In defense of the macabre creature designs from the "Return of Them" series of updates.

[Primalflower]

12 minutes ago, ciara15 said:

dont go to the lunar island in winter and burn hound corpses after killing them, both are extremely easy solutions

 

26 minutes ago, Lbphero said:

I'm not saying that simply avoiding these things isn't/shouldn't be an option for people, but that forcing those people to only avoid these things is awful when it would take so little time and effort to add an option to reskin them. Such is why accessibility features are such an important thing to have in games.

(this post was meant to be part of the previous but someone replied before i could finish the post which otherwise wouldve made it merge with the other)

[Mike23Ua]

3 minutes ago, 1bubbainpa said:

I just want to say that klei made a grotesque horror mod about a bloody half-man half-owl who had a row of teeth that extended in the middle of his chest. Said mod came with the original game, was free to install, and had jumpscares.

I don’t think Klei is going to shy away from these grotesque mobs.

I sure hope not anyway.. because currently what I’m looking at is a thread where Klei has to decide “Okay do we do more Horror mobs with continuing Return of Them?” Or Do We cease all production on ROT shift focus elsewhere and call RoT completed?

I mean with an update chain clearly abbreviated as ROT... it makes absolute perfect sense to have zombie hounds and zombie penguins.

THIS right here is purely nothing more then a select few people who have discomfort with this type of content making Klei question where do they go from here with FUTURE content? 
 
IF you would like I can go snag a bunch of images from plants vs Zombies of disfigured mutant zombies actually being eaten by man eating plants as disembodied arms are being chewed on in said plants mouth.

Need I remind you all that is a game rated E for EVERYONE?

(you only have a problem with it in DST because until RoT mobs like this didn’t EXIST in DST... but if you were playing Plants Vs Zombies... you wouldn’t even make so much as a second thought about that dismembered arm being chewed on by a piranha plant.)

 

[PasssionFish]

Hello hot thread.

 

[Szczuku]

22 minutes ago, Lbphero said:

it would take so little time and effort to add an option to reskin them

Absolutely not. Making that toggle would most likely count as 50% of a QoL update. 

I mean is there anything simmilar in the game right now? Something that changes a model and sounds for a single player, that's available from the in-game options. 

If the devs did something like that many players would complain that a QoL update was wasted. And we'd end up with even more threads like this one.

I, for one, can see a lot more useful things devs could do than make a toggle for spoopy mobs.

In the end I'm going to say what many people used to say about a year ago when veterans were discussing game's mechanics and issues

You can always stop playing

[Primalflower]

7 minutes ago, Szczuku said:

Absolutely not. Making that toggle would most likely count as 50% of a QoL update. 

this is more of an issue with how klei handles qol updates / pandemic stuff than what you would be able to quantify as the workload that could come with making such a feature, it shouldn't take half of a qol update to add something like this.

7 minutes ago, Szczuku said:

I mean is there anything simmilar in the game right now? Something that changes a model and sounds for a single player, that's available from the in-game options. 

Besides mods (incase you didn't know, literally all it takes to make a reskin mod is to have the graphical zip folder [IE saddle_war.zip] in a folder named "anim" in a mod.), the first things that come to mind are small textures, bloom, and translations (there are built in translations, but for some reason cannot be accessed without turning something on), wigfrid umlauts, or the way the backpack layout changes. None of these are exact matches unless small textures works in a way i don't think it does, but i think it goes without saying that it is nowhere near impossible to implement such a thing. 

7 minutes ago, Szczuku said:

You can always stop playing

how many times am i going to have to say that this shouldn't be the Only option?

[Stardust42]

This is not even body-horror for pete's sake, it's just a damn frozen penguin and a bald hound. I don't grasp how can a rather small feature like this upset somebody. I'm gonna agree with Mike, people are not exposed to mild horror nearly as much as kids were back in the day. This is not worth a whole discussion and it should definitely not be a reason to halt further development of this kind of content.

[Primalflower]

1 minute ago, Kaos42 said:

This is not even body-horror for pete's sake, it's just a damn frozen penguin and a bald hound. I don't grasp how can a rather small feature like this upset somebody. I'm gonna agree with Mike, people are not exposed to mild horror nearly as much as kids were back in the day. This is not worth a whole discussion and it should definitely not be a reason to halt further development of this kind of content.

are you incapable of trying to see things in any other way than your own perspective

[minespatch]

I just want more lore and species.  I love how Pearl's update had the tiny detail of the plugged craters, showing that Pearl had a resistance against the Lunacy.

Now we need to see if another crab or species avoids this. Would lead to great lore fuel.

