Preventative Griefing Solutions

[Lokena]

3 hours ago, ZombieDupe said:

I do believe certain actions and methods should be highly discouraged to maintain gameplay engagement in a way appropriate to the theme of the game.

Again, this is very subjective. You seem to completely reject the idea that for someone building and improvement a farm IS the gameplay. I understand what you want from the game. But DST has always attracted precisely because it's not ONLY survival. It has many different aspects, and therefore it can be enjoyed by players with very different tastes. Fighting and construction are big components of this, but they are not the only ones.

The same, by the way, applies to raid bosses. The fact that you can prepare for them the way you want, and go to them when you want is a very convenient and good system. Practice shows that at a late stage of the game, any mobs that constantly attack you become just an annoying burden. If all the bosses in the game came to the base... Maybe it would have added some kind of challenge, but I'm more than sure that the absolute majority will not like it. These bosses are not designed to fight them at a random moment when you are not ready for them. To make them come regularly, they would have to be weakened and their mechanics would have to be changed. And again, such a change will mean that the game forces you to fight. But not everyone likes battles. Maybe there is some middle option, but this is something that really needs to be well thought out so as not to break what is already working. Maybe they could work like tiger shark - have a chance to come to the player at a certain time, but initially be neutral to him, so that avoiding combat is still possible. And if the player wants to fight the boss when and how he wants, boss will still have a place on the map where they lives permanently. Also, maybe the boss will be stronger on his territory than outside it, which will give a certain reason to fight them in the wild. Will it work? I don't know. But what you are suggesting is a limitation of the game's capabilities, not their expansion.

And not all farms use exploits. Unless you see absolutely all the mechanics that can potentially be used to build a farm as exploits. This is just ridiculous. These are not bugs. For example, a butterfly farm uses the fact that cats automatically attack them. This is a feature. The fact that the player decided to drive the cats into the enclosure and planted flowers nearby is the use of available mechanics. You can't say that this is how the game "shouldn't" work. And what, now developers must prohibit cats from attacking small animals? Because god forbid the player will take advantage of this! Then why not immediately cut out half of the game's content? You suggest punishing players for finding their own ways to play the game. To dissuade them from smoothing out aspects that don't attract them, arguing that the idea of DST is in these very aspects, and if they don't like it, then they shouldn't play this game at all. This is a very toxic approach. I'm glad that the players have a choice. I'm glad that we have a lot of settings. And I'm glad that this game has many different mechanics.

If DST had forced to fight... Well, I would never become a fan of this game. I hate games about killing. Or rather, I can't stand it when killing is the goal and the main theme of the game, which, unfortunately, is now considered the standard for most games. But DST doesn't feel like this for me. And that's great. As for the fact that this is survival... Well, I would be glad for a greater variety of weather and seasonal effects - threats that wouldn't be always tied to enemies. I also don't deny that some, like you, want this game to become ruthless and dangerous. Which can be an option, sure. Most of the game is already available for customization and modifications, so I don't believe there aren't enough ways to make the game harder for yourself. But I'm categorically against this being a "standard" difficulty and the "only correct" way to play. Not to mention the fact that DST is already quite unfriendly to beginners. There is no need to make it worse.

[goblinball]

11 hours ago, ZombieDupe said:

Someone being soaked wet because someone else depleted the entire pig skin resource is not their fault. Not that hard to understand.

There is usually always a touch stone or a few pig houses lying around in a world unless you join it after like the first autumn. If you join a public lobby that’s been up for 10+ days and don’t expect most of the pig skin to have been nabbed already, that’s on you. Either use other stuff for combat, join a public lobby before the pig skin is taken, or ask someone for their pig skin.

[ZombieDupe]

23 hours ago, SuperMeatGoy said:

Honestly when I was a noob I think I've ended up making the Pyrrhic decision to light a structure on fire for light more than I've accidentally lit them on fire. Just because a couple of kid's youtubers klei payed to upload footage of their game ended up fooling around on what appears to be their first playthrough doesnt mean klei should waste dev-time completely locking down any way of accidentally lighting structures on fire. It's a non-issue.

