce the scenario that there is gonna be PvP in the final version, hence there are PvP specific topics. This thread is NOT a discussion for the in- or exclusion of PvP.


Last updated on June 8, added "Game Balance" section along with 3 new sub-topics: "The mating of the surface Rock Lobsters" (A suggestion to halt Rock Lobster surfacereproducing), "Say pal, I'm really powerful against other players." (Balance suggestions for Maxwell in PvP) and "Sleep darts, panflutes, mandrakes, for cheesing your fellow survivor" (Sleep items in a PvP scenario and how to balance them)

 

About joining a game and setting a game up

The Door, and joining a multiplayer game


You will be able to access multiplayer through the main screen, sortha like this:





After considering what @Ridley said, there might aswell be both the title screen to enter MP and to actually craft the Door in your SP file. You can access MP whenever you please, however you please. Once you hit the button or enter the Door in SP, you will be brought to a new screen. Here you can choose to either set up a world or join an existing world. There will be filters like "friends only" and "Game in progress", to look for the game of your liking.


Lobbying


When setting up a world for you and others to survive in, you start with the world settings and picking a character. After that you can choose to start immediately or set up a lobby to wait for other players. Players inside the lobby can chat with each other, and "ready up". The host decides how many players should be ready to start the game.

 

Ingame mechanics in general  

Arriving on the island


Players spawn on random places in the world, in a similar way to sandbox mode. You poof into existence whilst being "asleep", and promptly get on your feet. You will not be greeted by Maxwell, and only have your character specific item(s). Only the place where you spawned is uncovered on the map, you have to find your friends( or enemies) by yourself.


Where are you, pal?


Initially, you will not be able to see the other players on the map. However, their icon becomes visible once they are in an area you have visited, and are only a few screens away. You don't know where your other island companions are when they are too far away. Maybe there could be an item that enables you to tag any player or creature, so they show up on the map? Or have the option to always have characters available on the map, outside of PvP. This is not something I would favour, but it would keep both parties happy. When someone is using a Bush Hat however, they will appear as a berry bush on the map!


Communicate!


There is a chat window that you can use to type in messages. Once typed, your character will "talk" and display the message above their head. There can also be the option to YELL. You can YELL with a cooldown (30secs-1min?). When you YELL, your message will be displayed for everyone else with an arrow pointing to your direction. This can be used in the beginning to try and find each other. However if you do not want to be found, don't YELL...


First come first served.


When gathering resources or picking up items, the first person to start the action will be the one to get the item. When gathering is cancelled however, the initial gatherer cannot do so again for 5 seconds or so, to avoid griefing/annoyance/spam.


I gotta go...


When a player disconnects from the game, shadow hands will emerge from the ground and drag them away (like entering the adventure portal/teleportato). The other player's characters will say a generic message that stays up for a couple of seconds, to make sure everyone knows someone has left (without the need of a different window for game state logs). Once the host has to go, everyone will be grabbed by shadow hands and the game will stop for now. Once outside the MP game, you can check back on the world in a "recently visited worlds" tab or something along those lines. This will display the host's name, if the game is active, who and how many people are in it and what the day/season is.


I have returned.


If you have left a game that wasn't hosted by you and want to return, you can only do so if the host is active in the game (a list of recently played worlds could help with that). You will poof into the world and wake up once again, on the same spot as where you left or on a random spot. The danger of reappearing on the same spot is that there's the potential for griefing, though on the other hand could give the host and other still active players an oppertunity to set up something beneficial to you like a firepit if it's winter now.

Ssssh, Wilson is asleep.

When a player falls asleep, he or she will be unable to move untill the next day. Time does not travel faster or slower, and the awake players will still have to survive the night. Alternatively when a player is asleep they can move outside of their body, and appear as a ghostly version of their character. This allows them to move only a few screens away, so they can be aware of what is happening around them but not explore the entire map whilst being invincible. The player that sleeps should be invincible during that time, wether they are in a tent or a straw roll. Lorewise, Charlie and the creatures are unable to harm anyone asleep. This goes in line with the plans Them have in mind, therefor this shall happen. As pointed out, a manual way to wake up whilst asleep will make you less useless.



Let's go explore a cave.

When someone finds a cave and wants to explore it, he or she is free to do so. It will not put a halt to the surface world, neither will it spontaniously teleport everyone to the cave. Whenever someone enters a cave, the other player's characters will say a line ("I feel as if someone caved in." for example) that lasts for a couple of seconds. You will not be able to know who went into the cave, unless this has been talked about before or you were there when the person entered the cave. This empathizes good communication, or lack thereof if you have your own devious litle scheme... The same would apply if all players are in the first cave layer and someone goes to the Ruins ("Someone has delved deeper.")

Are you insane?!

A big mechanic in the core game is sanity. The more insane you are, the more you are a nice attraction for the sanity creatures that get attracted to your madness. Untill you are truely insane and they actually start to attack you. Are you sane, then you won't see them nor can they harm you. When one player is sane and the other player is insane, the sane player will be unable to see the sanity creatures. Even if the insane one is fighting, it will look as if the loon is hitting thin air for no apparent reason. Other than communication, there should be more visual clues the more insane a player is. In the core game, your character sometimes looks around in a very paranoid way, along with a frightened face. Once you reach certain sanity tresholds (hear and see Them, are insane), your character's face will look gradually more frightened whilst walking around, to indicate your insanity. This could be implemented in SP aswell as a neat little feature! Someone insane can have a sanity degen aura, though that might be used to grief aswell.. Or more reasons to either be sane or stay the heck away from the insane. Bringing isolation to your multiplayer.

