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Important issues with DST and some ways in which these could be addressed


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17 hours ago, EuedeAdodooedoe said:

No, not what I meant. Hollow stumps can be hammered and wrecked completely by a boss like bearger. Once they're destroyed, they're gone for good to my knowledge. Or does that really happen? I thought it was only when the catcoon is killed 9 times and the den is "broken".

Oh... Nice!

I tried to destroy a Hollow Stump completely as well as killing its poor inhabitant and advancing the game timer using console commands, but the commands don't seem to affect how Catcoons respawn, so the results were inconclusive. Now I am not sure how it works. Hollow Stumps could potentially still regenerate through the esoteric world regrowth, although this is speculation.

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I have a feeling, because of the way this initial thread post was initially structured and possibly due to the way it is currently too, plus the fact that it is long, it will be ignored even more so than any typical suggestion here in this topic.

I wouldn't have made this topic were it not for the fact that a lot of the time I see very good suggestions being ignored and then forgotten about, even when some others agree with the suggestion. And I'm not talking just about myself. The 7 suggestions I linked in my topic were ignored, despite them surely making a pretty good impact on the game if they were in. That is why this thread exists.

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17 minutes ago, EuedeAdodooedoe said:

I have a feeling, because of the way this initial thread post was initially structured and possibly due to the way it is currently too, plus the fact that it is long, it will be ignored even more so than any typical suggestion here in this topic.

Presentation of information in this day of age is definitely the majority of the battle.

Something like ten seconds to grab the attention of the reader before the person starts drifting their focus elsewhere.

 

I'll be honest in that I read about a page's worth of your text preformatting before I scrolled down and just internally groaned at the giant wall of text as it just kept going.

Even if the content was pure gold the sheer amount of it is daunting.

Personally I'm a fan of making trees with bullet points to help sort the details from the major points allowing the reader to go more in depth the deeper the tree level.

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3 hours ago, EuedeAdodooedoe said:

 

In terms of your first paragraph, yes, precisely, implementing things in ways that you can't simply exploit, so for example, randomised attack patterns and attack periods to make the player not able to become a god once they know how to "hit and run". Because that, while being a bit of a skill, is a simple one that creates a commotion of you ruling the world, which the game never intended you to do.

Randomness is a great tool, a very powerful one, but it should be used with caution. You shouldn't use it everywhere to solve everything. And you shouldn't use it to add artifical difficulty in a situation when the player should expect things to be stable.

I don't have anything about games that use randomness to add some difficulty, as long as it fit the gameplay.
For example, in DST it's ok if, when killing a spider, you can obtain meat, silk or gland. You don't obtain them all when killing one spider. It's ok because you will usually kill many spider during a game, so you have enough of each drop without it being too powerful. But when killing a koalefant, you obtain a guaranteed amount of meat and a trunk, because randomness wouldn't have a real purpose here, and you need to know that tracking and killing a koalefant will give you something stable.

For monster and pattern attack, randomness is afwul, because you can't learn randomness. You speak about mistake. Mistake implies some form of control. If you can't control things, you aren't doing a mistake, this is just something imposed to you. You didn't do anything wrong, the monster decided to attack you faster than usual and you wasn't able to kite.

And it's frustrating and not fun. And for me, not the difficulty the game should aim for.

 

Phases are ok. You could learn that the monster will do A, then B, then C. Choose between different attack are ok as long as the attack have different animation and you can see what is coming before it's coming so you can prepare. Diversity is ok as long as you can adapt. If the player is able to adapt then he deserve a victory, for example.

But randomness like "you don't know how fast the monster will attack" or "you don't know what attack he will use and don't have time to react", no.


So improving a monster to add more challenge is really hard to make.

 

3 hours ago, EuedeAdodooedoe said:

And I wish the game could provide me with challenge even when I know it all, because then I can experience it like it was supposed to be and have a reason to play it. Because what is the point when your entire gameplay in DST revolves around exploiting mechanics in a way that makes the game so easy, you wonder why you're playing again and again anyway.

This challenge shouldn't come from randomness, and can't come either for new things that will, sooner or later, become old too. And exploiting mechanism isn't the main problem, because you have many games when you can learn pattern and stuff and still have to adapt and all. Go and chess are game without any randomness and they could be really hard.

