armor So... why exactly is armor durability lower in DST?

[Ohan]

Hi all

this is something that has been on my mind for a while. the only exception to this rule seems to be the Beekeeper Hat. It makes sense to me for the beekeeper hat to get buffed in durability because DST has a Bee boss with high damage and a long drawn out fight. But then why is all other armor durability lowered? A lot of DST mobs  have more health and thus the possibility to deal more damage, by the same logic applied to the Beekeeper Hat shouldnt all armor have at least their original DS durability and not lowered?

I was wondering if the devs ever gave a reason for the durability decrease, besides just making armor more grindy? I know durability can be stacked in DST but does that really make up for the hard decrease? I dont often find myself wearing both head armor and body armor, mostly only with the Bramble Husk to stretch out its meager durability... 

If the thought was that more people can farm for more armor together, or that more fighters end a fight quicker, why is it only armor that got decreased in durability and not weaponry too? By that same token, if more hands make light work, why isnt everything nerfed in value compared to DS? (food, tool durability, tent durability, sewing kit durability, clothing durability etc etc) 

[Mike23Ua]

Ignoring the fact that some people play alone.. Well, because the game would be even more of a grind if weapons and everything else had less durability?

I mean it already takes like what? 18 hits with a spear to kill a Beefalo? Imagine if those spears broke mid combat, or your thermal stone went cold quicker.. you’d never get anywhere!

Also Klei has been making things like Marble Armor cost less resources to craft, so I guess in the end it balances out?

[Ohan]

Just now, Mike23Ua said:

Well, because the game would be even more of a grind if weapons and everything else had less durability?

My point is that it makes as much sense as lowering armor durability. I am not suggesting weapon durability etc should be lowered 

1 minute ago, Mike23Ua said:

Marble Armor cost less resources to craft, so I guess in the end it balances out?

For the marble armor this is true but it is an exception like the Beekeeper Hat. 

[Cheggf]

1 hour ago, Ohan said:

A lot of DST mobs deal more damage and have more health

What mobs deal increased damage? I can't remember any off the top of my head, but I might just be forgetting.

But to answer your question, I've always assumed that armor's durability is lower because you have more people to get materials for it and each individual person will be hit less since the vast majority of enemies do not deal area of effect damage. I don't know if the developers ever said why they lowered armor's durability, but I wouldn't be opposed to it being reverted to singleplayer values. I also wouldn't be opposed to it staying lower, it doesn't really affect too much.

[Ohan]

39 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

What mobs deal increased damage? I can't remember any off the top of my head, but I might just be forgetting.

That mightve been a slip up yeah, i conflated longer fights because of increased mob HP in DST with more damage. I dont think there are any mobs who have received direct damage buffs but i dont think its unreasonable to say (unless u kite everything perfectly) that bigger fights in DST overall will result in more damage taken because they last longer. Im thinking of dragonfly and the seasonal bosses or even pesky tallbirds haha 

39 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

but I wouldn't be opposed to it being reverted to singleplayer values. I also wouldn't be opposed to it staying lower, it doesn't really affect too much.

I just think its weird/dont understand why. As a Wormwood player my biggest issue is the very low durability on Bramble husk. Marble armor was also a clear offender until the recipe got changed. now two marble suits in DST have more combined durability than one marble suit in DS for the same cost. i just think these inconsistencies are weird 

edit: night armor is also in a similarly bad spot as pre-change marble suit imo. Wether its the durability, cost or the double sanity drain or all combined, its hard to justify making it. 

[ShadowDuelist]

I always assumed its a bit of what @Ohan and a bit of what @Cheggf said. 

On one hand the damage tends to be split among multiple people, sometimes you can pretty much kill dragonfly with a single battle helmet each player if there's like 3 people fighting. On the other hand, probably the original design was that we should use both head and torso armor. But in reality this was later proven to be less efficient than carrying a backpack with many helmets, in terms of durability and utility.

53 minutes ago, Ohan said:

As a Wormwood player my biggest issue is the very low durability on Bramble husk. <snip>

Night armor is also in a similarly bad spot as pre-change marble suit imo. <snip>

Agreed, some armors specifically require QOL rebalancing.

Spoiler

 

The bramble husk keeping the durability from Hamlet still sounds like an oversight to me, I just don't get the point, it's way too low to be an armor. If it had at least log suit durability, it would be interesting for other characters to use, other than for picking cactii. 