I will repeat myself. A base's integrity tends to be more valuable than the survival of a single player a lot of the time. You can be revived just like that, while a decently sized base can't just be repaired like that. The more you play you will realise that value differential. This is what can cause the griefing dilemma I spoke of earlier, where you can't know the intention and people who are just trying to play the game get scrutinised. Especially don't do this if you are in a public server. Never light a structure, you should not have the option to do so. To me it is important to crack down on this because of how easy it is to do this and how difficult it is to fix, especially if rolling back won't solve your issue. I have been to several official servers which have survived dozens of days and people don't care about the integrity of the world's resources or anything really. This is not a good look on Klei provided this is the experience they are presenting to new people.

20 hours ago, Lokena said:

Again, this is very subjective. You seem to completely reject the idea that for someone building and improvement a farm IS the gameplay. I understand what you want from the game. But DST has always attracted precisely because it's not ONLY survival. It has many different aspects, and therefore it can be enjoyed by players with very different tastes. Fighting and construction are big components of this, but they are not the only ones.

Yes, because the theme of the game doesn't align with this. If you want to build contraptions, ONI is the game that is much more appropriate for this. One big issue that these contraptions do in the setting of don't starve games is that they destroy any sense of survival completely. You build them and with high enough yield you will destroy any sense of survival. Even magic items don't do this, you know what you have to survive to get the ancient thulecite stuff? Meanwhile a farm contraption just takes basic understanding of the game's systems and you have yourself an infinite food source. Thankfully the bunnymen farm is not as big of an exploit as it once was, as it gives incentive to engage with the farming mechanics more. Or would you rather have that reversed?

20 hours ago, Lokena said:

The same, by the way, applies to raid bosses. The fact that you can prepare for them the way you want, and go to them when you want is a very convenient and good system. Practice shows that at a late stage of the game, any mobs that constantly attack you become just an annoying burden. If all the bosses in the game came to the base... Maybe it would have added some kind of challenge, but I'm more than sure that the absolute majority will not like it. These bosses are not designed to fight them at a random moment when you are not ready for them. To make them come regularly, they would have to be weakened and their mechanics would have to be changed. And again, such a change will mean that the game forces you to fight. But not everyone likes battles. Maybe there is some middle option, but this is something that really needs to be well thought out so as not to break what is already working. Maybe they could work like tiger shark - have a chance to come to the player at a certain time, but initially be neutral to him, so that avoiding combat is still possible. And if the player wants to fight the boss when and how he wants, boss will still have a place on the map where they lives permanently. Also, maybe the boss will be stronger on his territory than outside it, which will give a certain reason to fight them in the wild. Will it work? I don't know. But what you are suggesting is a limitation of the game's capabilities, not their expansion.

Convenience at the expense of the experience. Bosses coming to you would incentivise for you to prepare for them. Another way to do this for some bosses would be to make them reactionary, like a tree guard spawning if you cut down too many trees without replanting any, as a punishment test/challenge of sorts for your carelessness (I know this isn't exactly how it works, but I'm demonstrating the better intention here). Given there are 2 bosses that destroy your camp already and come for you, that being bearger and deerclops, do you fundamentally disagree with the way those are done as well? Would you rather everything was optional? And you had nothing substantial that was a requirement in the game eventually? Maybe you should just play in a creative mode setting of sorts instead of expecting that to be your default experience, in a survival game of all things, because that is what you are alluding to right now.

The aforementioned traps and magic is a middle option, by the way.

20 hours ago, Lokena said:

And not all farms use exploits. Unless you see absolutely all the mechanics that can potentially be used to build a farm as exploits. This is just ridiculous. These are not bugs. For example, a butterfly farm uses the fact that cats automatically attack them. This is a feature. The fact that the player decided to drive the cats into the enclosure and planted flowers nearby is the use of available mechanics. You can't say that this is how the game "shouldn't" work. And what, now developers must prohibit cats from attacking small animals? Because god forbid the player will take advantage of this! Then why not immediately cut out half of the game's content? You suggest punishing players for finding their own ways to play the game. To dissuade them from smoothing out aspects that don't attract them, arguing that the idea of DST is in these very aspects, and if they don't like it, then they shouldn't play this game at all. This is a very toxic approach. I'm glad that the players have a choice. I'm glad that we have a lot of settings. And I'm glad that this game has many different mechanics.