I'm fffffreezing, HOT HOT HOT or soaking wet by the rain...

Something missing in the core game are visual hints on the character, rather than on the screen, when they are freezing, overheating or are wet by the rain. I'm thinking simple visual hints like a light blue skin tone when a character is freezing, a bright red skin tone when they are overheating, and little waterdrips on their face when they are wet by the rain (this in combination with the insanity facial indicator works too!). This allows other players to check the status of their fellow survivors, even when the player suffering the ailment isn't letting them know..

Naughty (read in Fred's voice if you get the reference).

Krampus will appear after all the players have reached the naughtyness treshold. He doesn't care for individual naughtyness, but the naughtyness of every survivor combined. Krampus will however spawn near the player that triggered him to spawn. One poor Krampus vs 2-4 people however would be a little unfair, so the first 50 days he spawns two times the amount of players, after 50 he spawns three times the amount of players. This all in all gives everyone a higher chance to get the Krampus sack aswell. Ever since I made Team Krampus and the Team was supported a lot by the community, @Bryce made a mod for DS called "Krampusnachts". Once every winter, when it's dusk there is a chance for 6 Krampii to spawn. This is indicated by Krampus sounds, and sounds way different than let's say an incoming hound wave. These goatmen are tougher than the current version, and all of them will attack if you dare to attack one of them. 300hp and 50 damage I'd say is a good value for Krampus to have. Now if you manage to kill all of them, you are awarded with a Krampus sack. However, should you fail to kill them all, they will abduct you in their sack when it's dawn the next morning, only to dump you elsewhere on a random place on the island. The amount of Krampii spawned during a Krampusnacht will be 6+ 1 for every active player. Failing to kill the active Krampii after a set amount of time outside of the Krampusnachts, not during the night, should cause them to catch all the players in their bags and dump them on different places on the island. The Krampusnachts and new Krampus mechanic it brought should be included in both SP and MP, and give Krampus the spotlight it deserves, plus people would actually meet him! If you have RoG it will take a long time before you get your second Krampusnacht since there's four seasons there.

I love friend, and only friend!

Aside from Webber with his ability to befriend spiders, there's a few followers one can obtain like the pigmen, bunnymen, rock lobsters and catcoons in the RoG dlc. These followers will fight for you and help you out in other different ways aswell. In order to befriend these followers you need specific items. Now, when one player befriends let's say a pigman, the pigman will follow that player untill he hasn't been fed enough. Even when someone else gives him a piece of meat, this will not change who is his follower. Alternatively other players don't even have the option to feed him anything, since he only wants food from his ugly monkey man friend! This would eliminate potential griefing (spamming food so the pigman keeps on denying it and not move anymore, or feeding him monster meat to turn him into a werepig.. the latter still somehow appeals to my devious mind in a PvP setting). Another change for both SP and MP would be that followers no longer eat up stuff dropped on the ground. They only accept the food their friend and master provides.

 

An unfortunate demise...

Death is always a possibility when surviving on an island with a hostile wildlife and murderous fellow survivors. In SP when you die you will drop all your items on the ground and leave a skeleton behind. I'm thinking about the same thing for Multiplayer, but slightly different. Once a player dies, their character will still drop all their items. However, the corpse doesn't turn into a skeleton just yet. It will take about 2-3 days for the corpse to turn into a skeleton. All the players, including the player that died should they have means to ressurrect themselves, will be able to examine the corpse, to find out what caused the unfortunate demise. Think of lines like "It seems MacTusk was the better hunter after all", or "A fellow survivor took their life". The latter will set the mood for the survivors still alive. I would choose to keep the description vague instead of a "Player X killed player Y" kind of thing. If you weren't there on the crime scene, you would have no idea who did it.... No killfeed, no exact ways of knowing who made the kill, but something that will change the atmosphere and adds a potential new danger to the game, your untrustworthy island companions. Of course this could be circumvented by Steam or other communication means like Skype, but playing MP with total strangers will not grant you that help.

 

A helping hand

Just as in SP, you can use healing items on your fellow players. You select your healing item of choice, then hover over the player you want to heal with your cursor untill "Heal" appears, you then click on the player. Your character will do a little animation when applying the healing like it does in SP already, which can be interupted by enemy attacks. The healed player will still be able to move around, to prevent griefing (applying a healing item but continuously cancelling the action so you both cannot move/have trouble to move). Maybe there could be a cooldown period between heals to prevent mass healing from players. Actual playtesting is needed to determine that. Not too fond of an ability to give items to each other as it can be rather annoying to be given items that aren't all that useful.

