I don't understand why hound/depth worm wave mechanics are in the game

[Dwight34]

To me this mechanic is extremely unfair, unenjoyable, and binary in its outcomes: either you're near a killbox and you win easily, or you're not and you're instantly dead.

The only real counterplay thus is incredibly tedious: check the wiki to know what is the minimum period between attacks, wait until the attack happens, then only explore for an amount of time equal to that minimum period and instantly return to your base to wait for the next attack to happen. It seems quite suffocating and sadistic to me.

I know they can be disabled, and I probably will have to because to me they are a failure of game design, but it still makes me feel like I'm cheating to change those settings thus this mechanic succeeds in needlessly inflicting pain upon players.

[Kelloggs Dogfry]

Hound waves can be a little annoying if you’re not used to them and or have appropriate defenses as kiting and fighting wolves is a nightmare and lengthy even if you’re skilled in it. Tbh, I don’t mind the spawn rate at all before day 100, but after that it’s annoying. I actually would argue with the new settings it’s perfectly acceptable to turn the hound wave setting down to less after you’ve hit day 100+ and it makes them a decent bit more bearable.

They also take longer to show up after they’ve started barking on this setting so you have more time to abuse a good method if you want to “skip” a wave. When they start barking, you can head down to the nearest cave hole and just wait for a little bit down there. As long as you get down before they show up, none will show up when you’re back topside. If one or two show up as you’re going down only the ones that were on your screen spawned should be there too so if you’re just barely slow you’re not too punished. Very handy trick when you’re not in the mood or prepared to fight a wave and just would rather dodge it.

Depth worms on the other hand I have to disagree with. They actually are much more methodical to fight. You can wrangle them in big groups even in multiplayer and fight them at all the same time with kiting methods when you learn. You essentially need to run around in a big circle until they are grouped up in a cluster while chasing you, and you can run (slightly deeper than normal to make sure all of them go for an attack which the walking cane will help with) to bait the hit, dodge them, and get a bunch of hits in on one of them. Idk how many spawn when you’re solo as I’ve been playing with one other person for the most part lately, but with two people I wanna say 7-8 spawn and I can pretty reliably wrangle them together with this method still. I hope this helps any!

[Cheggf]

To kill you. They're in the game to kill you.

28 minutes ago, Dwight34 said:

To me this mechanic is extremely unfair, unenjoyable, and binary in its outcomes: either you're near a killbox and you win easily, or you're not and you're instantly dead.

The only real counterplay thus is incredibly tedious: check the wiki to know what is the minimum period between attacks, wait until the attack happens, then only explore for an amount of time equal to that minimum period and instantly return to your base to wait for the next attack to happen. It seems quite suffocating and sadistic to me.

Unless the day count is at least triple digits that's nowhere near true, and even with triple digit worlds it's not like the hounds are going to instantly kill you because you weren't within 5 seconds of something that will kill them. They can't move and attack at the same time so unless you stop moving or ram into one they won't hit you.

Get better at fighting hounds, get better at kiting hounds, make more trap areas, or turn them off.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

because if not the game is just about picking berries, carrots and having a thermal stone

it can be frustrating at first but when you overpass that difficulty you will feel so well when you were killing them like nothing

if you are really frustrated try to see guides about kiting them also there is items like pan flaute, weather pains, fire staffs, etc that helps to deal with them

[QuartzBeam]

I don't find hound waves particularly enjoyable myself. In fact, I think they are terribly tedious, largely unrewarding and have an unfortunate tendency to interrupt gameplay that I actually find fun. And having to wait at base for the next wave to come, just so I can utilize the 3 day grace period to go and do the thing I actually want is the worst.

However, neither Hound nor Depths Worm are as reliant on a "killbox" as OP seems to think.

Hound waves can be countered by being properly equipped and exploiting the elemental hounds' special effects. Blue Hounds will freeze regular Hounds, while Red Hounds will burst into flames that cause regular Hounds to panic. They are also weaker than regular hounds (100 HP instead of 150), so you can use them as a form of makeshift crowd control. Combined with a decent weapon and some decent armor, this lets you handle even day 100+ hound waves, though you will end up tanking several hits in the process.