The pen for catcoons wouldn't really be a big deal. It looks nice and even then doesn't yield much. The problem here isn't the catcoons, it's the fact that butterfly wings are so stupidly overpowered as a food source. I go against the idea of things being overpowered, but this one's an exception. When you see new players play the game normally at start, and professionals doign the same, but hitting butterflies for easy hunger and health, you have definitely done something incredibly dumb as a gameplay tactic.

20 hours ago, Lokena said:

If DST had forced to fight... Well, I would never become a fan of this game. I hate games about killing. Or rather, I can't stand it when killing is the goal and the main theme of the game, which, unfortunately, is now considered the standard for most games. But DST doesn't feel like this for me. And that's great. As for the fact that this is survival... Well, I would be glad for a greater variety of weather and seasonal effects - threats that wouldn't be always tied to enemies. I also don't deny that some, like you, want this game to become ruthless and dangerous. Which can be an option, sure. Most of the game is already available for customization and modifications, so I don't believe there aren't enough ways to make the game harder for yourself. But I'm categorically against this being a "standard" difficulty and the "only correct" way to play. Not to mention the fact that DST is already quite unfriendly to beginners. There is no need to make it worse.

I do not think you should be forced to fight. Where did you assume that is what I meant? I explicitly said that fighting bosses head on is not theme-appropriate. I believe you should be running away from them and using traps and magic to fend them off or kill them if you are brave enough when they come for you. Combat system itself needs looking into, for some changes in my opinion (like how Forge for example made it a bit more involved and not so much non-sensical it breaks the theme), but that's another topic entirely.

And I do hate to break it to you, but combat itself, as it stands, is at least half of the game. Whether you do it yourself or let other things kill each other, that's one of the major ways of surviving, thriving and getting better items and structures to help you do so. Play in creative, demand a creative mode if you would rather have the option to avoid this. Making things simple and optional at a certain juncture can and will ruin certain potential great experiences and that's not a good thing.

12 hours ago, goblinball said:

There is usually always a touch stone or a few pig houses lying around in a world unless you join it after like the first autumn. If you join a public lobby that’s been up for 10+ days and don’t expect most of the pig skin to have been nabbed already, that’s on you. Either use other stuff for combat, join a public lobby before the pig skin is taken, or ask someone for their pig skin.

What kind of idiotic train of thought is this? No it isn't on you, nor should it be. It is imperative that the experience can be maintained instead of the first-comers ruining everything for everyone else because they came late to the party. Are you that determined for resources to be depletable for some bogus reason that you reject anything to the contrary with no reason given?

[SuperMeatGoy]

22 minutes ago, ZombieDupe said:

I will repeat myself. A base's integrity tends to be more valuable than the survival of a single player a lot of the time. You can be revived just like that, while a decently sized base can't just be repaired like that. The more you play you will realise that value differential. This is what can cause the griefing dilemma I spoke of earlier, where you can't know the intention and people who are just trying to play the game get scrutinised. Especially don't do this if you are in a public server. Never light a structure, you should not have the option to do so. To me it is important to crack down on this because of how easy it is to do this and how difficult it is to fix, especially if rolling back won't solve your issue. I have been to several official servers which have survived dozens of days and people don't care about the integrity of the world's resources or anything really. This is not a good look on Klei provided this is the experience they are presenting to new people.