It must be a sign

With MP it would be even more interesting to have the ability to add custom text to crafted signs. The creator of the sign is the only one who can change what it says. When examined, the character will say something along the lines of: It says: *insert what it says here* - *name of character who created the sign*. Perhaps you could even see what signs say when hovering over them on the minimap.. It opens up possibilities to let others know what's up. Sure, there could be vulgar messages posted, but you will know who did it and are free to stab them untill they die! There will also be a new kind of sign: an arrow sign! You can place it down and after that choose the direction it faces. The arrow sign costs the same as a regular sign and can be given custom text aswell.

 

Ingame mechanics, PvP

PvP and PvE, initiating the attack

It is too early to even know how it would work and if it's there, but if it is possible to attack a player, one can only do so by forcing the attack in a way similar to attacking a friendly follower. Alternatively, the key bound to attack is used to attack a player. This would minimalise accidents whilst being in a frantic PvE combat situation, and get the point across to the attacked player.. When one player attacks the other, there will be a moment that you don't need to force attack but instead get this option by default. The option would go away after 30 seconds without combat. This so called Moment of Aggresiveness can be shown on the screen by red lightning around the edges of the screen, to indicate when it is over.

PvP, traps and contraptions

I play an ARPG called Path of Exile, which is mainly focussed on PvE but has a PvP aspect aswell. One of the builds/skills you can use is a Trapper, which uses skills linked with a trap gem to be able to throw them and let enemies trigger the trap. In PvE your traps will always remain visible. However in a PvP setting, placed traps will disappear after they are dropped, which could give the attacker a nasty surprise and the trapper a tactical advantage, opening up tactics like luring. I am thinking of two ways to make traps nasty in a PvP setting (regardless of coding difficulty). One is that traps being placed whilst in the Moment of Aggresiveness will become invisible after placing them, and harm anyone but the player that set them down. This way you can get a tactical advantage, but not due to already mass placing traps before the fight. Another option would be the ability to "hide" your traps as an option for them once they are placed, making them invisible for other players. Traps and contraptions that should be invisible in the MoA: Tooth traps, bee mines, Houndius Shootius (untill firing for the first time). Traps and contraptions could use some new ideas aswell, both for MP and SP:

Bear Trap: A trap that immobilizes anything foolish enough to stand on it for a couple of seconds, doesn't work on flying things. Use it to halt pursuers or to pinpoint your enemy down so there's no escape.
Mosquito Mine: Something that already exists but isn't in the core game to craft. Releases 3 mosquitoes instead of bees upon trigger. An alternative to bees to provide more annoyance and potentially cause splash damage to an enemy, and ridding the bug in the process aswell.
Smoke Mine: This will blind anyone that triggers it. Blinded animals will run in random directions as if they are on fire, and will lose aggro. Players that trigger the mine will have their screen turned black, as if you're taking a night stroll without light source. This lasts a couple of seconds.
Pointy Trap: Made using raw cactus flesh, this trap will hurt anyone that triggers it, but in a different way. This trap deals more damage if the victim moves and less if the victim stands still and this effect lasts a few seconds. In a PvE setting all but some ranged enemies like the Bishop will keep on moving, making it great to deal with most creatures. In PvP the victim has the dilemma of standing still and taking less damage whilst being more vulnerable to other attacks, or move at the cost of losing more life but being mobile.

PvP, followers to arms!

In a PvP scenario where a player has followers, be it Webber with his spiders or some pigmen, the followers will be agressive to the attacker as soon as a hit lands on their master. Alternatively when using force attack, all current followers will initiate the attack aswell. After 30 seconds without retaliation or when the attacked player is too far away compared to their master, the followers will become neutral again and follow their master. When followers have not been attacked back, the attacked can drop items like monster meat or the meal of choice to distract followers, and potentially turn pigmen into werepigs so they attack their former master! This brings a risk to bringing followers to a fight and gives the attacked the oppertunity to counter them, and adding more strategy to a fight in this setting.

 PvP, force feeding

Aside from weapons, traps and contraptions PvP opens up the ability for another set of weapons: food. Think about it, someone just attacked you but is already suffering from a lower sanity( thanks to visuals you see their character has a scared look on their face). When you see the oppertunity you force feed your attacker a Green Mushroom cap, turning them insane and getting some seemingly invisible aid. Or feed them monster meat or a red mushroom cap for a direct loss of their health regardless of their armor( the former doesn't work against Webber in this scenario). Even when your opponent has the best defensive gear, it doesn't make a tactical nasty treat shoved down their piehole less painful. A cooldown of 5 seconds or so seems fair to me, to prevent spamming food and for balance issues. You will get the option to force feed as soon as you're in PvP mode, you cannot do so to start PvP

 

Game Balance *NEW*

 

*NEW* The mating of the surface Rock Lobsters

 

As some might know, bringing Rock Lobsters to the surface is a bad idea.. A REALLY BAD IDEA. If you leave the rock Cthulhus be, they will mass reproduce and populate the entire surface level of your island. This is a very big gamebreaker already, but DST should be more motivation to get this fixed. The way I would do so, is as followed: Make Rock Lobsters unable to reproduce, but still respawnable. Give them their Slurtle mound equivalent in the caves, that only "produce" a certain amount of Rockies, and will keep track of how many there are active in the game, including the surface. This way you can still bring your Rock Lobsters to the surface but they will not ruin the game for everyone anymore with their reproducing.