[mutantt]

29 minutes ago, Lbphero said:

I'm not saying that simply avoiding these things isn't/shouldn't be an option for people, but that forcing those people to only avoid these things is awful when it would take so little time and effort to add an option to reskin them. Such is why accessibility features are such an important thing to have in games.

how is it awful? the majority of dst's playerbase is PC, so those players can simply enable a mod and negate the problem altogether, and in regards to console players, hounds just revive when on the lunar island and turn into horror hounds who behave exactly the same, and moonrock pengulls are just hostile pengulls, you don't miss out on anything when avoiding them and optimally you'd completely avoid the former regardless of whether you have an aversion to it or not

[Primalflower]

5 minutes ago, ciara15 said:

how is it awful? in regards to console players, hounds just revive when on the lunar island and turn into horror hounds who behave exactly the same, and moonrock pengulls are just hostile pengulls, 

i dont think you understand how strong of an aversion i am talking about and therefore think that players can just face these mobs whenever they come about 

really, either way, it would be nice to have...accessibility features

[Mike23Ua]

3 minutes ago, Kaos42 said:

This should definitely not be a reason to halt further development of this kind of content.

Im just going to put this out there.. but what if these mobs were only the beginning of Klei’s content plans? What if they eventually planned to horror-ify all of the games familar mobs through the power of lunar magic?

You can’t just ask for a filter for that because you have absolutely ZERO depth into how deep of an extent that goes into.. 

Your playing a weird game full of already questionable mildly disturbing content, and you get upset that they choose to add more mildly disturbing content??

im sorry but I just don’t understand..  

Imagine if we were supposed to have horrorifying mutated versions of EVERY familiar mob...  that would certainly require a little more then a 2 second filter.....

Here just look at THIS THING for comparison- THIS things existence makes me regret ever picking, cooking or burning a mandrake..

 

Klei does not shy away from the slightly disturbing... thats for sure- and until a small but vocal minority expressed displeasure in the new content... I am 150% certain we would’ve seen more of it by now.

[MondayNight]

  

1 hour ago, Lbphero said:

Yes, it will take two seconds, I've stated why, but I can do it again. For one, the people at klei are...professionals. They know how to code and design assets and make art, they know how the insides of the game works, and as a result I am absolutely sure that if it takes me less than an hour to make a mod that reskins something (see my war saddle picture example) and takes veritably little time for people to make reskins for the pengulls and hounds themselves, that it will absolutely take miniscule effort from the devs to implement an option that turns a reskin like these mods on.

Oh. So it didn't take "2 seconds". It took 30 minutes for some saddle-stuff, aka 1 static object. Now imagine not 3 mobs with alternative animations/facets, but 5 or 10, if art direction involving body-horror was kept trough all updates. Am sure KLei team wouldn't even feel the effort of making 2 alternative designs for each new such-mob - no additional money and time needed at all. They're professionals, hence magic happens. Mhm. No exaggerations at all I see..

"It takes between 3 and 5 days per skin - about a week total time per character skin."

 

1 hour ago, Lbphero said:

The simplest (in terms of art assets) solution would probably just be to replace the existing mobs with a hue shifted version of their calmer variants. It doesnt take an entire laboratory to think of something that would provide minimal strain on klei's workers and would help people who have a legitimate aversion to these things.

Could be a valid option. But then there could be the complain said mobs are too simplistic in their reskin and people with "sensibility filter: on" get an inferior visual product. And perhaps, knowing KLei, they wouldn't go for such simple on-the-nose solution to begin with. They would do something more fancy and in such light why not ditch the body-horror completely, as, again - wouldn't that be the sensible time-and-money wise choice to do?!

 

1 hour ago, Lbphero said:

I'd rather have not have had to touch that part of your argument, but its frankly sickening to me for you to say that we should disregard people who actually have issues, diagnosed or not, because some people fake them. I don't understand how you can say that we shouldnt have accessibility features in a game because some people might not actually 100% need it.

How many people from total player-base actually go to Moon archipelago?

How many of them going there do so in Winter?

How many of them going there, camp or stay for prolonged time?

How many of above percentages do actually have severe visual discomfort or body-horror related phobias?

 

From my experience almost no newbie/noob/casual player - aka bulk player-base - goes to/reaches Moon archipelago. And from experienced/advanced players only a handful go there.. to pick all Stone Fruit Bushes and Kelp Fronds. And that's it. Some may go back there to get/farm Moon Glass. Tiny-tiny percentages. And from all these people how many have, again, said severe visual discomfort or body-horror related phobias to warrant a "sensibility filter" with 2 types of art variants from KLei? I reckon percentage is abysmally small. Cold true is abysmally small percentages don't warrant changes - is not me desiring this, I just point at what businesses world-wide do. To me it doesn't matter either way - I can wait if more art would be required. What it matters though is a theoretical art-and-lore direction change because of a tiny minority being bothered by horror elements in "an unforgivable and uncompromising wilderness survival with Butronesque and Lovecraftian dark undertones" game when there are already alternatives to not deal with mentioned Body-Horror Mobs (detailed in previous posts).