Depth Worms are even better. You can sync the worms by making them chase you in circles, so you can then kite them as if they were a single worm. This means you can, theoretically, fight off 6 depth worms with just 2 Axes and no armor. But don't do that, cause they hit like a truck and, since they are synced, if you mess up, they all hit you and you can't survive 450 damage to the face. :P

[Dwight34]

6 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

To kill you. They're in the game to kill you.

Unless the day count is at least triple digits that's nowhere near true, and even with triple digit worlds it's not like the hounds are going to instantly kill you because you weren't within 5 seconds of something that will kill them. They can't move and attack at the same time so unless you stop moving or ram into one they won't hit you.

Get better at fighting hounds, get better at kiting hounds, make more trap areas, or turn them off.

I've turned them off, they're bad game-design, and depth worms are even worse.

2 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

because if not the game is just about picking berries, carrots and having a thermal stone

it can be frustrating at first but when you overpass that difficulty you will feel so well when you were killing them like nothing

if you are really frustrated try to see guides about kiting them also there is items like pan flaute, weather pains, fire staffs, etc that helps to deal with them

No, the game has many dangerous but rewarding areas to explore, giants you can choose to fight, and possibilities of base-design and expression. No guides solves the problem that this unfair mechanic does not bring any upside but rather only downsides, by heavily restricting exploration and freedom (literally cannot spend too much time at sea without cheesing with unbreakable barricades otherwise you're dead the moment hounds decide to show up).

When the only thing a mechanic adds is a binary questions whose answers are:
- spend multiple minutes not enjoying the game, not having any kind of fun because you're fighting enemies who have no reason to fight or be there in the first place and do not provide any form of entertaining gameplay.
- die.

Then the mechanic is flawed and should not be present.

14 minutes ago, Kelloggs Dogfry said:

Hound waves can be a little annoying if you’re not used to them and or have appropriate defenses as kiting and fighting wolves is a nightmare and lengthy even if you’re skilled in it. Tbh, I don’t mind the spawn rate at all before day 100, but after that it’s annoying. I actually would argue with the new settings it’s perfectly acceptable to turn the hound wave setting down to less after you’ve hit day 100+ and it makes them a decent bit more bearable. They also take longer to show up after they’ve started barking on this setting so you have more time to abuse a good method if you want to “skip” a wave. When they start barking, you can head down to the nearest cave hole and just wait for a little bit down there. As long as you get down before they show up, none will show up when you’re back topside. If one or two show up as you’re going down only the ones that were on your screen spawned should be there too so if you’re just barely slow you’re not too punished. Very handy trick when you’re not in the mood or prepared to fight a wave and just would rather dodge it. Depth worms on the other hand I have to disagree with. They actually are much more methodical to fight. You can wrangle them in big groups even in multiplayer and fight them at all the same time with kiting methods when you learn. You essentially need to run around in a big circle until they are grouped up in a cluster while chasing you, and you can run (slightly deeper than normal to make sure all of them go for an attack which the walking cane will help with) to bait the hit, dodge them, and get a bunch of hits in on one of them. Idk how many spawn when you’re solo as I’ve been playing with one other person for the most part lately, but with two people I wanna say 7-8 spawn and I can pretty reliably wrangle them together with this method still. I hope this helps any!

You provide efficient counterplay, but is any of this actually fun? Either you cheese their spawning mechanic, or you spend multiple minutes kiting a simple AI. None of the scenarios created by that mechanic actually provides any form of enjoyment to the player, rather seriously harming their freedom by becoming the number 1 priority at any time when you would rather explore or create, replaced by a dumb and painfully long mini-game.

2 minutes ago, QuartzBeam said:

I don't find hound waves particularly enjoyable myself. In fact, I think they are terribly tedious, largely unrewarding and have an unfortunate tendency to interrupt gameplay that I actually find fun. And having to wait at base for the next wave to come, just so I can utilize the 3 day grace period to go and do the thing I actually want is the worst.

However, neither Hound nor Depths Worm are as reliant on a "killbox" as OP seems to think.

