What do you think of DST's difficulty?

[Well-met]

its very easy

the biggest challenge comes from understanding lag delay

and before somebody responds with "its hard for new players", every videogame in existence is hard until the player learns it proper. this is not exclusive to dont starve.

[Viktor234]

From my point of view: Pretty easy and it has a lack of interesting enemies or bosses.

From my ingame experience: Players do die within their first two days if they can't find the base in time.

[GetNerfedOn]

While initially hard i find DS difficulty something too odd for me to properly define or quantify. 

It's hard initially when lack of skill, game mechanic knowledge, fear, inefficiency and lack of mastery are in play, but when you've overcome those i find the game more tedious than anything else. Just the same cycle of mindlessly preparing for or dealing with the next problem in the game, putting on seasonal gear when the need arises, running from farm to farm to structure and sometimes to traps when hounds arrive, ad infinitum

[ben_tinc]

1 hour ago, Well-met said:

its very easy

the biggest challenge comes from understanding lag delay

and before somebody responds with "its hard for new players", every videogame in existence is hard until the player learns it proper. this is not exclusive to dont starve.

I see where you are coming from, but DST has countless items, structures, mobs and mechanics, many of them unexplained in the game itself. You can easily spend a few hundreds of hours playing, watching guides or reading the wiki, until you finally feel proficient in the game. Believe it or not, a lot of players don't have this time, even IF they were willing to do it. If you only have time to play maybe once every other weekend, the feeling of a steep learning curve will stay with you for a looong time.

So all in all, I believe it is important to strike a balance and I think Klei is doing a nice job with that.

[Terra B Welch]

DST isn't a hard game, it's a dense game. But I think that's fine.

 

[BoysenSyrup]

I won't touch Fuelweaver with a 10 foot pole but everything else is fairly easy.

[Moonatik]

The biggest problem is the knowledge. Thanks internet, guides and wiki... Because what would it be without them ?

There's no guide at all ingame. The question could be not about the difficulty, but about the amount of players who figure out by themselves most of the things. The Fuelweaver journey is a good exemple. Starting by repairing the marble statues and return to them on full moon. Then it's only the start...

What is the chance to be at the right place, at the right time for some things ?

You could beat a first big tentacle, going in that hole and reappearing on the other side of the map. You could think "ok, shortcut, is it worth it ?". And if you don't try all of them, you may not discover the atrium.

I guess there's tons of exemples. So I think it's a hard game, because it's hard to find out everything this game has to offer, on your own.

 

[Scrimbles]

Don't Starve for a lot of veteran players is a cakewalk.

For new players, the learning curve is steep, and a lot of mechanics aren't really explained/are hard to learn even by trial and error.

 

The simple answer would be to just "add a hardcore game mode" but that would split the fanbase right down the middle. Optimally, there should be some changes to late game content, instead of having the game looping infinitely without a lot of difficulty scaling upwards. That way, new players wouldn't be immediately forced into more difficult content, and veteran players would have more reason to keep playing.

[sovon9]

7 hours ago, Canis said:

DST's difficulty falls flat when nothing is unknown to the player. The lack of RNG in places like combat and general exploration leaves stuff repetitive sometimes. When you look past that, DST becomes a sandbox, which is arguably what it was always meant to be?

I am totally agree with you, It's tough for a certain time specially at the beginning but after that there isn't anything challenging to do as killing bosses again again isn't always fun. Now base building you can do only for a certain time after that you need something different(not an item), anything achievable line killing fuelweaver for bone armor. 

[Primalflower]

Game is only hard when you don't know how to do stuff....and given the nature of a multiplayer game in which you can talk to other players, I think the difficulty is fine

[Mike23Ua]

I said this once before, but the easiest way to let me (an experienced player who’s quested through all 5 chapters of DS single player but has not actually beaten it and free’d Maxwell yet..) play with my very very inexperienced friend who has never played DS before and only bought DST because it allowed him to get 6 of his Xbox friends together in the same game- UNLIKE Destiny 2 (3 player limit) State of Decay 2 (4 Player limit) the list just goes on and on.

Is by introducing new and harder “Island Biomes” that you can prepare for and travel to once your ready to leave what for simplicity sake I will just call the “Starter island”

Now for Me a lot of the game is easy but/ because I DON’T watch gameplay videos or read Wikipedia guides there is a ton of content Klei hides in this game that I obviously haven’t experienced yet.. an example would be whatever those moonstone statues do... I’ve never been able to activate those- and sure I could look it up online, but where’s the fun in that?

I was born in a time period where Online did not exist and the only way you could find out tips and tricks about the game was by calling hotline numbers, or Nintendo Power magazines.. so for- Discovering secrets without spoiling it all online, is still very much an enjoyment from my childhood that carried over into adult hood. 

Does that mean I’m probably missing out on 45% of the game? Of course it does...