Night armor's durability is pretty good, about as much as a battle helmet but with 95% defense. Its one of my favorite armors actually, although its a bit expensive and for some characters the sanity damage is somewhat crippling. I'd lower the cost from 3 papyrus and 5 fuel to 2 papyrus and 5 fuel. Also since it already has the sanity damage when getting hit, the passive sanity drain could very well be lowered to 5 sanity/minute instead of 10. This would allow most characters to keep it on, and negate the passive sanity drain just with a tam (Or nothing in Maxwell's case, which makes sense for him). Even as it is now, characters with sanity related perks (Maxwell, Wigfrid, Wormwood, Willow) benefit the most of this armor, and characters with weaker sanity (Wolfgang, Walter, Wortox, Webber) would probably be better with other type of armor anyway, regardless if the armor gets buffed or not.

 

 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

Maybe because it last longer if you have both parts and, with many people playing, you dont waste that much armor

 

The night armor is lovely for ruins cleaning where having 0 sanity is the regular thing

[bagherthegamer]

You know i never really noticed it up until now. Why is that?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Well it kinda dosent matter anyways the durability is still somewhat similar. If i had to make a good guess it would be that its a balancing nerf. Dst is much more popular than Ds, and because of that klei did alot of balancing and nerfing into it than ds. If you play the regular dont starve, you would immediately realize how much easier and unbalanced some of its mechanics are compared to together. 

But im not a klei dev so maybe its just a joke. Who knows. 

[Cheggf]

19 minutes ago, bagherthegamer said:

You know i never really noticed it up until now. Why is that?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Well it kinda dosent matter anyways the durability is still somewhat similar. If i had to make a good guess it would be that its a balancing nerf. Dst is much more popular than Ds, and because of that klei did alot of balancing and nerfing into it than ds. If you play the regular dont starve, you would immediately realize how much easier and unbalanced some of its mechanics are compared to together. 

But im not a klei dev so maybe its just a joke. Who knows. 

How on Earth is DSA easier? DST is the Very Easy mode of DS. Everything from food to light is so, so, so much more abundant in DST. All the characters are getting reworked to become so much stronger, especially Wendy who's basically a mod character with how busted she is. Most of the mechanics from bosses to temperature are so much more tame in DST.

[QuartzBeam]

4 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

How on Earth is DSA easier? DST is the Very Easy mode of DS. Everything from food to light is so, so, so much more abundant in DST. All the characters are getting reworked to become so much stronger, especially Wendy who's basically a mod character with how busted she is. Most of the mechanics from bosses to temperature are so much more tame in DST.

And resurrection is massively cheaper thanks to Life Giving Amulets.

Really, the only part of DST that's more difficult are the raid bosses and the items gated behind them.

[Cheggf]

2 minutes ago, QuartzBeam said:

And resurrection is massively cheaper thanks to Life Giving Amulets.

Really, the only part of DST that's more difficult are the raid bosses and the items gated behind them.

As I was making my soup I remembered how much easier resurrecting is and was gonna edit that into my comment, but I sit down and see you beat me to it.

[bagherthegamer]

7 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

mode of DS. Everything from food to light is so, so, so much more abundant in DST. All the characters are getting reworked to become so much stronger, especially Wendy who's basically a mod character with how busted she is. Most of the mechanics from bosses to temperature are so much more tame in DST.

 

1 minute ago, QuartzBeam said:

And resurrection is massively cheaper thanks to Life Giving Amulets.

Really, the only part of DST that's more difficult are the raid bosses and the items gated behind them.

Well i was talking about combat and how killing stuff is hard. Not the charecters or food. 

Infact looking at it,since dst has multiplayer, with a full server everything in it is easier than ds. 

I was talking about soloing both game bosses. And dst happens to have a more balanced system. 

[MrNaxeros]

I remember this change came early in DST's development. My memory is fuzzy about it so correct me if I'm wrong, but originaly mobs had a straight damage and health buff compared to DS. Players didn't like it, but Klei still wanted to encourage fighting together, so they got rid of the damage buff, left the health buff and nerfed armor durability instead.

It's basicaly what @ShadowDuelist said. If you fight along with someone, the damage is split between you, so the original armor durability would make them too strong... for most armors I guess. Some suffer from this change. I'd say log suits, football helmets and thulecite suits and marble suits are fine as they are. I don't use other armors so I can't have an opinion on their usability.

[W0l0l0]

I also have been thinking about this recently. 

1 hour ago, MrNaxeros said:

If you fight along with someone, the damage is split between you, so the original armor durability would make them too strong.

In the case of two players, the fight takes twice the time since mob healths are doubled compared to Don't Starve. So the two players are hit twice as much. This alone would balance two players but I guess the real issue comes from balancing a variable amount of players.