 

*NEW* Say pal, I'm really powerful against other players.

 

IF PvP is gonna be a thing, there is one character that has the potential to murder everyone else at the start of a new world: Maxwell. His Dark Sword and Night Armor give him so much power early on, it will be blatantly OP in a PvP scenario. But then I got an idea to balance it out a bit more. The starting items Maxwell get's are a bit different from the craftable versions. The starter's Dark Sword will do less damage against players (same amount of a Spear, 34), but the same damage against creatures(68). Maxwell's starter's Night Armor will absorb 70% of incoming physical damage dealt by other players and 95% by creatures. Starting off/playing as Maxwell will still grant you some nice benefits, but not make you an early game PvP killing machine.

 

*NEW* Sleep darts, panflutes, mandrakes, for cheesing your fellow survivor

 

Something I think needs balance is the items that can make your fellow survivor fall asleep at will. When you send creatures to dreamland, they stay asleep for quite some time, in which you can give them nasty wake up calls (gunpowder stacks, Bigfoot). Whilst this is fine, it would be rather nasty if sleep inducing stuff would work the same on your fellow players. Even though mandrakes and panflutes are finite they are really powerful. The max amount of time that you can put a player to sleep for, is about 3 seconds with either of the things. It takes 3 sleep darts to make a player fall asleep, and one play on the panflute or one eaten mandrake (though in that case everyone including the one who ate it will fall asleep). When a player puts another player to sleep, the one that slept is "sleep immune" for 5 seconds, meaning they can't be put to sleep untill 5 seconds pass after they wake up. This way you can't "sleeplock" someone, and with the 3 second sleeping time still have some time to react against most wake up calls like gunpowder and Bigfoot.

 

Misc. things

 

I know what you did last summer...

Something entirely different from the gameplay that would make a nice addition is the introduction of specific player stats. Wether this shows only a few played games or their entire history is up for debate. Things like the last games played, with the amount of days survived, if still alive or dead and which character used, to things like time spend insane, and fellow survivors killed. All stats excluding MP specific ones could be used for SP aswell, maybe even when watching someone's profile on Steam or provide an ingame option to do so. This way you get to know your fellow survivor more, for better or worse..

 

[Malan-Tai]

Yes for everything !

[Ridley]

 

 

The Door, and joining a multiplayer game

 

 

Arriving on the island

 

 

Where are you, pal?

 

Ssssh, Wilson is asleep.

 

Communicate!

 

Everything was really good, but I had something bothering about these ones.

 

1. Why can't we have both the door and the main menu button? I don't want my hours filled SP file to just sit there. When the internet cuts out I want to have the option to naturally spawn in the SP file I built the door in. Though, if I feel like playing a character I don't have the file with, I want to press the main menu button to join a server that way.

 

2. I think the option to spawn from a SP door or scattered in a fresh MP world would be more entertaining. And why can't Maxwell appear if no one is playing as him?

 

3. Its going to get annoying to have to play 20 questions to figure out where my friends are. I would rather they just appear on the map, except in PvP mode.

 

4. Having a player become useless for a period of time makes sleeping very unattractive. Being able to cancel the sleeping while time slightly sped up is my idea, as it would allow sleeping to still be useful and wouldn't annoy your team.

 

5. With all the rivers and land generations that can get in the way, the arrow wouldn't be that helpful. At a fork in the road, you could easily wind up on the completely wrong side of a river. 

[Spazmatic]

Yes for everything !

Thanks for the support

 

Everything was really good, but I had something bothering about these ones.

 

1. Why can't we have both the door and the main menu button? I don't want my hours filled SP file to just sit there. When the internet cuts out I want to have the option to naturally spawn in the SP file I built the door in. Though, if I feel like playing a character I don't have the file with, I want to press the main menu button to join a server that way.

 

2. I think the option to spawn from a SP door or scattered in a fresh MP world would be more entertaining. And why can't Maxwell appear if no one is playing as him?

 

3. Its going to get annoying to have to play 20 questions to figure out where my friends are. I would rather they just appear on the map, except in PvP mode.

 

4. Having a player become useless for a period of time makes sleeping very unattractive. Being able to cancel the sleeping while time slightly sped up is my idea, as it would allow sleeping to still be useful and wouldn't annoy your team.

 

5. With all the rivers and land generations that can get in the way, the arrow wouldn't be that helpful. At a fork in the road, you could easily wind up on the completely wrong side of a river. 

1. Good point, might aswell have both the options open and let it be up to the player wether or not they use the main menu or craft the Door in their SP file. Definately gonna add that.

 

2. He could appear, but only if one person joins and of course when no one is playing as Maxwell. Or would clones of Maxwell not be a problem, since you're all seperate from each other?

 

3. Sure, everyone being visible on the radar would speed up the process of finding each other. I personally feel that even in MP initially you should still have a sense of being isolated and alone, untill you're able to rendezvous with the other players. Hence lacking the ability to always see them and know where they are. Having them not be visible in PvP mode is a nice touch (and when someone uses a bush hat, they appear as a berry bush instead of a character icon).