If people on the pubs dont care about the world's integrity why should you lmao

might as well remove the ability to eat red caps since it's detrimental to the server in total

[Dextops]

1 hour ago, ZombieDupe said:

Yes, because the theme of the game doesn't align with this. If you want to build contraptions, ONI is the game that is much more appropriate for this. One big issue that these contraptions do in the setting of don't starve games is that they destroy any sense of survival completely. You build them and with high enough yield you will destroy any sense of survival. Even magic items don't do this, you know what you have to survive to get the ancient thulecite stuff? Meanwhile a farm contraption just takes basic understanding of the game's systems and you have yourself an infinite food source. Thankfully the bunnymen farm is not as big of an exploit as it once was, as it gives incentive to engage with the farming mechanics more. Or would you rather have that reversed?

this is a sand box game if you do not like these food sources you are allowed to do what you want restricting these farms and anything else in this game considered cheese ruins the theme of a sandbox survival game and again if you don't like these farms or food methods you have an option not to use them. I personally don't i like to do things more cut and dry, but i don't want to restrict people on not wanting to kill the bastard that is beequeen for the 2000th or using less effective methods of food

[ZombieDupe]

16 hours ago, Dextops said:

this is a sand box game if you do not like these food sources you are allowed to do what you want restricting these farms and anything else in this game considered cheese ruins the theme of a sandbox survival game and again if you don't like these farms or food methods you have an option not to use them. I personally don't i like to do things more cut and dry, but i don't want to restrict people on not wanting to kill the bastard that is beequeen for the 2000th or using less effective methods of food

This argument does not apply when the given option ultimately becomes the only sustainable option for a given problem. This is demonstrated by the pig skin scarcity, where setting up a farm of pigs baited out of their houses becomes a reliable method for getting pig skin any time in the specified position. It's like hanging a "skip boss" button next to the player while making the game infuriatingly difficult and not expecting many, many people to press it or all the ridiculous clout that would ensue from that. The sandbox argument does not apply either on anything, it has been used to justify anything in a game. By that metric, nothing in the game is particularly good or bad or needed and quality doesn't apply, because it's sandbox, it all just exists for your to try if you want and it doesn't matter, and game's integrity goes out the window.

[Dextops]

5 minutes ago, ZombieDupe said:

By that metric, nothing in the game is particularly good or bad or needed and quality doesn't apply, because it's sandbox,

no people are making farms thats their solution to the problem and for tedious tasks like killing beequeen having a scarcity or resource or keeping yourself fed that is what it means to be a sandbox have multiple ways to address a problem yet you want to limit that solution to one. you want beequeen loot? screw innovative farms kill this annoying boss to kill solo which requires large amounts of resources and skill because you are at the handicap of playing alone or just because killing bosses over and over is a tedious task that ruins the fun while having it automated lets you do what you want to do since this game is a sandbox if you don't enjoy killing raid bosses or you play solo those options and farms are there for you but even then you can reject those ovens for bosses entirely and do it the way you want to do, and for item scarcity playing with a lot of people is a drain of resources so having an abundant of basic resources makes the experience enjoyable. removing these farms makes the quality of the game lower in my opinion because now it just becomes a tedious boss rush simulator in the later stages of the game, so leave it as is and if you want to do something different that isn't these farms or food sources there are a plethora of other options 

[Captain_Rage]

It's a survival game. Things are meant to potentially spiral out of hand, bases burning down included. If you are playing with other people and are concerned that "your stuff might burn" due to external factors (like other players) you can just agree among yourself to keep a few things in a common area and the rest each player has to manage in their own base. Play with people you trust and you won't have to deal with any griefers. You can try to change your play style instead enforcing changes that nobody else think make any sense. Your suggestions would make the game extremely boring and monotone and are very contrived, in my opinion.

[Cheggf]

Seriously, why are you even playing on public servers when you clearly hate every single part of them so much? You don't like that people can smash pig houses, don't like that people can obtain charcoal, don't like that people who aren't even on the same server as you play differently than you do (for some strange reason), don't like that people can create farms, don't like that people can cheese bosses, don't like that people can do anything other than the bare minimum of not starving.

If you want to have such an authoritarian server where everyone has to ask "May I please be allowed to walk four paces west, m'lord?" just host your own server. Every server doesn't need to be molded to your weird way of how the game is supposed to be.

22 hours ago, ZombieDupe said:

Yes, because the theme of the game doesn't align with this. If you want to build contraptions, ONI is the game that is much more appropriate for this.