But I think they did well, I just got used to the armour thing. By yourself it's hard because you're on your own, but with more people resources become scarce (though I'd like it if there was less food perhaps). Overall I agree that it's easier than Don't Starve, but I know that new players feel a lot different about the difficulty than us. 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

And we are forgeting one thing, cancel animations. In ds is much easier to get hit because you have to time very well how much time you press F

At the end, in dst you need less practise to fight well and dont get hit hat much

[Notecja]

1 hour ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

And we are forgeting one thing, cancel animations. In ds is much easier to get hit because you have to time very well how much time you press F

At the end, in dst you need less practise to fight well and dont get hit hat much

Depends on lagg, which some people get even as host. DS is lagg-less when it comes to fight. And in DST I saw a lots of deaths due to lagg...
For some not-sure-reason I usually find fights in DS easier than in DST. At least I don't cancel hit too early.
Also in DS armor stacks. So nice, when none of bees can stop character...

[ArubaroBeefalo]

10 minutes ago, Notecja said:

Depends on lagg, which some people get even as host. DS is lagg-less when it comes to fight. And in DST I saw a lots of deaths due to lagg...
For some not-sure-reason I usually find fights in DS easier than in DST. At least I don't cancel hit too early.
Also in DS armor stacks. So nice, when none of bees can stop character...

i dont know why but in dst the lag is more noticeable than in other games. In some games having 100 or 120 ping doesnt change anything than having 20 but in dst... 100ms might be your death

[goatt]

I think this is because of how human works. We team up, and the productivity skyrockets.

Take an example of wig + anyone. Wig getting rocks and the other trading gold from pk (late game), you two can produce far more helmet per person than a wig by herself. After meeting, wig crafting helmets, and the other person cook.

This team collaboration boost efficiency mainly from 2 aspects off top of my head.

1. Less travel time. Less cooking time. Easier inventory management, etc. One word, specialization. Specialization makes getting resources more efficient. 

2. Character specific features. People on DST usually combines their powers.

 

Now about the armor. You get more armor faster, and now you have 2 people hitting the same target, which means  battle probably would finish twice as fast. 20% durability penalty seems not bad.

[Sapientis]

10 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

Maybe because it last longer if you have both parts

Wearing two pieces of armory should be generally avoided in DST. Firstly because Magiluminescence helps avoiding receiving damage at all and secondly because even 1% armor will block all damage from getting hit and will replace used piece for a new one if we have it in inventory.
Unless planning to fully tank and/or preserve more important or more expensive armor it's better to wear head slot armor and Magiluminescence.

Besides, as this topic compares Don't Starve to it's Together counterpart, armor math is different in Don't Starve.
When wearing both parts of armor you reduce received damage twice, so for example wearing a Football Helmet and a Log Suit they block 80% of incoming damage for first piece and then 80% of remaining 20% with second piece, giving effective 96% damage resistance (with most average armors!). It's also worth noting that it differs which piece will be calculated first (and will lose durability first) based on DLC, for some bizarre reason.

This is much more meaningful change when talking about armor, not 70% of original durability...

[ArubaroBeefalo]

39 minutes ago, Sapientis said:

Wearing two pieces of armory should be generally avoided in DST.

that is a gameplay preference. I prefer to use bone armor+thulecite crown but sometimes i use mag but for fight that i will tank like fw or beequen (you can use beehat for durability and thulecite suit for protection to prevent having to heal a lot) i will totally use 2 armors. Also you can use this to last longer a expensive armor using another cheaper but my comment was just to mention one possible reason of why they did that

39 minutes ago, Sapientis said:

secondly because even 1% armor will block all damage from getting hit and will replace used piece for a new one if we have it in inventory.

i dont think that 1% will block all the damage, i had die a lot of times for getting hit with full health for using a low % armor even when you have a second one in the inventory because is equiped after you receive the damage

[Sapientis]

4 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

that is a gameplay preference. I prefer to use bone armor+thulecite crown but sometimes i use mag but for fight that i will tank like fw or beequen (you can use beehat for durability and thulecite suit for protection to prevent having to heal a lot) i will totally use 2 armors. Also you can use this to last longer a expensive armor using another cheaper but my comment was just to mention one possible reason of why they did that

Bone Armor shouldn't be counted like that in my opinion, it's either blocking 100% damage or not blocking it at all, of course it should be worn with headpiece armor because it provides no protection after blocking a hit.

Other examples are preserving more expensive armors with cheaper ones and I covered that. Probably I should have pointed it out, but I was mainly talking about the same tier armors, for example Log Suit + Football Helmet / Battle Helm / Beekeeper Hat, or Thulecite Suit + Thulecite Crown / Shelmet.

I also have to disagree about armors lasting longer when wearing two pieces, because armors are already much worse because their protections don't stack in DST.

5 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

i dont think that 1% will block all the damage, i had die a lot of times for getting hit with full health for using a low % armor even when you have a second one in the inventory because is equiped after you receive the damage

The problem is if you receive damage from multiple sources and/or in very rapid succession, for example 2 stacked Boomshrooms can destroy your armor and sneak not protected hit before new piece of armor re-equips.