Hound waves can be countered by being properly equipped and exploiting the elemental hounds' special effects. Blue Hounds will freeze regular Hounds, while Red Hounds will burst into flames that cause regular Hounds to panic. They are also weaker than regular hounds (100 HP instead of 150), so you can use them as a form of makeshift crowd control. Combined with a decent weapon and some decent armor, this lets you handle even day 100+ hound waves, though you will end up tanking several hits in the process.

Depth Worms are even better. You can sync the worms by making them chase you in circles, so you can then kite them as if they were a single worm. This means you can, theoretically, fight off 6 depth worms with just 2 Axes and no armor. But don't do that, cause they hit like a truck and, since they are synced, if you mess up, they all hit you and you can't survive 450 damage to the face. :P

Just like Kellogs, you provide very efficient counterplay tactics, but I do not perceive any form of enjoyment in the matter as a whole. I completely feel your first paragraph.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

Just now, Dwight34 said:

I've turned them off, they're bad game-design, and depth worms are even worse.

that is your opinion

is a game factor to limit how much you survive,if you cant deal with them means that your the adventure ends when you get overwhelm, is a rogelite after all

just because you dont want to learn to deal with them doesnt mean they are a bad desing

[Cheggf]

Just now, Dwight34 said:

I've turned them off, they're bad game-design, and depth worms are even worse.

How are depths worms even worse? Hounds move quickly and attack erratically making them quite difficult, although possible, to defeat through normal combat. Depths worms move slowly and are extremely predictable, allowing you to bunch them all up together and fight them as if they were a single enemy. An enemy that has a burn phase every other dodge that lets you get 6 or 7 hits in.

[Kelloggs Dogfry]

5 minutes ago, Dwight34 said:

You provide efficient counterplay, but is any of this actually fun? Either you cheese their spawning mechanic, or you spend multiple minutes kiting a simple AI. None of the scenarios created by that mechanic actually provides any form of enjoyment to the player, rather seriously harming their freedom by becoming the number 1 priority at any time when you would rather explore or create, replaced by a dumb and painfully long mini-game.

I suppose it’s a to each their own thing. Like yeah I agree, day 100 spawn rates of potentially every 3 days is way too excessive, hence the less setting being nice at that point and having the ability to avoid a wave when you aren’t in the mood also being nice, but I wouldn’t say it’s just this horrible awful thing. Not really fair to speak for other people when it’s your own opinion. But regardless, if you don’t enjoy it then turn it off—no shame! 

[LinknAllie]

I only hate the fire hounds since they always somehow set a tree on fire from miles away that starts a chain to my farm.  Oddly enough I've never encountered depth worms despite the fact I spent almost half of Autumn in the caves.

[Echsrick]

way to deafeat dogs

use armor

use traps made whit there theeth

use pigs beefalos spiders and what not

hear barkin go into caves for 1 second

use stronger weapons then a spear

all of those things a good ways to kill dog

[Dwight34]

2 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

that is your opinion

is a game factor to limit how much you survive,if you cant deal with them means that your the adventure ends when you get overwhelm, is a rogelite after all

just because you dont want to learn to deal with them doesnt mean they are a bad desing

I have learned how to deal with them, what you don't understand is that the actual methods necessary are not enjoyable game-design. This is not an issue of knowledge, it's an issue of the mechanic not having upsides while having lots of downsides.

2 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

How are depths worms even worse? Hounds move quickly and attack erratically making them quite difficult, although possible, to defeat through normal combat. Depths worms move slowly and are extremely predictable, allowing you to bunch them all up together and fight them as if they were a single enemy. An enemy that has a burn phase every other dodge that lets you get 6 or 7 hits in.