Or maybe if you just want to play a survival game with no creativity you can go play a different game? I have no idea how you're saying a game that's had contraptions being built for nearing a decade "isn't the right game to build contraptions". You're asking for so much of the game to be changed and acting like that's how it's always supposed to be. If that's how it's supposed to be you wouldn't have made this post because it already would have been like that.

[ImDaMisterL]

Hey everyone, remember to follow our community guidelines and respect one another. Don't target other users in your posts, otherwise that runs the risk of derailing the thread. Let's stay on topic and take the high road when posting. Thanks, and have a great day!

[goblinball]

13 hours ago, ZombieDupe said:

It's like hanging a "skip boss" button next to the player while making the game infuriatingly difficult and not expecting many, many people to press it or all the ridiculous clout that would ensue from that.

You can literally just cheat in whatever you want using commands, this hypothetical “skip boss” button does in fact exist, yet plenty of people do not use it, at least in legitimate worlds that aren’t just for testing. I seriously don’t understand the problem with giving players the option to make their lives easier. Should Celeste’s assist mode not exist because with the right settings it eliminates all challenge and makes the player basically invincible? No, of course not, it’s great for casual players who want to experience the game who lack the time or skill needed to complete some of the harder levels. Same logic applies here. If you enjoy challenge, just fight the bosses normally. Don’t force other people to play how you want them to, especially in a sandbox game, where doing whatever you want is the whole point.

[MondayNight]

On 7/30/2021 at 3:00 AM, goblinball said:

Should Celeste’s assist mode not exist because with the right settings it eliminates all challenge and makes the player basically invincible?

Wasn't that game-mode made specifically for "game urinalists" unable to pass the Cuphead.. tutorial? Not the most happy example to be given since implied analogy would subject to metaphorical brain aneurysms DST's Survival aspect.

 

As for OP's anti-griefing measures regarding general servers: some hold water, most will just needlessly complicate regular play, more-so in pubs. In distant past I would've probably been ok with most OP proposals. But after a lot of instances of advanced griefing I've witnessed over time and post playing on quite restrictive servers with lots of anti-griefing mods, I can attest hedging game-play to such degree pretty much takes the fun out of DST - its Survival facet, for better and worse, implies hectic circumstances. Still, yes, deliberate and recurrent, confirmed griefers should be subjected to banning. In what form? Don't know, and most likely such system would be proven difficult to implement in a clean way. In the meanwhile play community dedicated servers if wanting to dive-in with relatively random people. Such pubs are manually moderated by admins/moderators present in-game most time and have a friendly, co-op environment for all skill level players. Likewise community servers track known griefers/trolls via shared ban-lists, hence any disruptive player is dealt with promptly in no-time, and damage reversed even if done at beginning of day/morning save.

[ZombieDupe]

On 7/29/2021 at 11:31 AM, Dextops said:

no people are making farms thats their solution to the problem and for tedious tasks like killing beequeen having a scarcity or resource or keeping yourself fed that is what it means to be a sandbox have multiple ways to address a problem yet you want to limit that solution to one. you want beequeen loot? screw innovative farms kill this annoying boss to kill solo which requires large amounts of resources and skill because you are at the handicap of playing alone or just because killing bosses over and over is a tedious task that ruins the fun while having it automated lets you do what you want to do since this game is a sandbox if you don't enjoy killing raid bosses or you play solo those options and farms are there for you but even then you can reject those ovens for bosses entirely and do it the way you want to do

Then maybe it shouldn't be a tedious task to begin with, but a fun one? Why have innovative farms that remove all sense of challenge when you could have innovative tactics which are fair game?

And who ever said anything about a single approach? If anything, the farms trickle everything down to a single approach, which is the farm itself, unless you are too lazy to set it up, but for long enough worls it's practically inevitable and it breaks any sense of survival, danger and atmospheric tension that could be created without farms being in place. Instead of farms, resources could be obtained in more streamlined ways and in much more abundance (but without wasting valuable time or creating a contraption), but perhaps not as scarce as they are right now. Do you really think solutions to problems should be allowed to end any sense of challenge or atmosphere in a game?

