How Viable is Beefalo Domestication?

[Catteflyterpill]

So, I decided on trying to tame beefalos, but looking through tutorials and reading the wiki, It almost seems like it's not worth the time or resources to tame one. Does anybody have any useful tips for domesticating them, or just have any idea for the developers on how to make domestication better if you agree that it's too pricey.

[Well-met]

13 minutes ago, Catteflyterpill said:

It almost seems like it's not worth the time or resources to tame one.

Pretty much. Most people only use them to lift heavy objects.

As for advice

1. Get a workshop mod to display values and such vital hidden info

2. Making a pen is not vital, but if your salt lick runs out, they will walk back to their savana

3. Keep a beefalo hat nearby to counter heat

4. When frog rains begin and your beef is heated, immediately abandon your base / pen until your game unloads the area and only come back when it ends

5. Farm tumbleweeds or stone fruits for easy beefalo food

6. Dragonpies, blue mushrooms and their own regen is how you have them healed up

7. Use eyeplants for attacking and develop ornery

8. War saddle + Default tendency seems to be the strongest setup with the least downsides.

9. Salt + Brush will counter undomestication (once you succeed)

[JosePapp]

It's a late game investment, you can do it as early as year 2, you'd need a brush, a food source (i recommend stone fruit) and nitre for salt licks. You'd still take 15 days, but you'd get a 2x moving speed buff with the ability to carry statues at said speed. If you're not using it for usual transport, then it won't be worth it, but if you will, it's fun

[Well-met]

On 4/30/2020 at 8:21 AM, Catteflyterpill said:

just have any idea for the developers on how to make domestication better if you agree that it's too pricey.

As for ideas, here's my take as somebody with 1,500 hours of beefalo business

• Tamed beasts should never undomesticate unless players hit it with sharp weapons
• Add some measure of feedback for the hidden stats. A widget or something? We need to see them
• Allow being able to mount beasts in aggro
• Beefs should not attempt to return to savana before it has reverted to full 0% domestication
• Fix unmounted saddled beasts not inheriting the saddle damage bonus
• Fix scaled players making the beast bigger (i.e mighty wolf)
• Beefalos should never produce babies if it has any point of tame process (heat can still happen)
• Tamed beasts should never poop
• Tamed beasts should be able to enter the caves
• Tamed beasts should have a ownership system
• Mounted beasts should leave a server with their owner
• Other players should be unable to harm tamed beasts, even with indirect ways such as gunpowder
• Make salt licks manually repairable with nitre
• Add a new salt lick structure tier that uses sea salt and lasts much longer
• Make straw bedrolls feed beasts 150 hunger
• Tail-o-whip hits should give obedience (at the cost of health)
• Buff tamed pudgy sanity aura to +25/min 
• Add a craftable beast healing item
• Add a few new saddles (shadow and moon saddles?)
• Add a second equipment slot on beasts (like the fishing rod widget)
• Add various gears with defensive buffs for the new slot

(Horseshoe from gorge, a container like Woby, mount armor etc.)

• Add a "mutated" tendency for beefalos.

2000 health

+25% size

 0.5 attack speed

Moon teal colored fur and many more sets of eyes.

Add some new mechanic to mutate beefs on the moon island (perhaps related to a moon saddle?)

Brushing gives 75% wool, 25% moonglass

• Add Koalefants to domestication.

Domesticated Koalefant grows very long horns.

Has 1 point longer attack range. 50 base damage instead of 34.

x2 domestication time, x2 obedience loss, x0.5 hunger.

No tendencies.

Other misc stats same as beef.

Summer koalefant is a shelter. Winter koalefant radiates small heat.