True fire hounds are a hazard, and I say worms are worse because I really like being in caves, but at least hounds health is perfectly reasonable, meanwhile worms have 900 hp each, a single worm has the health pool of 6 normal hounds.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

from ds where you cant cancel atacks (in dst fighting is way easier)

 

worms killed with no armor

 

[BezKa]

Hound waves are currently the biggest danger to my worlds that isn't a seasonal boss destroying my stuff. The game is supposed to be unfair, you're stuck in hell that wants you dead. There are ways of dealing with hounds, and improvising depending on where you are is a good mechanic in my opinion. Hounds attack again? Well, I can kite them, there's a stray koalephant nearby, if I didn't destroy the beehives these could have helped but welp. Maybe risk with dragonfly? Maybe-

I think it's very cool, even if I groan with annoyance every time they show up. There has to be some invasive danger in a game, or you would just keep out of scary places and live on farming simulator the whole game. But don't feel guilty about changing settings- they're there for a reason, and you'll get punished accordingly (less gems). 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

Just now, Dwight34 said:

I have learned how to deal with them, what you don't understand is that the actual methods necessary are not enjoyable game-design. This is not an issue of knowledge, it's an issue of the mechanic not having upsides while having lots of downsides.

 

check the videos i posted. Being a musroom near a tooth traps is not knowing how to deal with them and, ofc, is unfun. You arent forced to stay in base waiting for them to be able to explore 3 days but, obv, if you cant deal with day 200 hounds means that you dont "deserve" to survive 200 days and you should die until you learn. Is how the game works

[Cheggf]

1 minute ago, Dwight34 said:

True fire hounds are a hazard, and I say worms are worse because I really like being in caves, but at least hounds health is perfectly reasonable, meanwhile worms have 900 hp each, a single worm has the health pool of 6 normal hounds.

Who cares how much health they have when their behavior is so much easier? They have a burn phase every other attack where you can get like 400 damage in. That 900 health goes away so fast because you can safely hit them 6 or 7 times in a row because all of them are synced up and all doing a pointless burrow animation.

Also, depths worms need to see a motivational speaker or something because they give up super easily. If you just walk away from them they'll turn into traps or start eating grass for some reason. Hounds will follow you until they randomly aggro onto something else, which could be forever and a half.

[Dwight34]

Just now, ArubaroBeefalo said:

 

check the videos i posted. Being a musroom near a tooth traps is not knowing how to deal with them and, ofc, is unfun. You arent forced to stay in base waiting for them to be able to explore 3 days but, obv, if you cant deal with day 200 hounds means that you dont "deserve" to survive 200 days and you should die until you learn. Is how the game works

Is there any way I can block this guy? You're being extremely obnoxious by purposefully missing the point and trying to appear tough because you're one of the people who always harass developers to make games harder.

3 minutes ago, BezKa said:

Hound waves are currently the biggest danger to my worlds that isn't a seasonal boss destroying my stuff. The game is supposed to be unfair, you're stuck in hell that wants you dead. There are ways of dealing with hounds, and improvising depending on where you are is a good mechanic in my opinion. Hounds attack again? Well, I can kite them, there's a stray koalephant nearby, if I didn't destroy the beehives these could have helped but welp. Maybe risk with dragonfly? Maybe-

I think it's very cool, even if I groan with annoyance every time they show up. There has to be some invasive danger in a game, or you would just keep out of scary places and live on farming simulator the whole game. But don't feel guilty about changing settings- they're there for a reason, and you'll get punished accordingly (less gems). 

If the player wants to stay in his base, why would he "deserve" to get it wrecked by a mechanic that makes no sense? Why should anyone be subjected to that sadistic behavior? The game is not lacking in dangerous areas and content, adding "invasive dangers" whose only methods of counterplay are all non-enjoyable is bad game-design.
And funnily enough, the mechanic actually strongly encourages turtling and keeping out of dangerous places because you seriously do not want to be caught off-guard, so the waves mean you can simply stay in your surface base all the time, using meats from hounds suiciding on your tooth traps to get eggs and create meatballs eternally.

[xDarkSoul18x]

10 minutes ago, Dwight34 said:

Is there any way I can block this guy? You're being extremely obnoxious by purposefully missing the point and trying to appear tough because you're one of the people who always harass developers to make games harder.

If the player wants to stay in his base, why would he "deserve" to get it wrecked by a mechanic that makes no sense? Why should anyone be subjected to that sadistic behavior? The game is not lacking in dangerous areas and content, adding "invasive dangers" whose only methods of counterplay are all non-enjoyable is bad game-design.
And funnily enough, the mechanic actually strongly encourages turtling and keeping out of dangerous places because you seriously do not want to be caught off-guard, so the waves mean you can simply stay in your surface base all the time, using meats from hounds suiciding on your tooth traps to get eggs and create meatballs eternally.