On 7/29/2021 at 11:31 AM, Dextops said:

and for item scarcity playing with a lot of people is a drain of resources so having an abundant of basic resources makes the experience enjoyable. removing these farms makes the quality of the game lower in my opinion because now it just becomes a tedious boss rush simulator in the later stages of the game, so leave it as is and if you want to do something different that isn't these farms or food sources there are a plethora of other options 

Yes, I absolutely agree with you there, and it's a shame we have 1 grass every 3 tiles in very specific biomes to be shared among half a dozen players to start as an example. And yes, it being a boss-rush simulator with a huge resource sink is also yet another flaw with the game. Both the farms and the bosses are a product of awful and lazy game design.

On 7/29/2021 at 3:00 PM, Captain_Rage said:

It's a survival game. Things are meant to potentially spiral out of hand, bases burning down included. If you are playing with other people and are concerned that "your stuff might burn" due to external factors (like other players) you can just agree among yourself to keep a few things in a common area and the rest each player has to manage in their own base. Play with people you trust and you won't have to deal with any griefers. You can try to change your play style instead enforcing changes that nobody else think make any sense. Your suggestions would make the game extremely boring and monotone and are very contrived, in my opinion.

Yes, and it would be great if that "spiral out of control" would not lead to hours of resource gathering and base construction becoming wasted because of the lack of checks and balances to make sure that can't be executed by malicious players and reasonably repairable when occurring due to intended game mechanics like fire hounds or deerclops.

That would make the game even more isolating than it already is. When suggesting someone to do things a particular way, if that's something you find is the same thing you commonly say to another player, it would be better for the game to lead players to such conclusions themselves instinctively. That's how you design your game well.

On 7/29/2021 at 3:00 PM, Captain_Rage said:

Play with people you trust and you won't have to deal with any griefers. You can try to change your play style instead enforcing changes that nobody else think make any sense. Your suggestions would make the game extremely boring and monotone and are very contrived, in my opinion.

That's what some people may very well do, and it works just well enough, until it doesn't as presented in the video case. I am simply putting forward potential solutions to a problem which I have found common enough and which is much more severe on servers where none is monitoring the world and new player actions. And it's sad to see that this time around for this particular topic there is outright backlash instead of consideration for why I have put these propositions forward in the first place and how they may be structured better to actually improve the game.

How would my changes make monotone and boring? Remember, these are not necessarily cut and dry solutions. Certain methods can be implemented as best thought to solve a given problem, and if further problems are found, they can be readjusted accordingly, and not instantaneously declared in need of reversing back to the state before . That's what beta testing is all about. I started to think about disease mechanic when you mentioned this, which was removed because in its state it was way too annoying to many people. It had ways to make the game more interesting if done right, but it never got to that point. If it were to come back it would have to become a focus for a good period of time to work well and not be aggravatingly worse chore for people. Wildfires and Antlion I have heard are in a similar ballpark at the moment.

I don't see why you are bringing up playstyle or "my playstyle" specifically in your post. You don't even know how I play the game as far as I'm concerned.

On 7/30/2021 at 1:00 AM, goblinball said:

You can literally just cheat in whatever you want using commands, this hypothetical “skip boss” button does in fact exist, yet plenty of people do not use it, at least in legitimate worlds that aren’t just for testing. I seriously don’t understand the problem with giving players the option to make their lives easier. Should Celeste’s assist mode not exist because with the right settings it eliminates all challenge and makes the player basically invincible? No, of course not, it’s great for casual players who want to experience the game who lack the time or skill needed to complete some of the harder levels. Same logic applies here. If you enjoy challenge, just fight the bosses normally. Don’t force other people to play how you want them to, especially in a sandbox game, where doing whatever you want is the whole point.

I'm talking about unmonitored public servers, such as the ones Klei host themselves. Console cannot be used by anyone in these server types. I'm not arguing for not allowing player experience to be easier. In fact I think the opposite. Farms exist because of the need for resources that are scarce, too scarce even. If the essential resource scarcity wasn't such massive of a problem, some of these farms may have never been found or even really mattered. Getting rid of farms would necessitate more rewarding experience playing the game normally, which it isn't, and I think the game would benefit from such changes. It's a change that would require two aspects of the game being addressed (which are eliminating farming exploits and replacing that with easier access to more abundant basic necessary resources by default) is what I'm trying to say.