Brushing gives 75% manure, 25% phlegm

[themightyone]

I have tamed quite a few Beefs in my day and I would say it is worth doing 1 to 2 in a world you plan to invest a while in. My preferred is the Ornary with a Glossamer saddle . That way it's nice and quick and still does a respectable 50 damage. I can take down Bearger , Deerclops , Moose Goose , and Antlion pretty easy using that Beefalo type. I would sometimes even use it to help take the Bee queen solo on my Wolfgang map, only for part of the battle though. Only drawback is you have to feed him a twig or grass to get on , but it's not too bad. I also like the Rider Beef with a Glossamer because you can fly across the map. 

 I would always reccomend taming in the summertime due to no redass potential . Just have 2 thermal stones made , and rotate them in the fridge to keep you cool during the days. Easiest way to train Ornaries is to have 1 or 2 spider nests by your base and just kill 4 to 8 spiders a day. And would also advise hunting butterflies during the day by your bee boxes . That way you can turn the butterfly wings into butter muffins at night while the Beef sleeps and feed them to it for a free or easy food source. Oh and also you can put the wings towards the glossamer saddle if food isn't an issue taming wise. Use a brush too , shaving 5 days off the process is huge. There's more tips I have but those come to mind first.

[Mike23Ua]

I’ve never done it, and only 0.14% of players on Xbox Live have done it.

to put that in perspective.. Less people have Tamed a Beefalo then they have killed Dragonfly or Ancient Guardian.

 

[Wumpus the 19th]

15 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

I’ve never done it, and only 0.14% of players on Xbox Live have done it.

to put that in perspective.. Less people have Tamed a Beefalo then they have killed Dragonfly or Ancient Guardian.

 

i played xbox before i got a computer to play dst on pc. it said there's around 50% people who ever built a science machine.

by the time i made a shadow manipulator, i was in a literal 1% of people on xbox.

[NSAiswatchingus]

It is super viable. It takes some time to prepare and do but it's definitely worth it. You'll save massive amounts of time in the long run by not needing armor, weapons, or healing for surface giants and houndwaves. I don't recommend taming until the 2nd Autumn, but you won't regret having an ornery beefalo around. 

[Toros]

The answer to OP’s question is “absolutely not, in any way shape or form.”

People will partially tame a beefalo to move marble which requires very little effort, but the reward for taming a beefalo completely is atrocious return on investment, and impossible if you are playing on a server with other people.

4 minutes ago, NSAiswatchingus said:

It is super viable. It takes some time to prepare and do but it's definitely worth it. You'll save massive amounts of time in the long run by not needing armor, weapons, or healing for surface giants and houndwaves. I don't recommend taming until the 2nd Autumn, but you won't regret having an ornery beefalo around. 

This is a really bizarre analysis because in no world is a beefalo cheaper to maintain than armor and weapons by the time you can afford to run them, and unless you have an ornery beefalo in a war saddle you’re doing less damage than a hambat.

Add in the risk of it dying and negating at least 15 days of work... doesn’t pay off.

[NSAiswatchingus]

Just now, Toros said:

This is a really bizarre analysis because in no world is a beefalo cheaper to maintain than armor and weapons by the time you can afford to run them, and unless you have an ornery beefalo in a war saddle you’re doing less damage than a hambat.

Add in the risk of it dying and negating at least 15 days of work... doesn’t pay off.

Salt lick costs 8 wood and 4 nitre. Of course the goal is to get a War Saddle or Glossomer Saddle if speed is desired. I can grab more wood and nitre faster than I can get more nightmare fuel, living logs, wood, and grass to have a Darksword and Logsuit. And I have to do that every time I need weapons and armor. Not to even mention time getting healing supplies. 

Tamed beefs are a luxury of a long term world. If you're rushing to tame a beefalo on a public server you are indeed wasting your time. If you don't want your beefalo to die then bail out of the fight when its health gets low. 

I've had the same ornery beefalo since around day 90. On day 5650+ now in that world. I have without a doubt saved time and resources by having a tamed beefalo. 