But when you know every little secret, when you know what to do and when to do it, the game just becomes this repetitive task- rather then being fun and you learning stuff as you play.

But when I talk about the differences in difficulty between DS and DST- Understand that there is A LOT that’s probably in DST that I still haven’t even discovered..

But when I compare the surface world of DS & it’s DLCs to DST- there is a lot of differences such as the ones I listed in my first post- hostile enemies spawning from the trees I chop, blocked off areas requiring unique gear to travel through, Sanity Bridges that require sanity to be above or below a certain threshold, Mazes full of enemies you have to travel past.

DST has none of that on its surface world- maybe down in caves there’s some similarities there... but on the SURFACE you can just run in almost a straight line from biome to biome with none of those obstacles or challenges in your path..

And I hope to see that change at least by 2021.... that old (now archived post) about wanting Elevated plots of land is just one example of how they can prevent “running in a straight line..” with no obstacles in your way.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

2 hours ago, Moonatik said:

The biggest problem is the knowledge. Thanks internet, guides and wiki... Because what would it be without them ?

There's no guide at all ingame. The question could be not about the difficulty, but about the amount of players who figure out by themselves most of the things. The Fuelweaver journey is a good exemple. Starting by repairing the marble statues and return to them on full moon. Then it's only the start...

What is the chance to be at the right place, at the right time for some things ?

You could beat a first big tentacle, going in that hole and reappearing on the other side of the map. You could think "ok, shortcut, is it worth it ?". And if you don't try all of them, you may not discover the atrium.

I guess there's tons of exemples. So I think it's a hard game, because it's hard to find out everything this game has to offer, on your own.

 

my friends and i expend like 1000 hours surviving only the surface because we didnt know about ruins, what to do with marble pieces and your example

we get bored until we found gameplays of joescoolstuff 

9 hours ago, Canis said:

DST's difficulty falls flat when nothing is unknown to the player. The lack of RNG in places like combat and general exploration leaves stuff repetitive sometimes. When you look past that, DST becomes a sandbox, which is arguably what it was always meant to be?

totally agree. DST has lost a lot of the rogelite feeling of DS loosing a big amount of set pieces, all characters unlocked since beginning (even the hard ones) and having a reworked revive mechanics (i guess this is fine for being multiplayer)

 

to defend the game. Not so much games has a player base with +1000 hours played like dst has and the amount of **** that can happend is huge and learning how to react to all of this situations will take many deaths which can lead to losing the world (or doing rollback)

[Minitte]

For me, difficult things disappeared after a while...

Starving until we cooked meatballs

Afraid of the dark until we made lanterns

Murdered by shadows until we weaved a hat

Died to hounds until we crafted a spear

Wounded until we ate pierogies

Died to other stuff until we made armor

Froze to death until we carried thermal stones

Died to Deerclops until it became a tree cutter

And then everything became optional content.

[CameoAppearance]

I'm satisfied with the difficulty the way it is. Newbies find it difficult, veterans find it easy; these are true of any video game to some extent, but especially pronounced in Don't Starve. I wouldn't say no to some more lategame challenges if they were optional but had potent benefits encouraging you to take them on, more like the Fuelweaver than the Aporkalypse. (I like the Aporkalypse in Hamlet, but I don't want a similar ticking clock mechanic in DST.)

[AlternateMew]

Agreed that I'm okay with the balance, but more on how I see it heading.

I think separating the difficulty by land and sea is a good idea. Keep it how it is on land so the newbies can learn. Land is mandatory. You start on land.

Let the sea be treacherous, dangerous territory that newbies shouldn't dare go unless they have a really good guide. It's already starting to imply a mastery of sanity, with Lunar Island making insanity preferred and Wavey Jones messing you up if you're not really sane. This is a good start. Forcing you to be able to switch from completely nuts to completely calm in an instant. Something experienced players should be able to do.

[thegreatJash]

i like the way it is

[Nikki Darks]

3 hours ago, AlternateMew said:

Agreed that I'm okay with the balance, but more on how I see it heading.

I think separating the difficulty by land and sea is a good idea. Keep it how it is on land so the newbies can learn. Land is mandatory. You start on land.

Let the sea be treacherous, dangerous territory that newbies shouldn't dare go unless they have a really good guide. It's already starting to imply a mastery of sanity, with Lunar Island making insanity preferred and Wavey Jones messing you up if you're not really sane. This is a good start. Forcing you to be able to switch from completely nuts to completely calm in an instant. Something experienced players should be able to do.

All you've just said dumbs down to:

"Haha let's give the newbies the fun, actually enjoyable part of the game, which is land and caves! The pros can have the sluggish boats, the slow paced content and a chance at it being semi decent!"

No.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

2 minutes ago, Nikki Darks said:

All you've just said dumbs down to:

"Haha let's give the newbies the fun, actually enjoyable part of the game, which is land and caves! The pros can have the sluggish boats, the slow paced content and a chance at it being semi decent!"