On 7/29/2021 at 3:38 PM, Cheggf said:

Seriously, why are you even playing on public servers when you clearly hate every single part of them so much? You don't like that people can smash pig houses, don't like that people can obtain charcoal, don't like that people who aren't even on the same server as you play differently than you do (for some strange reason), don't like that people can create farms, don't like that people can cheese bosses, don't like that people can do anything other than the bare minimum of not starving.

I'll adress these point by point.

* I rarely do, and this topic outlines the reasons why I don't. It is not a good look on Klei when their own hosted servers are one of the worst ways you could experience the game. And it's not because of anything particularly difficult to tackle, griefing problems have potentially simple solutions since there aren't that many griefing methods to begin with.

* Yes I don't like when people smash pig houses and I have been very clear about why that is. If you don't understand that, I have nothing more to add to that. Do you have anything more to add to that?

* Don't like that people can obtain charcoal? What? I think you missed some important details here.

* People can play as they like, and I like the idea of people playing differently and having options, so you have made a completely wrong assumption there. Aside from anything that would constitute griefing, given regular play scenario, which many will agree is not an acceptable "playstyle" on many if not most servers. That is the problem I am trying to tackle with this thread.

* I don't like farms for reasons I mentioned before. They are an exploit that can ruin a potentially better experience. The griefing checks can be adjusted to allow these farms in some capacity if it somehow interferes with it, or you can find new farming methods with these checks in place. Last farms I checked don't need you to light any structure on fire or anything near a flammable structure necessarily.

* Just not starving? Did you not see me mention players using magic multiple times? It is, after all, meant to be an "uncompromising survival game filled with science and magic".

On 7/29/2021 at 3:38 PM, Cheggf said:

If you want to have such an authoritarian server where everyone has to ask "May I please be allowed to walk four paces west, m'lord?" just host your own server. Every server doesn't need to be molded to your weird way of how the game is supposed to be.

Or maybe if you just want to play a survival game with no creativity you can go play a different game? I have no idea how you're saying a game that's had contraptions being built for nearing a decade "isn't the right game to build contraptions". You're asking for so much of the game to be changed and acting like that's how it's always supposed to be. If that's how it's supposed to be you wouldn't have made this post because it already would have been like that.

That sounds morbid and isn't what I'm going for at all. Preventative griefing methods have nothing to do with this if done right. I have seen servers which have gone overboard and it has been a rather annoying experience to say the least. Maybe my suggestions aren't that well explored either. That's why you and other players are here to discuss that.

Good game design and approach isn't always obvious to people, whether it's developers or players, especially players. Some people don't even know what it is or why it matters. If you don't have a clue, I would suggest you searching . Regarding farming contraptions specifically, I mentioned the fact that I don't believe that is the appropriate approach for this game, but more appropriate for something like Oxygen Not Included. That and the fact that they are a crutch for people because of how tedious it is to collect resources without them as outlined by Dextops. Mind you this excludes something very simple, very intentional and more engaging like using lureplants to harvest certain resources to some extent. But I am definitely not looking or expecting just a simple, bare-bones survival game from this at all.

13 hours ago, x0-VERSUS-1y said:

As for OP's anti-griefing measures regarding general servers: some hold water, most will just needlessly complicate regular play, more-so in pubs. In distant past I would've probably been ok with most OP proposals. But after a lot of instances of advanced griefing I've witnessed over time and post playing on quite restrictive servers with lots of anti-griefing mods, I can attest hedging game-play to such degree pretty much takes the fun out of DST - its Survival facet, for better and worse, implies hectic circumstances. Still, yes, deliberate and recurrent, confirmed griefers should be subjected to banning. In what form? Don't know, and most likely such system would be proven difficult to implement in a clean way. In the meanwhile play community dedicated servers if wanting to dive-in with relatively random people. Such pubs are manually moderated by admins/moderators present in-game most time and have a friendly, co-op environment for all skill level players. Likewise community servers track known griefers/troll via shared ban-lists, hence any disruptive player is dealt with promptly in no-time, and damage reversed even if done at beginning of day/morning save.