Just try to ignore people like that haha. I completely disagree 100% but I’m glad the game gives people options to disable features they don’t like. I find bound waves exciting, probably because I’m not a dst wiki, I just know barking = Get ready. 

It’s one of those things the game does to keep you on your toes and if you’re not prepared you will definitely pay the price. Be it a life giving amulet or your entire base being set ablaze(but whys that a bad thing?!? 0.o)

[Dwight34]

1 minute ago, xDarkSoul18x said:

Just try to ignore people like that haha. I completely disagree 100% but I’m glad the game gives people options to disable features they don’t like. I find bound waves exciting, probably because I’m not a dst wiki, I just know barking = Get ready. 

It’s one of those things the game does to keep you on your toes and if you’re not prepared you will definitely pay the price. Be it a life giving amulet or your entire base being set ablaze(but whys that a bad thing?!? 0.o)

Yeah I will definitely disables these from now on, though I really dislike editing the settings in this kind of game. The mechanic just feels like it really conflicts with the rest of the game which heavily focuses on freedom and choices, and it doesn't bring any form of actual difficulty if you can just cheese it by switching from caves to the surface or vice-versa.

Unrelated, but pretty cool artwork on your profile picture.

[MagzUnleashed]

I used to think the same until I just learned how to kite and hit, then it turned out even in solo play hounds or worms are no issue, I actually enjoy the randomness and thrill of it now.

[Owlrust]

I kinda wish the mechanic was bigger than just hounds and included a horde of random attackers. This way it could be randomly challenging and less tedious because you never know what you're gonna get. 

Either that or maybe a drop from the Varg (such as a hat) that lets a wave bypass you in particular.

[Mysterious box]

23 minutes ago, Dwight34 said:

Yeah I will definitely disables these from now on, though I really dislike editing the settings in this kind of game. The mechanic just feels like it really conflicts with the rest of the game which heavily focuses on freedom and choices, and it doesn't bring any form of actual difficulty if you can just cheese it by switching from caves to the surface or vice-versa.

Unrelated, but pretty cool artwork on your profile picture.

I don't think they intend to be mean about it the games core is about using your freedom in choices to prepare for the worst at it's core dst is a survival game so learning to deal with unfair situations is the core of the game now that being said the devs have been working to make the game easier for non optional content like with diease and regrowth so they may make hound waves less frequent in the end game but I doubt they'd do away with it as it's very beneficial resource wise and keeps survival at the forefront.

[Generic_oz]

It's free food at your base every other day... Not so bad

[BezKa]

43 minutes ago, Dwight34 said:

Is there any way I can block this guy? You're being extremely obnoxious by purposefully missing the point and trying to appear tough because you're one of the people who always harass developers to make games harder.

If the player wants to stay in his base, why would he "deserve" to get it wrecked by a mechanic that makes no sense? Why should anyone be subjected to that sadistic behavior? The game is not lacking in dangerous areas and content, adding "invasive dangers" whose only methods of counterplay are all non-enjoyable is bad game-design.
And funnily enough, the mechanic actually strongly encourages turtling and keeping out of dangerous places because you seriously do not want to be caught off-guard, so the waves mean you can simply stay in your surface base all the time, using meats from hounds suiciding on your tooth traps to get eggs and create meatballs eternally.

This game is clearly not for you. 

You can't come to the forums full of experienced players and declare that one of the core mechanics is a bad game design when all of us have played this game for a while and never had this much against one of the basic elements of the game. Face it, you can't deal with it, find it unfair, it's your problem. Not devs'. Not ours. You can come and state your opinion, but when everyone is telling you 'ok ur buisness, just don't insult the game' and you argue instead in hopes we admit 'ye game bad thanks for telling us' we're going to straight up tell you you're wrong. 

You vented about your feelings, you changed the settings. There is no reason for you to continue the discussion, since you don't want to discuss anything, clearly. You came to tell us you don't like hounds, you did, now leave. 

[BeeClops]

I solely rely on depth worm farms for grass and twigs for my long term world, life would be a pain without them.