[Toros]

14 minutes ago, NSAiswatchingus said:

Salt lick costs 8 wood and 4 nitre. Of course the goal is to get a War Saddle or Glossomer Saddle if speed is desired. I can grab more wood and nitre faster than I can get more nightmare fuel, living logs, wood, and grass to have a Darksword and Logsuit. And I have to do that every time I need weapons and armor. Not to even mention time getting healing supplies. 

Tamed beefs are a luxury of a long term world. If you're rushing to tame a beefalo on a public server you are indeed wasting your time. If you don't want your beefalo to die then bail out of the fight when its health gets low. 

I've had the same ornery beefalo since around day 90. On day 5650+ now in that world. I have without a doubt saved time and resources by having a tamed beefalo. 

I will recognize that if you’re keeping a beefalo alive and tamed for 5500 days on a solo world, it will pay off the investment.

It is hilarious that you think this result is generalized to regular players who don’t have 700+ hours in the game, let alone on a single world.

Also, I question the value of saving time when you have an abundance of it.

You don’t need to justify the reason you have the DST equivalent of a sports car with efficiency arguments when you probably have the base equivalent of a mansion.  “Because I can” is sufficient, but that doesn’t mean buying a sports car is good advice.

[Confused Rock]

I can see why people think beefalo taming is a bad idea, and I can especially see why a wolfgang main would think it's a bad idea since wolfgang and wx are the characters beefalo taming complements the least. Absolutely don't tame a beefalo if you're playing wolfgang. That's like making 40 pierogis as wurt.

As someone who thinks it's a good idea. not a great idea, just a good one,  because it's absolutely exhausting and risky and so it probably won't actually be a good idea until you've done it a couple times before.
you can do it as early as day 2, really. Just means you can't do anything cave related if you want to finish it quickly. a few things most important to remember:
1. it only takes a day or two of riding for the beefalo to let you ride for a long enough period that you can use them for anything, really. Just a bit more annoying to feed. This means that if you're just using a beefalo to carry stuff around- you don't need to tame a beefalo. it'll do you just fine to slap a saddle on a random beef and haul with it. This also means that it's not necessarily a bad idea if you're on a public server and only plan to hang around a year or so, that beef will be handy even before it's fully tame.
2. you can just slap down 12 salt licks somewhere and forget about them for a while if you want. This also means that if you already have a brush and just want to casually tame one, just drive them to base and brush them from time to time, maybe fill their stomachs a bit.
3. BEEFALO DON'T NEED TO BE FED FOUR DRAGONPIES A DAY. ABOUT TEN TWIGS WORKS IF YOU RIDE IT INSTEAD. THEY NEED LESS FOOD IF YOU DON'T MIND LOSING SADDLE DURABILITY. THEY NEED LESS FOOD IF YOU USE THE BRUSH INSTEAD. THEY NEED TO BE FED NOTHING IF YOU LEAVE THEM ON A SALT LICK. 
The only thing holding beefalo back is their inability to go in caves and that you can't heal while riding them, meaning a pan flute is a must for fighting bosses if you don't have any other openings and expect to take damage (on the plus side, they naturally regenerate hp well enough you usually don't have to worry about it otherwise and they're incredibly easy to heal when you're off them since a stack of blue mushrooms is 3200 spare hp.) 



The most important things to consider are what you want the beefalo for and your character. First off wickerbottom can definitely feed a beefalo easier but again you generally don't need to feed a beefalo too much. I recommend just making a spiky bush farm, it grows in winter and a log suit allows you to all but ignore the damage you take. 

If you're taming a beefalo just for speed, it might not be too effective. obviously you'll want a rider beef. I don't think a beefalo is as valuable for the effort if you're looking for speed, especially since they can't use wormholes, but if you're just casually taming it later on it can help close gaps. Proobably don't bother if you're WX or wolfgang since they don't need the speed at all.