[mutantt]

1 minute ago, Lbphero said:

i dont think you understand how strong of an aversion i am talking about and therefore think that players can just face these mobs whenever they come about 

really, either way, it would be nice to have...accessibility features

? My point was that you don't miss out anything avoiding these mobs, therefore it's not "awful" to suggest that players can simply not go to the lunar island in winter and burn hound corpses BEFORE they turn into horror hounds, which again you'd do regardless of whether you have an aversion to it, I never said that those players had to face those mobs.

[Owlrust]

I can see a case for both sides honestly, each seem to have valid points concerning the issue. Personally I can't say I really have an opinion on either side though; although what I do believe is that people are taking it a bit too seriously, they are after all just opinions about a video game we all love and this is a hypothetical post as well. I also believe that there is no such thing as a wrong opinion either (even no matter how controversial) as it is just personal preference, so it helps to not identify with it. Just have fun, friends.

[minespatch]

I can only imagine the confusion as Klei is trying to seperate these comments into categories before making a statement before things spin more out of control. I feel worse for them.

[Primalflower]

1 minute ago, x0-VERSUS-1y said:

Oh. So it didn't take "2 seconds". It took 30 minutes for some saddle-stuff, aka 1 static object. Now imagine not 3 mobs with alternative animations/facets, but 5 or 10, if art direction involving body-horror was kept trough all updates. Am sure KLei team wouldn't even feel the effort of making 2 alternative designs for each new such-mob - no additional money and time needed at all. They're professionals, hence magic happens. Mhm. No exaggerations at all I see..

Yes, of course, it took 30 minutes for a saddle update which I had stated before, and also had stated before that I was relatively unfamiliar with the tools anyway. I am now indeed imagining the time it would take to make reskin assets for  5 or 10 mobs. It would not take enough time to stop klei's progress on updates for the rest of time. No, I'm not joking, it really wouldn't.

4 minutes ago, x0-VERSUS-1y said:

"It takes between 3 and 5 days per skin - about a week total time per character skin."

Yes, because all characters not only have to be built from very rough templates, but also have something like ~155 images Each that have to be made, and this number is hardly comparable to things like spiders or hounds or the vast vast majority of mobs in the game. 

6 minutes ago, x0-VERSUS-1y said:

Could be a valid option.

thank you

6 minutes ago, x0-VERSUS-1y said:

How many people from total player-base actually goes to Moon archipelago?

How many of them going there do so in Winter?

How many of them going there, camp or stay for prolonged time?

How many of above percentages do actually have severe visual discomfort or body-horror related phobias?

enough for it to matter. 

 

7 minutes ago, x0-VERSUS-1y said:

What it matters though is a theoretical art-and-lore direction change because of a tiny minority being bothered by horror elements in "an unforgivable and uncompromising wilderness survival with Butronesque and Lovecraftian dark undertones" game when there are already alternatives to not deal with mentioned Body-Horror Mobs (detailed in previous posts).

first of all, please play uncompromising survival instead of bringing up such line. second of all, this is a very easy to see slippery slope argument that I doubt will actually happen and thats really all I can say about it 

[KeshS]

I just have several questions to the people that want to make a filter. What kind of straw man are you building? Do these people even exist or even want to have that option in the first place? Can you name a real person that is in dire need for this filter? Because I am reading this and I don't understand who is this for.

[mutantt]

10 minutes ago, x0-VERSUS-1y said:

  How many people from total player-base actually goes to Moon archipelago?

How many of them going there do so in Winter?

How many of them going there, camp or stay for prolonged time?

How many of above percentages do actually have severe visual discomfort or body-horror related phobias?

Not to mention this issue is completely irrelevant on PC due to mods, that makes the percentage significantly smaller.

[bruhmoment23]

Confusion is one thing, setting a proper conclusion to this from the devs perspective is another, if they decide to put one that is. For now it's a shatter of counteractive opinions of one another, so i'm partially curious how the devs will decide or compromise this into a proper setting for both sides. Or perhaps we are making it a bigger problem than it needs to be?

[Mike23Ua]

Well when it goes too far Klei will probably lock the thread and people will find something new to debate over, but really.. as long as no insults and heated arguments are being thrown- I don’t see what harm it’s doing.. 