 

4. I actually didn't think about that, you would still get some sanity boost and lose some hunger if you wake up earlier right? Better not wake up during the night without a light source though . Gonna add that aswell (with credit of course)

 

5. The arrow is there to point in a generic direction without being of too much help, of course the generation of the island might screw you over. I'm heavily in favor of minimal means to find and communicate with each other. Terraria has the exact distance and altitude underneath the pointer of a party member, which makes it easier to find them. I'd like it if DS was less convenient there, and relied more on the effort of the player to find each other with minimal means. Alternatively to favour both parties, there could be the option to always show players on the map outside of PvP mode. This can be set when making a new MP game.

 

Thanks for the reply and the points you made!

[Ridley]

 

 

Thanks for the reply and the points you made!

 

No problem. I think my favorite idea you suggested was the one about followers. I hadn't thought about people trying to steal friends.

[Malan-Tai]

Just a question...why did you add a beard to Wilson ?

[Silentdarkness1]

Everything was really good, but I had something bothering about these ones.

 

1. Why can't we have both the door and the main menu button? I don't want my hours filled SP file to just sit there. When the internet cuts out I want to have the option to naturally spawn in the SP file I built the door in. Though, if I feel like playing a character I don't have the file with, I want to press the main menu button to join a server that way.

This is meshing the SP and MP, which is really not what we want here. While I will agree that there is a lack of stuff to do late-game, going into MP should not be the answer to that.

[Ridley]

This is meshing the SP and MP, which is really not what we want here. While I will agree that there is a lack of stuff to do late-game, going into MP should not be the answer to that.

 

That wasn't a solution for late game phases. It was for meshing SP and MP, which why don't we want that?

 

I went and played vanilla mode after playing alot of Rog. It was so weird and felt like I was lacking the core part of the game, when I was actually playing the core! The huge split was so obvious that it didn't feel right to play. I want to prevent this from happening to SP.

[Spazmatic]

No problem. I think my favorite idea you suggested was the one about followers. I hadn't thought about people trying to steal friends.

 

Inspiring each other is always a good thing! The idea suddenly struck me, and I liked the sound of it...

Just a question...why did you add a beard to Wilson ?

As a slight reference to the latest puzzle, and since MP is gonna take awhile, there's plenty of time to grow a beard

 

This is meshing the SP and MP, which is really not what we want here. While I will agree that there is a lack of stuff to do late-game, going into MP should not be the answer to that.

It would be something optional that is not really tied to late-game, just for those people who want to physically build the Door and actually traverse it instead of pressing a button on the main menu. To each their own.

[Brianman27]

Good idea

[Spazmatic]

Added three new sections to the OP, "PvP, Force feeding", "A helpful hand" and "An unfortunate demise...".

 

* PvP, Force feeding covers a new PvP idea I have, the ability to let your opponent eat food during PvP mode. Of course you'd want to feed them some nasty treats to gain the upper hand!

* A helpful hand covers the ability to heal your fellow island survivors, but lack of giving each other items directly (and why).

* An unfortunate demise covers what happens to your corpse after death, and how others (and you if you have a way to ressurrect yourself) can examine the corpse to obtain a hint what was the cause of death. Was it the local wildlife, or someone else....

[Wilbur]

That's some awesome ideas you've got there!

 

*EDIT*Well that didn't sound grammatical correct.

[GhostyGhost]

Hrm, this is all quite interesting. I'm quite excited for Together, tbh, and some of these are quite cool. I'll, uhh, go in order here...

 

The Door, and joining a multiplayer game

I kinda like that idea, and it seems quite good. I'd honestly like an option to, at the portal, turn your SP world into a MP world, like say open your world up to everyone else once you manage to survive and find it. It could pause the world as you set it up, ofc, and you could tamper with whether your world was private or not as you wished. That way, if you had a SP world that you thought would be cool for MP you could very easily put it out there. I also think that it would be nice to have the choice to close a world to MP, if you just wanted to shut the world down and resign it to SP.

 

Where are you, pal?

I half disagree with them popping up on the minimap if they are a few screens away firstly. I mean, once you have encountered them (they have appeared on your screen and you have SEEN them) that is quite fair. But I prefer the idea that bumping into your pals(?) should be a surprise, like 'oh my god there is a person right there next to me' rather than 'oh he's just east I'll walk over and say hi'.

Communicate!

There will have to be caution with this. There are more people on the internet than I'd like to know with an incredibly rude language problem. I'd hate to dislike quite a nice MP world because of one loudmouth spouting profanities to everyone via YELLING

I gotta go...

In line of this, I would also like it, if this sort of system was in place, if you could have favorite worlds? The idea presented in this and the next section is good, but if it is possible to visit many worlds in rapid succession the world you left and liked would soon be buried under many other worlds you may have only visited for a few minutes and may in fact dislike.

Ssssh, Wilson is asleep.

 

I don't much like the idea of being able to walk around while you are sleeping. Maybe make it so on the player's screen, there is sort of a 'circle' of dim light as they sleep, a small ish window in which you can keep a limited eye on the world (after all, you are asleep). Maybe have it so that sounds are slightly more amplified while you are asleep? More amplified the closer a certain mob may get? This may be detriment to those who cannot play with sound, though, so I'm a little uneasy to commit to that specific one. The option is also there to make the area outside your window of alertness quite spooky indeed. I am thinking something like those 'eyes' you see in the dark, but I honestly think something more spooky, more nightmare ish is needed.