 

3 hours ago, EuedeAdodooedoe said:

The outcomes are the same for newcomers, however:

Current deerclops - they die.

Changed deerclops - they die.

 

For us pros it's a different story, however:

Current deerclops - eezee peezy, eyeball squeezee

Changed deerclops - well, I better get ready or I'm done for :(

I'm not pro. I'm between newcomer and pro, like most of the players i guess. And in a situation when, when a deerclop come, i can survive, and i can manage to hit him time to time without being hit (so i can lead it into enemies for example). Current deerclop i live and sometimes kill him (or make others monster killing it), Changed deerclop i could die because of free freeze or anything.

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FYI it's possible to join and survive in any default server with what you're given as long as other players haven't intervened. It's a bit more resource-intensive to do so in the harsher seasons though.

I think they're looking more for bug fixes and polishing existing content for the moment. For renewability of specific resources, there are mods. For item balancing, you should test it in a mod first to prove the concept.

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2 hours ago, Lumina said:

Randomness is a great tool, a very powerful one, but it should be used with caution. You shouldn't use it everywhere to solve everything. And you shouldn't use it to add artifical difficulty in a situation when the player should expect things to be stable.

I don't have anything about games that use randomness to add some difficulty, as long as it fit the gameplay.
For example, in DST it's ok if, when killing a spider, you can obtain meat, silk or gland. You don't obtain them all when killing one spider. It's ok because you will usually kill many spider during a game, so you have enough of each drop without it being too powerful. But when killing a koalefant, you obtain a guaranteed amount of meat and a trunk, because randomness wouldn't have a real purpose here, and you need to know that tracking and killing a koalefant will give you something stable.

For monster and pattern attack, randomness is afwul, because you can't learn randomness. You speak about mistake. Mistake implies some form of control. If you can't control things, you aren't doing a mistake, this is just something imposed to you. You didn't do anything wrong, the monster decided to attack you faster than usual and you wasn't able to kite.

And it's frustrating and not fun. And for me, not the difficulty the game should aim for.

 

Phases are ok. You could learn that the monster will do A, then B, then C. Choose between different attack are ok as long as the attack have different animation and you can see what is coming before it's coming so you can prepare. Diversity is ok as long as you can adapt. If the player is able to adapt then he deserve a victory, for example.

But randomness like "you don't know how fast the monster will attack" or "you don't know what attack he will use and don't have time to react", no.


So improving a monster to add more challenge is really hard to make.

 

This challenge shouldn't come from randomness, and can't come either for new things that will, sooner or later, become old too. And exploiting mechanism isn't the main problem, because you have many games when you can learn pattern and stuff and still have to adapt and all. Go and chess are game without any randomness and they could be really hard.

 

I'm not pro. I'm between newcomer and pro, like most of the players i guess. And in a situation when, when a deerclop come, i can survive, and i can manage to hit him time to time without being hit (so i can lead it into enemies for example). Current deerclop i live and sometimes kill him (or make others monster killing it), Changed deerclop i could die because of free freeze or anything.

I've tested it and you are correct, it would mean players more than likely will get hit when they don't expect it and that is the point. This won't happen as much or at all if you hit the target once and then dodge, however.

I made Bearger's attack period between 1.5 - 3.5 and Deerclops' 1 - 3. This meant I got hit roughly a third to a half of their hits and needing to heal. I would say that is good. A newcomer has no idea about patterns and would get hit more times regardless. A medium player would likely need to use other means of combat to accompany them in order to survive this. A professional would just need a bit more armour and some more healing items.

Why this is good: this increases the chances of professionals dying and gives a challenge of the game being intense for them again. I had also tested spiders and it wasn't too big of a change, considering it's almost the same when a lot of them are attacking you and you can tank a spider without it attacking.

I don't know about you, but I want that intensity again. It isn't the same game anymore when I know how to do things and I can't just noob myself in any way.

2 hours ago, HamBatter said:

FYI it's possible to join and survive in any default server with what you're given as long as other players haven't intervened. It's a bit more resource-intensive to do so in the harsher seasons though.