I’ve already shown my side of this discussion and how people now days just aren’t as easily exposed to these types of toys and media as I was- So I’m pretty sure I have a valid case that doesn’t seem rude or wrongful to post.

You can’t gradually overcome your disliking for the physical appearance of a mob without slow and gradual exposure to it.

A “Make it Pretty” Filter won’t ease you into (potential) future horrors to come.

 

[Primalflower]

22 minutes ago, KeshS said:

I just have several questions to the people that want to make a filter. Do these people even exist or even want to have that option in the first place? Can you name a real person that is in dire need for this filter? Because I am reading this and I don't understand who is this for.

Sure, if you look for them. I can't seem to work the search for the forums (it keeps giving me results for this thread instead of anything else, lol) but I can see people in here who, if absolutely nothing else, appreciate this small edit to the design more than the original designs. I am absolutely sure there are people who play console and would like to be on lunar islands, but also see something other than the current designs for hounds. Even if theres only 4 people on earth that are effected to the most extreme level, I still don't see how implementing a filter option would hurt.

[MondayNight]

40 minutes ago, KeshS said:

I just have several questions to the people that want to make a filter. What kind of straw man are you building? Do these people even exist or even want to have that option in the first place? Can you name a real person that is in dire need for this filter? Because I am reading this and I don't understand who is this for.

There's that mod posted some pages ago - Horror Hound & Moonrock Pengull Reskin. Currently has 34 Subscribers and 12 Favorites (probably the 12 are from initial 34). Thus at least 34 people use it.

From Steamcharts metrics about DST, a peak of 66.829 players was registered in May 2019, current average players is at 15-16k, and from Steam Spy metrics about DST, ownership number is estimated between 5 and 10 million sold-copies.

Of course there is to be taken into consideration a small fraction of people actually saw said mod - 1038 Unique Visitors - but even from those, only 3.2% subscribed (and presumably use it). Most likely won't be a direct proportionality for total player-base even if bulk players saw it. Still I reckon between 1 and 5% ("An estimated 9.1% of Americans, more than 19 million people, have a specific phobia, and many people have more than one specific phobia." - specific body-horror phobias in DST context are harder to define in relation to real-life body phobias; also reported phobia prevalence world-wide tends to be lower, as 2nd and 3rd world countries usually neglect such aspects between societal fitness worries).

[Monkey Cups]

49 minutes ago, Lbphero said:

first of all, please play uncompromising survival instead of bringing up such line.

...that is quite literally the tagline for the damn game on the Steam page. https://store.steampowered.com/app/219740/Dont_Starve/

Quote

About This Game

Don’t Starve is an uncompromising wilderness survival game full of science and magic.

You play as Wilson, an intrepid Gentleman Scientist who has been trapped by a demon and transported to a mysterious wilderness world. Wilson must learn to exploit his environment and its inhabitants if he ever hopes to escape and find his way back home.

Enter a strange and unexplored world full of strange creatures, dangers, and surprises. Gather resources to craft items and structures that match your survival style. Play your way as you unravel the mysteries of this strange land.

Key Features:

• Uncompromising Survival & World Exploration:
  • No instructions. No help. No hand holding. Start with nothing and craft, hunt, research, farm and fight to survive.
• Dark and Whimsical Visuals:
  • 2D characters and odd creatures inhabiting a unique 3D world.
• Randomly Generated New Worlds:
  • Want a new map? No problem! At any time you can generate a new living and breathing world that hates you and wants you to die.

A similar but shorter version is on the DST page. https://store.steampowered.com/app/322330/Dont_Starve_Together/

[Primalflower]

9 minutes ago, Monkey Cups said:

...that is quite literally the tagline for the damn game on the Steam page. https://store.steampowered.com/app/219740/Dont_Starve/

A similar but shorter version is on the DST page. https://store.steampowered.com/app/322330/Dont_Starve_Together/

I am..aware. I am nothing but aware about this. But I also remember someone consistently talking about this and eventually they got a response from the klei devs kind of taking back the idea of an uncompromising experience. Even if they didn't say exactly that, I am sure that they aren't exactly aiming for a 100% uncompromising experience.

[Monkey Cups]

Just now, Lbphero said:

I am..aware. I am nothing but aware about this. But I also remember someone consistently talking about this and eventually they got a response from the klei devs kind of taking back the idea of an uncompromising experience. Even if they didn't say exactly that, I am sure that they aren't exactly aiming for a 100% uncompromising experience.

I think you missed the point here. Why would someone read that before even buying the game and then go hm, I bet there's going to be no horror elements in this? They wouldn't. Everyone who bought the game knows what they got themselves into from that description alone. Or should, anyway.