If you want to kill stuff with a beefalo now it gets good, mainly because you don't have to maintain armor or nothing. I like to wear a bone helm while riding an ornery beefalo to fight nightmares since they can't hurt me and damage the bone helm while I ride the beefalo. 
Characters who do best with a beefalo for fighting:
1. wes obviously can compensate for the beefalo's damage being better than anything wes can do with their lower damage modifier.
2. Warly's food still increase your damage while you're riding a beefalo, last I checked being literally a few days ago. Definitely works well.
3. Wendy used to work well on a beefalo since she had the same compensation for the damage as with wes as well as having abigail to help deal damage, but her refresh made riding a beefalo about twice as good. not only can she use everything abigail related while riding a beefalo, but the lowered defense of abigail applies to enemies you attack with a beefalo: including the damage bonus wendy has against abigail's targets. Unless I'm going insane and this is all a lie, 50% more damage on a beefalo is pretty good, plus the damage abigail's doing. That plus warly stuff would mean 300 damage per headbutt, which is a pretty decent wolfgang impression imo.


I should probably stop writing this at some point so the last thing I'll say is that yes, the glossamer saddle is a good idea. if you're taming a beefalo after the first year, make one first  (or just a war saddle). making a glossamer or war saddle are both good uses of a construction amulet. I recommend making one not just for the speed or damage boost but because they break slower. normally a beefalo knocking its saddle off is a huge problem, either you feed it a bit whenever you dismount to make sure it doesn't buck the saddle off or you end up having to craft several. Not the case with the glossamer saddle or war saddle, you can screw it up 15 times and you still won't lose the saddle. Once they're fully domesticated you don't have to worry about it any more.

Beefalo can be an investment or you can just pick one up and use it before it's even fully domesticated and it'll be decently effective. If you want to become as combat effective as possible in the first five days all you need to do is find a beefalo. PS you don't need a beefalo hat to deal with your boy in winter just leave him near a salt lick for a day or two and party. if you had to get on him you can he'll just jab you a bit.

[Toros]

@Confused Rock I basically agree with all the points you’re making, particularly the one about partial taming to move heavy objects because I believe that is the most obvious and efficient upside.

You’re correct about Wendy and Wes benefiting more for boss fights, though with character swapping being relatively cheap I believe that using a Beefalo for bosses remains less efficient and limited.

To me though, the solution is to make domestication either easier, quicker, or permanent though many of the suggestions @Well-met provided.

Taming beefalo is a cool mechanic but like farms pre-warly are a viable but not efficient solution to problems.  The biggest issue to me is actually for shared worlds because there’s no assurance that your Beefalo will still be domesticated when you come back.

[Bluepufferfish]

Having an Ornery beefalo with a glossamer saddle is extremely viable (rushed). The 50 damage is consistent meaning you can kill hounds in 3 hits and have no danger in kiting since you won't take any damage. The additional speed for early game map exploration and late game map traversing is very good. (and beefalo can go through wormholes if you blow a horn making them faster in every way) It is very hard to learn how to rush them in the beginning but they are a good investment if you complete the domestication before the first spring, and present a new and interesting playstyle. 

[Wumpus the 19th]

Toros, NSAiswatchingus, both of you make valid points

remember that this is Don't starve, where many different methods of play can occur, from character-specific strategies to food farms

Beefalo taming can be good for some people and horrible for others, and so long as you can agree to disagree, we're all good...

...that being said, i must side with NSAiswatchingus. Beefalo taming can be good for some players, namely ones such as wendy and wes who have a lower damage output. Some people just like to use less optimum characters to play the game and likewise people like me like uncompromising mode, even though it's almost exclusively makes the game harder, just because repetition in games like Don't starve just gets routine.

 

[NSAiswatchingus]

20 minutes ago, Toros said:

It is hilarious that you think this result is generalized to regular players who don’t have 700+ hours in the game, let alone on a single world.

Don't have 700+ hours YET. Everyone can get there and the sooner that beefalo is tamed the sooner that investment is paying off. 

20 minutes ago, Toros said:

Also, I question the value of saving time when you have an abundance of it.