 

And maybe, to make things less of a pain for spamming the bed roll, apply a sort of clothing like durability and regen? Like, over time it will heal a max of ____ health and sanity and last for ____ amount of time before you either maybe have an option to repair it or it breaks?

I love friend, and only friend!

 

Nonono, pigmen should always be, in my mind, shallow treacherous and greedy. It's just how they have always seemed to be, to me! Stealing followers is an evil little thing to do, but what if you never intended to play nice to begin with?

PvP and PvE, initiating the attack

I also think that it would be nice if each character had a certain flavor text that they said, depending on whether they had attacked/been attacked, geared from the attacker/defender towards their opponent. Flavor text for a truce would also be quite the swell thing, once again geared from one character towards the character in question.

 

Though there are a few concerns in my mind when it comes to PVP... When you attack a player, they get 'stunned' for a momentary second; would this second be enough to chain up many attacks and just stunlock the poor fella until he dies?

This especially worries me when the lightning weapon from RoG, the morningstar, comes to mind. It would be very easy to just cheaply lock a player into being shocked continuously and then just outright kill them. It would be very, very easy to in my eyes to get quite frustrated at this quite quickly and simply quit MP or maybe the game entirely just out of sheer disillusionment.

PvP, traps and contraptions

The only slight qualm I have here is with the smoke mine. Maybe not have it completely block out your screen, but reduce your visibility to a very thin circle around your character?

PvP, force feeding

I am not entirely keen on that. I mean, depending on how it is handled, one can force feed, wait out the five seconds, and then come back in and just force feed you again. I'd quite like it however if there was a risk with force feeding - like if you opponent was on guard enough they could hit you in the face during that little window of time where you were trying to feed them. That may indeed be how you were planning it out in your mind, Spazmatic, but I really just don't like the idea of them clicking on you with a wad of monster meat and bam, down goes health/sanity, absolutely nothing you can do to prevent it. I would at least like the chance, even if fleeting, to hit the crazy in the face.

A helping hand

I'm not sure what you are talking about when you speak about a mechanic to give items to one another. I mean, surely putting the items on the ground/in a chest could work just as well?

Though I do like the choice of healing people, don't get me wrong, but why the cooldown? You mean like only one healing item can be used on X player at a time? That would be a swell thing, but if it is something like five seconds, then what is stopping you from 'giving' the healing items to the player you are trying to heal by dropping them on the ground and letting them heal themselves, without the cooldown?

 

EDIT: Oh, and I very almost forgot something; I would love it if you could write things on signs. It would honestly be quite nice to go about in an MP world and suddenly come across a sign spouting something like 'GO NO FURTHER'. If players were in such a mind as to 'stake' a claim on a certain area this would be quite the nice thing to add. And it may also be quite the nice way to mislead/warn others in your world of certain dangers, for if you maybe wanted to help, hinder, of even off your fellow players without having to resort to PVP. A studious player could even do something like edit the trap set pieces with a makeshift 'base', stake a false claim, and watch those who were adventurous enough to attempt to raid their 'base' fall into their cunning trap.

[Spazmatic]

Hrm, this is all quite interesting. I'm quite excited for Together, tbh, and some of these are quite cool. I'll, uhh, go in order here...

 

1)The Door, and joining a multiplayer game

I kinda like that idea, and it seems quite good. I'd honestly like an option to, at the portal, turn your SP world into a MP world, like say open your world up to everyone else once you manage to survive and find it. It could pause the world as you set it up, ofc, and you could tamper with whether your world was private or not as you wished. That way, if you had a SP world that you thought would be cool for MP you could very easily put it out there. I also think that it would be nice to have the choice to close a world to MP, if you just wanted to shut the world down and resign it to SP.

 

2)Where are you, pal?

I half disagree with them popping up on the minimap if they are a few screens away firstly. I mean, once you have encountered them (they have appeared on your screen and you have SEEN them) that is quite fair. But I prefer the idea that bumping into your pals(?) should be a surprise, like 'oh my god there is a person right there next to me' rather than 'oh he's just east I'll walk over and say hi'.

3)Communicate!

There will have to be caution with this. There are more people on the internet than I'd like to know with an incredibly rude language problem. I'd hate to dislike quite a nice MP world because of one loudmouth spouting profanities to everyone via YELLING

4)I gotta go...

In line of this, I would also like it, if this sort of system was in place, if you could have favorite worlds? The idea presented in this and the next section is good, but if it is possible to visit many worlds in rapid succession the world you left and liked would soon be buried under many other worlds you may have only visited for a few minutes and may in fact dislike.

5)Ssssh, Wilson is asleep.

 

I don't much like the idea of being able to walk around while you are sleeping. Maybe make it so on the player's screen, there is sort of a 'circle' of dim light as they sleep, a small ish window in which you can keep a limited eye on the world (after all, you are asleep). Maybe have it so that sounds are slightly more amplified while you are asleep? More amplified the closer a certain mob may get? This may be detriment to those who cannot play with sound, though, so I'm a little uneasy to commit to that specific one. The option is also there to make the area outside your window of alertness quite spooky indeed. I am thinking something like those 'eyes' you see in the dark, but I honestly think something more spooky, more nightmare ish is needed.

