Twenty five hours of Starving Together

[michiko]

Hats off to the men and women at Klei!  DST is, in my opinion, off to a great start!

 

I have been hosting servers since I discovered my Beta keys on Thanksgiving (how cool aye?)

 

The game has been relatively lag free, there is a situation that has happened twice, where my frames will drop to about 5 or 10 and everyone then gets kicked out and the frames return.  I don't crash and people rejoin shortly after, don't know the cause.

 

Hope you boys don't mind I modded the hounded.lua file, I see Rosen hard coded the hounds to be 1 or 1+math.random(2).  Though I guess i can see why, the hounds only seem to spawn on the host.

 

One thing I've found quite funny is I have not yet played the game with other people really.  One guy found his way to my first world's base and I let him play with me, otherwise...I (even as host) tend to go off and play Solo DST.

 

To those who claim it is the host's duty to setup a care package for the new spawns...foobar on that, its not my job.  The only thing I do is spawn some gears since the guys can't get those really.

 

That being said, yes, I do really wish players spawned with some basic stuff.  Grass, sticks, FLINT (for the love of holyness Flint), and some carrots.

 

This only happens the first time they login, or their character is created on the server.  Another solution t this is to make things like flint and carrots respawn in the overworld. 

 

My first world of 100 days I ended up abandoning because I felt like new players joining the server get really shafted by the lack of resources around the starting area, and I do not think I should be forced to divulge my well kept base of operations to entice players to stay and play.  

 

I'll go to a bullet point of suggestions so this doesn't get much more wall of texty than it already is:

 

• Host needs to be able to set max player life
• Host needs to be able to set hunger drain rate, and sanity increasement rate
• PLAYERS need to be able to see more details, such as the above, from the server selection some how...

This is to help the game from being too easy.  I think its a bit too easy right now, but as previous in sp, I really do not like modifying the game to not have berry bushes or no carrots "to increase survival difficulty".  

 

But decreasing the hits it takes to die, does certainly directly increase survival difficulty.

 

• Solution to players ganking the eye bone and then logging off
• Spawning new players with some kind of help.  Players either Deal or Whine on entering the server, we can eliminate Whine and only slightly frown on the Dealers, by spawning people with food and resources to survive a day or two.

 

Maybe I don't like sharing my base or running the risk of people misusing it, that doesn't mean that a player who sticks around on my world for 50 days can't earn that trust.  Just I enjoy staying hidden until they do.

 

GAME MODES!!!!

 

Please consider adding in the ability to create or select game modes.  This would act a bit like adventure but in the online space.  

 

• FEED THE PIG

A game and world generated with random gold boulders scattered about.  Set game time to maximum of day 50, the player who feeds the king pig the most gold wins.

 

• Team Fortress

A world created large with two sides met by a bridge in the middle, think two_fort from TFC or TF2.  Players will spawn in the middle and ask what team needs them, they then travel to that side which has a basic fortress already constructed, with mirroring biomes behind the "fortress"

 

Make it so say, until day 15, a barrier prevents players from going from one side to the other the barrier goes down for players moving INTO a side, but until day 15 they cannot get out.  Once day 15 hits the barriers go down and the object is so either eliminate the other team, or better yet....Play a game of capture the flag

 

• Team non-pvp or open world puzzle solve

 

Either the same map, or the traditional map, where the object is to create that new world generator portal thing.  Buff up big time the baddies guarding each and every piece, this will force players to work as a team to complete the objective.  In the team environment it iwll be a race between the teams who can construct their portal first.  In this scenario that barrier separating the bases would likely never go down.

 

• Adventure Mode

This is likely already planned but starting up an adventure mode co-op would be a blast!  Up the difficulty, maybe change up the objectives, and let us quest together to take down Maxwell!

 

• Carebear Mode

Likely can be made by tweaking max health and hunger decay rates, but this could be a server that people just gather to base build and not really fear for their lives.  

 

~~~~~~~

 

 

So in essence from my not that large play experience.  Some immediate things:

 

**Set character variables to help with balance and difficulty settings

**either spawn players with basic needs or make basic needs respawn in the game when no one is on screen or something

**same with boulders really, these run out quick

**Super Super Huge world(s)

 

**Game Modes!

[michiko]

As someone who works in the software industry, I realize my suggestions are mostly pipe dreams.  

 

I'd say the health one is the most important....

Then again, I always thought and was told DST was a pipe dream, and a year and a half later...here it is.

 

Congrats again, maybe a game mode DLC pack is in order, that way the Sprint iterations at least get paid for eh?

 

Just hurry up already AYE!

[J192]

As someone who works in the software industry, I realize my suggestions are mostly pipe dreams. 

So, you basically posted wasted all your effort on posting that long list here for nothing?

[rezecib]

I think there's certainly room for a hardcore/mediumcore/softcore mode (I'm sure when those come around there will be much better Don't Starve-y names for them). The current mechanics probably fall somewhere between medium and soft, in my opinion (ghosts and telltale hearts are definitely soft, but the rest is pretty standard).

 

As for the rest of your suggestions, I think they'd be better implemented as mods. It would be pretty easy to have a mod with configuration options for a health multiplier. Regarding game modes, I think devs have already commented on them as being best suited to mods.

 

Lag is a pretty serious problem at the moment, though. I'm not talking about network lag that people get from joining servers really far from them, but rather the lag caused by the server simulation running slowly on less-than-optimal computers-- and the bar for that is pretty high right now. A reasonable amount of clutter on a server can result in almost unplayable lag. I, for one, am happy that the devs have said most of their effort on DST (as opposed to Through the Ages) is going to be on engine optimizations and getting more of the single-player content ported.

 

The eye bone does need a solution, though.

 

I think the frame drop issue you talked about may be related to the recently-added snapshots.

[michiko]

J192 read the forum rules:

You are welcome to participate in discussion either way, but please keep an open mind, stay on topic and be constructive.

Also, learn how to speak English.

~~~~~

I don't buy the MOD everything either. Basically, I think klei needs to include multiplayer game types that make it a different experience than just single player multi player.

If they want to focus on engine optimization that's fine, it runs pretty well as is. And yeah porting their SP stuff makes sense, but it's not daring or new.

[rezecib]

@michiko, If you haven't looked at mods, you're missing at least half of what the game has to offer. The developers went to painstaking lengths to make the game easy to mod, and it shows in the wide variety of mods available.

 

Yeah, porting SP stuff isn't daring or new, but that's what Through The Ages is supposed to be for. DST isn't content-oriented, TTA is.

[michiko]

@michiko, If you haven't looked at mods, you're missing at least half of what the game has to offer. The developers went to painstaking lengths to make the game easy to mod, 

 

You're right Rez, good point.  

 

I will do that honestly, and you're right, the MP community will likely be served best by MODDing.  10,000 of us versus a couple Dev teams

 

Ten-four man.  

 

In that case, sorry I couldn't be more help at this time with testing DST, its simply looking really good so far!

[bizziboi]

Hey @michiko, 

 

Thanks for your feedback, feedback is always welcome (and encourages feedback, such as @rezecib's which is very valid )

 

Just wanted to mention that the hound amounts have been changed a good while ago, so you might want to undo your local edit if you haven't....as it might prevent other fixes from coming in.

 

 

[SimonL]

Yeah hopefully in the future people will make the game modes that you suggested. I'm sure people all have capture the flag and other kind of missions like that in mind.