You don’t need to justify the reason you have the DST equivalent of a sports car with efficiency arguments when you probably have the base equivalent of a mansion.  “Because I can” is sufficient, but that doesn’t mean buying a sports car is good advice.

As with any late-game advantage, you're not going to get those benefits if you keep jumping between different worlds or don't commit to one. If that's how you choose to play the game that's fine, but if someone is seeking longterm gameplay then I'll always recommend beefalo taming as a worthwhile investment. 

More time is always a valued resource to get more projects done at any day count. 

[Catteflyterpill]

46 minutes ago, Toros said:

I will recognize that if you’re keeping a beefalo alive and tamed for 5500 days on a solo world, it will pay off the investment.

It is hilarious that you think this result is generalized to regular players who don’t have 700+ hours in the game, let alone on a single world.

Also, I question the value of saving time when you have an abundance of it.

You don’t need to justify the reason you have the DST equivalent of a sports car with efficiency arguments when you probably have the base equivalent of a mansion.  “Because I can” is sufficient, but that doesn’t mean buying a sports car is good advice.

Coincidentally, I have 1000+ hours on DST, I just never get super far in the game. And it's worth nothing I usually only play by myself. Though I do appreciate all the points you guys have made. I guess Klei either has to revamp the Beefalo domestication or give them more usage.

[Toros]

1 hour ago, Wumpus the 19th said:

Toros, NSAiswatchingus, both of you make valid points

remember that this is Don't starve, where many different methods of play can occur, from character-specific strategies to food farms

Beefalo taming can be good for some people and horrible for others, and so long as you can agree to disagree, we're all good...

...that being said, i must side with NSAiswatchingus. Beefalo taming can be good for some players, namely ones such as wendy and wes who have a lower damage output. Some people just like to use less optimum characters to play the game and likewise people like me like uncompromising mode, even though it's almost exclusively makes the game harder, just because repetition in games like Don't starve just gets routine.

 

I think the real question that needs to be asked is: viable in what contexts?

Partial tames to move heavy objects is always viable, no question there.  But full taming?

1) Pubs: No

2) Shared community servers: No

3) Short worlds (1 yearish): No (the time and effort spent taming it take a long time to pay off)

4) Worlds with a focus on sailing or living underground: No.

A skilled player can absolutely kill Deerclops with a shovel.  Is it a viable strategy?  No.

If you plan on doing a 1000+ day megabase then absolutely tame a Beefalo.  You'll be doing hours of travel which means there's a lot of potential time savings, and will definitely play until all the more efficient tasks are already completed.

1 hour ago, NSAiswatchingus said:

Don't have 700+ hours YET. Everyone can get there and the sooner that beefalo is tamed the sooner that investment is paying off. 

As with any late-game advantage, you're not going to get those benefits if you keep jumping between different worlds or don't commit to one. If that's how you choose to play the game that's fine, but if someone is seeking longterm gameplay then I'll always recommend beefalo taming as a worthwhile investment. 

More time is always a valued resource to get more projects done at any day count. 

The vast, vast majority of people don't play that way and for those people Beefalo taming is a waste of time.  For you it makes perfect sense because for your niche playstyle it works.  Most people won't be able to keep the Beefalo fed, alive, domesticated long enough to get bored and move on.

54 minutes ago, Catteflyterpill said:

Coincidentally, I have 1000+ hours on DST, I just never get super far in the game. And it's worth nothing I usually only play by myself. Though I do appreciate all the points you guys have made. I guess Klei either has to revamp the Beefalo domestication or give them more usage.

The takeaway from this thread should really be that if Klei revamped Beefalo to be easier to get/maintain they would be useful to a much wider group of people.

Realistically, if the amount of time it took to domesticate a beefalo was 5 days instead of a minimum of 15... what harm would that do?  Would it be less fun or rewarding to keep a beefalo that only took 40 minutes to tame instead of 2 hours?

It's not a viable strategy to anyone not doing a long term world, or even a long term world other people play on.  If you can't play every day, you're relying on people replacing your salt licks repeatedly for you every couple hours or you lose all domestication.