 

And maybe, to make things less of a pain for spamming the bed roll, apply a sort of clothing like durability and regen? Like, over time it will heal a max of ____ health and sanity and last for ____ amount of time before you either maybe have an option to repair it or it breaks?

6)I love friend, and only friend!

 

Nonono, pigmen should always be, in my mind, shallow treacherous and greedy. It's just how they have always seemed to be, to me! Stealing followers is an evil little thing to do, but what if you never intended to play nice to begin with?

7)PvP and PvE, initiating the attack

I also think that it would be nice if each character had a certain flavor text that they said, depending on whether they had attacked/been attacked, geared from the attacker/defender towards their opponent. Flavor text for a truce would also be quite the swell thing, once again geared from one character towards the character in question.

 

Though there are a few concerns in my mind when it comes to PVP... When you attack a player, they get 'stunned' for a momentary second; would this second be enough to chain up many attacks and just stunlock the poor fella until he dies?

This especially worries me when the lightning weapon from RoG, the morningstar, comes to mind. It would be very easy to just cheaply lock a player into being shocked continuously and then just outright kill them. It would be very, very easy to in my eyes to get quite frustrated at this quite quickly and simply quit MP or maybe the game entirely just out of sheer disillusionment.

8)PvP, traps and contraptions

The only slight qualm I have here is with the smoke mine. Maybe not have it completely block out your screen, but reduce your visibility to a very thin circle around your character?

9)PvP, force feeding

I am not entirely keen on that. I mean, depending on how it is handled, one can force feed, wait out the five seconds, and then come back in and just force feed you again. I'd quite like it however if there was a risk with force feeding - like if you opponent was on guard enough they could hit you in the face during that little window of time where you were trying to feed them. That may indeed be how you were planning it out in your mind, Spazmatic, but I really just don't like the idea of them clicking on you with a wad of monster meat and bam, down goes health/sanity, absolutely nothing you can do to prevent it. I would at least like the chance, even if fleeting, to hit the crazy in the face.

10)A helping hand

I'm not sure what you are talking about when you speak about a mechanic to give items to one another. I mean, surely putting the items on the ground/in a chest could work just as well?

Though I do like the choice of healing people, don't get me wrong, but why the cooldown? You mean like only one healing item can be used on X player at a time? That would be a swell thing, but if it is something like five seconds, then what is stopping you from 'giving' the healing items to the player you are trying to heal by dropping them on the ground and letting them heal themselves, without the cooldown?

 

EDIT: Oh, and I very almost forgot something; I would love it if you could write things on signs. It would honestly be quite nice to go about in an MP world and suddenly come across a sign spouting something like 'GO NO FURTHER'. If players were in such a mind as to 'stake' a claim on a certain area this would be quite the nice thing to add. And it may also be quite the nice way to mislead/warn others in your world of certain dangers, for if you maybe wanted to help, hinder, of even off your fellow players without having to resort to PVP. A studious player could even do something like edit the trap set pieces with a makeshift 'base', stake a false claim, and watch those who were adventurous enough to attempt to raid their 'base' fall into their cunning trap.

Yay for a lot of feedback! Appreciate it good lassie. Let's commence the reply, in order of your feedback:

 

1)I'd be up for that, and it would be nice to share a SP world with others. A few things though: Imo, Klei should first focus on making DST in a playable state, starting with giving the ability to make a game and all that. I'm not sure how much resources a system like the one you talked about would cost, and if it's worthwhile to spend said resources. Then there's something else: Since you get to play your SP world for quite a long time, you will have a big advantage over the others: Your own base, researched items, knowledge of the map, and most likely the old bell (RoG). The rest of the bunch will have to start at 0. Though the latter will still occur if you can join existing MP games.. 

 

2)Yeah, I like that more aswell! I figured some might find the very limited visibility too much, I wouldn't want your fellow survivors to be visible on the map regardless of distance.

 

3)Which is why I would suggest, should a similar function be added, that there is a cooldown for the YELLING. The only way to completely stop profanity ingame is with a system of pre-made messages and it being the only form of communication. Perhaps an option for pre-made only messages could be included. Personally though, I'd bludgeon the profanity caster some respect in his/her noggin AND make a sacrifice for Krampus aswell

 

4)A recently played world list, and a favourite world list. Yeah, more convenience is good!

 

5)Your suggestion would be better atmosphere wise, but I like mine more since you actually got something to do whilst asleep. Some magical out of body experience, because why not?

 

6)Some playtesting would be nice to see how it would work ingame, if it's not too much griefing to have the ability to repeatedly steal followers from each others. 

 

7)Another fine suggestion, I'll try to come up with some flavour text and will add it to the OP once it's done! Maybe it would be better if hits from a player against another player don't have the ability to stun. This way you can never stunlock someone, even worse when multiple players fight against one person for whatever reason..

 

8) That way you would get the opportunity to actually retaliate and not be completely blinded. Thinking about it, being completely blinded without any way to defend yourself is rather shonky and could make the smoke mine overpowered.