No.

what a non sense

[Nikki Darks]

2 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

what a non sense

Sir this isn't nonsense, nonsense is not being able to explain your opinion and instead just saying "what a non sense". Please and thank you.

If you want to discredit someone, give some context, value and an explanation.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

2 minutes ago, Nikki Darks said:

Sir this isn't nonsense, nonsense is not being able to explain your opinion and instead just saying "what a non sense". Please and thank you.

If you want to discredit someone, give some context, value and an explanation.

apply that to your own comment

for me sailing is fun, the boat mechanic makes simple but realistic the act of sail and makes you able to make a movible base, i like the new mobs (waverly and the shadow claw are awesome), just for salamanders and glass statues is worth the travel (without taking in count the so usefull stuff that you can find there), harder hound waves + gestals that slows you down (i need one time 3 telepuffs to wait the effect to diseapear meanwhile a lot of hounds run after my ass)

[Nikki Darks]

8 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

apply that to your own comment

for me sailing is fun, the boat mechanic makes simple but realistic the act of sail and makes you able to make a movible base, i like the new mobs (waverly and the shadow claw are awesome), just for salamanders and glass statues is worth the travel (without taking in count the so usefull stuff that you can find there), harder hound waves + gestals that slows you down (i need one time 3 telepuffs to wait the effect to diseapear meanwhile a lot of hounds run after my ass)

I have applied it to my own post, in a jokey manner. 

And let's dissect this.

If you think that saladmanders and glass statues are worth the sail, you do you boo boo. I'll be surviving infinitely with meatballs.

I would disagree that they're harder (hound waves), the difficulty is the same, you even have the option NOT to fight the ressurected hounds.

Gestalts don't even do damage, and dropping your lunacy/sanity is easy. (Edit: Bull Kelp garlands/Green caps)

What are telepuffs? Please don't tell me you're using the lazy explorer for the purpose of reducing your sanity.

I think that last bit kinda says it all.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

10 minutes ago, Nikki Darks said:

What are telepuffs? Please don't tell me you're using the lazy explorer for the purpose of reducing your sanity.

to dont be stunlocked. My friends and i get a hound wave when we just arrive the moon island, i bringed with me shadow gear to drop my sanity but we didnt get enough time so i needed to teleport to kite (which was fun and i need to waste half wasted lazy explorers) or die by stunlock because gestals dont do damage but slows you down. Maybe we should bring bone helm, raw cactis or what ever but we didnt take it in count  "Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer." but that makes it more difficult if you take it in count in comparation with a regular hound wave

10 minutes ago, Nikki Darks said:

If you think that saladmanders and glass statues are worth the sail, you do you boo boo. I'll be surviving infinitely with meatballs.

i like new things and more if they have good desing. Idk what is about meatballs but ok. Another can say that you do boo boo for using star caller when he has torches

10 minutes ago, Nikki Darks said:

I think that last bit kinda says it all.

totally. isnt worth discuss with you, treating me like an idiot to make your argument right when you didnt even understand what i said or maybe you just have a lot of troubles getting lazy explorers

[Nikki Darks]

2 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

to dont be stunlocked. My friends and i get a hound wave when we just arrive the moon island, i bringed with me shadow gear to drop my sanity but we didnt get enough time so i needed to teleport to kite (which was fun and i need to waste half wasted lazy explorers) or die by stunlock because gestals dont do damage but slows you down. Maybe we should bring bone helm, raw cactis or what ever but we didnt take it in count  "Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer." but that makes it more difficult if you take it in count in comparation with a regular hound wave

i like new things and more if they have good desing. Idk what is about meatballs but ok. Another can say that you do boo boo for using star caller when he has torches

totally. isnt worth discuss with you

Sir, if you have your sanity at 0, gestalts won't appear, and you wouldn't get stunlocked.... Sir please.

All you have to do to make gestalts disappear... Is have minimal sanity... You don't need bone helmets, you don't need telepoofing.

Bring uncooked green caps and wear the sea weed crown item, it makes you lose sanity over time.

Please tell me more about your chad strats.

 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

9 minutes ago, Nikki Darks said:

Maybe we should bring bone helm, raw cactis or what ever

 

9 minutes ago, Nikki Darks said:

Sir, if you have your sanity at 0, gestalts won't appear, and you wouldn't get stunlocked.... Sir please.

thanks for explaining

i will try a easier way to explain you

more preparation requiered=more difficult

that is all i have to say

10 minutes ago, Nikki Darks said:

Please tell me more about your chad strats.

when you stop being like that

[Hornete]

51 minutes ago, Nikki Darks said:

All you've just said dumbs down to:

"Haha let's give the newbies the fun, actually enjoyable part of the game, which is land and caves! The pros can have the sluggish boats, the slow paced content and a chance at it being semi decent!"

No.

Please don't twist people's words like that.