That's why saying it's "viable" is so much of a misdirection because it only is for a narrow range of playstyles.  They aren't wrong for using it when appropriate, but if something isn't a viable strategy for the vast majority of players, is it really viable?

[Confused Rock]

I still enjoy taming beefalo day one on a public server. Half tamed beef are really convenient for murder and will work out fine for your time if you remember not to take damage in a bramble husk while near your cow.

[Toros]

7 minutes ago, Confused Rock said:

I still enjoy taming beefalo day one on a public server. Half tamed beef are really convenient for murder and will work out fine for your time if you remember not to take damage in a bramble husk while near your cow.

Public servers are perfect for doing fun but inefficient strats because there's nothing lost if you fail.

I would like Beefalo domestication to be quicker and easier though.  Some mods have fixed some of the things Well-Met does, but that's not quite the same.

[Harrowick]

1 hour ago, Toros said:

I would like Beefalo domestication to be quicker and easier though. 

I agree with this, ever since the feature was brought into the live build I've seen about six people ever tame beefalo in public servers. I'd like it if beefalos were a bit more loyal after being fed, (able to ride them as default beefalo longer in the earlier stages after feeding them) and perhaps to balance it out, have saddles be harder to craft?

The simplest change I'd like to see is a way to speed up the bonding process, because 20 days is a little ridiculous to manage, and it assumes you've been spoiling this beefalo with treats and luxury for the entirety of autumn since day 1. 

I dunno, just my two cents. It's a cool feature and I'm glad it exists, but I feel as it is now it's a little distraction from more important things, like gathering food/preparing for winter, etc. 

 

A widget to see Beefalo stats would be awesome, too. Perhaps it could work like an "ownership" thing, where the owner/original tamer of the beefalo could see it's stats below their own when nearby. Similar to inspecting boat durability.

[freddiums]

beefalo are CUTIES and that matters far more than viability!

[Wumpus the 19th]

54 minutes ago, taako bell said:

beefalo are CUTIES and that matters far more than viability!

as someone who likes scorbunny, oshawott, ralsei, and temmies, i must vouch for this man as he speaks the truth that none may oppose.

[YaBoyGuzma]

So I have had a few runs where i kind of rush beef taming and honestly, resources are hardly an issue when you learn a bit more about it. So beef hunger isn't like player hunger where they lose health if they starve. They gain domestication if "they're above 0 hunger, OR being ridden" so essentially you can have it domesticated just by riding it and parking it near salt licks (which makes everything so much easier). It's not exactly "as" beneficial to wolfgang or wigfrid, but for everyone else, it's limitless damage dealer of 50 (particularly great for wendy and wes who would otherwise have a lesser multiplier as it doesn't apply to the beef damage) they also are a melee meat shield (range attacks hit you still and they regen health pretty good). And a big benefit is they are really fast. So you can discover the whole map in under 2 days. This also big time helps with various battles allowing for viable kiting where you would need certain items to gain speed boosts or allowing more hits. All in all, I've tamed beef with about 2 salt licks, the default saddle, and a good chunk of twigs which if you're being efficient, having 40 saplings by base makes it easy enough. You only need to give him a few twigs to allow you to get on him (i do a full 10 just to be safe) and 1 or 2 when you dismount to make sure he doesn't have 0 hunger by the time you do what you need to and get back. You'll gain domestication seamlessly if that's all you consider doing

[Lukmendes]

Honestly, beefalo taming takes too long to do for something that isn't that good, think Klei should tone down the difficulty of taming 'em, and Beefalos really should be able to go to caves, it's very limiting for them to only be able to stay on surfaces.

Other stuff that would help them out is being able to feed them while you're riding them, to make it more convenient both while taming and while using 'em for something else.

Also agree with a lot of what Well-met wrote, specially ownership being exclusive to whoever tamed the beefalo, but it could also be something optional, in case players like to share beefalos