 

9)The force feeding would have a little animation, similar to picking a berry bush etc. During that animation you can still be attacked. This is the trade-off for an opportunity to directly damage an enemy through his fancy armor.

 

10) I was referring to how you can give certain followers a hat. Since they don't have an inventory, they will just wear it right away. Now if you could give an item to a player, it would go to their inventory. You could give a lot of different not so useful items to clutter up the other's inventory, which could be rather annoying. If you want to give items, droptrading it is. For the healing cooldown, imagine one player fighting the Dragonfly. Since it's a rather tough boss, you want to be mobile as much as possible. You'd have no time to selfheal either. The healer would risk their own sake for the attacker and play a supportive role, perhaps since the healer lacks resources to fight the Dragonfly with. This way everyone can be useful in some way. The cooldown is there to prevent 3 players healspamming 1 attacker. I'm thinking of a 2 seconds cooldown after the heal is applied.

 

It's about time we can write on the signs, both in SP and DST

[Spazmatic]

Added a new bit "It must be a sign", talking about signs and a new sign suggestion! I will add more suggestions/envisioning tomorrow and clean the OP up a bit (categories and use of spoiler tags etc), on a mobile device atm...

[Soopakoopa]

4. Having a player become useless for a period of time makes sleeping very unattractive. Being able to cancel the sleeping while time slightly sped up is my idea, as it would allow sleeping to still be useful and wouldn't annoy your team.

 

     It wouldn't be able to speed up time unless literally everyone was asleep. That would be technologically

impossible, as it would have to make the game run faster for one person and one person only; while this is

actually viable for a singleplayer game, it's literally impossible for multiplayer since it would require the server

to know exactly what the other players will do before they actually do it.

[tex12347]

*NEW* PvP, force feeding

Aside from weapons, traps and contraptions PvP opens up the ability for another set of weapons: food. Think about it, someone just attacked you but is already suffering from a lower sanity( thanks to visuals you see their character has a scared look on their face). When you see the oppertunity you force feed your attacker a Green Mushroom cap, turning them insane and getting some seemingly invisible aid. Or feed them monster meat or a red mushroom cap for a direct loss of their health regardless of their armor( the former doesn't work against Webber in this scenario). Even when your opponent has the best defensive gear, it doesn't make a tactical nasty treat shoved down their piehole less painful. A cooldown of 5 seconds or so seems fair to me, to prevent spamming food and for balance issues. You will get the option to force feed as soon as you're in PvP mode, you cannot do so to start PvP

 

I had this exact idea today, force feed them a Mandrake and it's all over now.

[Spazmatic]

Added a new subsection called "Game Balance" and 3 new sub-topics involving that subject. I cover the gamebreaking Rock Lobster reproducing problem and offer a suggestion to fix it, balance suggestions for Maxwell in an early game PvP scenario and balance suggestions for panflutes, mandrakes and sleep darts and putting your fellow players to sleep in general.

 

I had this exact idea today, force feed them a Mandrake and it's all over now.

 

Only if you do so, you would both fall asleep, timing you both out for a while . Must be quite the sight to stumble upon as a player that was outside of the mandrake range and stumbles upon two randomly sleeping fellow survivors... 

[J20hawkz]

Awesome job Spazmatic!

[tinco]

Hi there,

 

Nice ideas. Would you mind, if I wrote some of mine too?

I have few ideas to make DS Together a more fun experience, since there will be more players playing.

 

Philosophy:

As with all survival and every work position in the world - specialization is the key to success. The team is stronger, if each player is specialized in something which gives him and the team benefits in the end.

Where I aim - it would be great, if players had a set of skills they could explore and get better at. I am not saying it should look like some old RPG stuff, loaded with clutter of useless stuff. Just some basics.

 

Skills:

- hunting/fighting skills

- crafting skills

- cooking skills

- harvesting skills

 

Mechanic:

- levels of each skills - basic, intermediate, expert

- all skills would be increased by a small amount when the character would be doing the thing (either fighting, crafting, cooking meals or cutting trees or rocks down)

- after some time (up to developers to decide, but should be long, so it is not easy), a player would become an expert and would have some benefits

- benefits could be for example:

        - 10/20/30 % increased damage and armor for basic, intermediate and expert (hunting/fighting)

        - 10/20/30 % less resources needed for crafting

        - 10/20/30 % less resources or time of cooking needed

        - 10/20/30 % less time to cut down or pick up anything

 

This way players would have another goal and could specify their place in the team of survivors. It is always like that - when few people are surviving, not everyone is making the fire  , because they wouldn't last long that way.

 

Also, this could be even more fun to see some combination of characters and roles they would play in the game. For example Woodie would be the best to use and get some harvesting skills. And Wigfried would be best for hunting/fighting.

 

What do you think? Would you like some taint of roles in the survival wilderness?

Any feedback appreciated.

 

Also - another idea, which doesn't concern skills - it would be great to have bow and arrow. Even the oldest tribes had bows and arrows. It is just that simple that this weapon is essential in surviving or killing something from a distance.

[the truthseeker]

What I posted here. it's OK as newer forum members will learn this now!