I think they're looking more for bug fixes and polishing existing content for the moment. For renewability of specific resources, there are mods. For item balancing, you should test it in a mod first to prove the concept.

Precisely; other players. That is why I have given the portal resource idea or "Charlie's Reign and her impact on the world" as I did. It is also too harsh for newcomers, especially if they are newbies, to have heat be a problem the moment they leave the portal, even if they get their respective resources, which is why I put the torch idea there. Unless you are talking about something else...

Non-renewability = permanently destroyed content. Everything must be renewable in some fashion or another that can't be destroyed via normal game mechanic means because of this, otherwise it makes the game seem stupid, so to speak. Pardon me, if anyone got triggered by that :p

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12 hours ago, EuedeAdodooedoe said:

I've tested it and you are correct, it would mean players more than likely will get hit when they don't expect it and that is the point. This won't happen as much or at all if you hit the target once and then dodge, however.

I made Bearger's attack period between 1.5 - 3.5 and Deerclops' 1 - 3. This meant I got hit roughly a third to a half of their hits and needing to heal. I would say that is good. A newcomer has no idea about patterns and would get hit more times regardless. A medium player would likely need to use other means of combat to accompany them in order to survive this. A professional would just need a bit more armour and some more healing items.

I would suggest that you release this as a mod and see how popular it is. I still think it's bad and lazy design, for me, because you can't learn something, but i guess people with different tastes could be happy to have this as a mod and people not liking it will just not use the mod. And if i'm wrong and if it's very popular and balanced and fun, then you'll have an argument next time you will suggest the idea.

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16 minutes ago, Lumina said:

I would suggest that you release this as a mod and see how popular it is. I still think it's bad and lazy design, for me, because you can't learn something, but i guess people with different tastes could be happy to have this as a mod and people not liking it will just not use the mod. And if i'm wrong and if it's very popular and balanced and fun, then you'll have an argument next time you will suggest the idea.

You can learn something; you can learn that:

* You need armour in order to fight pretty much anything

* You need healing items to patch your health

* Dodging is hard, but will ultimately save you from getting hit a few times

* You can hit once and run in order to dodge any mob you can't stunlock via dodging, or you can risk it for the second hit.

I've found that, while random, you can avoid getting hit by a mob like Deerclops if you decide whether you should go for 1 or 2 hits instead and you have to pay attention to whether he has already swung before with only one hit being safe and two hits being safe to do. The pattern is usually these two:

1, 1, 2, 2

Or

1, 2, 1, 2

So you have to decide if you want to get extra hits, or you can play it safe. Bottom line is, kiting still works to quite a large extent. It all really depends on the minimum attack period, is all.

Now I guess I better make that other thread soon, which is about exactly what you mentioned there...

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On 5/3/2017 at 1:35 PM, EuedeAdodooedoe said:

* Hammering structures - I do not have a griefer-proof idea for this issue, because players often do want to hammer certain structures without a griefing intention in mind. However I have something that may just work well... Making it so that a player cannot hammer any more than 3 structures without crafting one. This would mean that if a griefer hammers down three things, they would no longer be able to hammer anything unless they craft something. This would not apply to signs or skeletons, of course.

 

Here's what I feel should be done about the hammering and deconstruction of objects.

I believe it would be nice for DST to have an "optional" check box in the settings that would display which player destroyed an object. Similar to how it looks in PVP or other games when it displays when a player has killed another player and by what item or weapon.

Imagine something like   "Ismashthings (Hammer image here) --> Alchemy Engine created by "indestructible663"

 

This would allow users to identify immediately who the griefer would be and perhaps even show up in the logs. At the very least, this would immediately give people access to screenshots which could lead to Reports to server admins.

 

Another option would be, to allow players to toggle a "safe" and unsafe" mode for all structures allowing them to be destroyed by other users. Only admins would be able to ignore whether the mode is on or off.

My last suggestion would be to create a new button in the scoreboard menu that would function as an "ally button". You would be able to check other users on the server as an ally. Only allies would be able to destroy or burn your structures. Likely if you are allied with players then they are taking your things down with a beneficial act in mind. such as relocating it or helping you gather back materials from it.

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