I mentioned modded greifing prevention methods in this post myself already and yeah, they are needlessly restrictive. Once I was unable to get charcoal to make a pot at all on one server because of how little you could actually light on fire, not even isolated trees that will not spread fire to anything (Cheggf take note of this). But if done right, and I believe it can be done right, griefing instances would be little to none as there would basically be no simple methods to do so, if any at all and gameplay and the game overall would benefit from it. There would be a lot less reasons to ban someone and wouldn't not having to worry about all that save a whole bunch of hassle? The fact we can make and have public servers without anyone overseeing them having a few problems that completely ruin the experience is a testament to how little needs to be actually done to make them a much better experience.

On 7/29/2021 at 4:02 PM, ImDaMisterL said:

Hey everyone, remember to follow our community guidelines and respect one another. Don't target other users in your posts, otherwise that runs the risk of derailing the thread. Let's stay on topic and take the high road when posting. Thanks, and have a great day!

I know this is completely off-topic, but I feel my stomach churn and cringe whenever a member of staff posts an obligatory post such as this. Reason being, it doesn't necessarily address any particular point, to my knowledge no party is personally given any specific notice or warning about what they may have said and how they should rephrase it and it for people who this may have been addressed to, about whatever mistake they have made, think they are just fine because they may misinterpret the purpose of the post completely. Probably because that's the easy and fast thing to do, I suppose? And at the end of the day, these posts get instantly liked, no questions asked, highlighted as if no matter what is said is to be put on a pedestal. Maybe it's fair enough, but I don't think it always necessarily is. Unless I am wrong about some of the points of the former and I simply wouldn't know. But that's just my two grains of salt, I guess.

 

I think this is the last set of posts I will be addressing. There have been a lot of posts about things mentioned that I already know and understand and having to reiterate with extra elaboration with complete misunderstandings of purpose about subjects that are important yet none really cares about that much and at this point it's exhausting to keep arguing for, not that I don't have arguments in favor for what I'm trying to say and have changed my mind completely. Take from that what you will, I'm out. .....

[Baark0]

ok i found the solution to griefing: play solo world

 

[goblinball]

5 hours ago, ZombieDupe said:

Farms exist because of the need for resources that are scarce, too scarce even. If the essential resource scarcity wasn't such massive of a problem, some of these farms may have never been found or even really mattered.

A farm’s purpose can vary a lot depending on the farm, but a majority of them merely are there for convenience. Don’t want to have to walk away from your base to get grass and twigs? Get your shovel/geckos ready and start preparing a farm. Don’t want to constantly have to fight bee queen? Set up a bee queen farm. The list goes on. Farms do not exist due to a scarcity of resources. If resources were as rare as you claim they were, then people wouldn’t even be able to make these farms due to a lack of materials. If scarcity is a concern in multiplayer, then let me give you a neat tip: you can change how much basic resources are generated in the world gen settings! Crazy, right? If you need more pig houses, just set it to “more” and there ya go! Problem solved!

 

19 hours ago, x0-VERSUS-1y said:

Wasn't that game-mode made specifically for "game urinalists" unable to pass the Cuphead.. tutorial? Not the most happy example to be given since implied analogy would subject to metaphorical brain aneurysms DST's Survival aspect.

I think it wasn’t specifically because of the whole “journalist stuck on tutorial” fiasco, but rather the game’s challenging difficulty in general, combined with its crappy “simple mode”. I really like celeste’s assist mode, it allows the player to customize settings to create their own easy mode if the base game is too challenging. In retrospect I think the better comparison to celeste’s assist mode would be DST’s world gen settings, mostly because as stated earlier a majority of farms don’t make the game easier but rather allow you to obtain resources with less effort, and also farms require time, effort, resources, and at least a basic understanding of the game to make.

I think the main problem with this discussion (which isn’t even related to the original post now that I think about it, none of this is related to griefing but oh well) is the assumption that people create farms because they either have to or because obtaining the resources the intended way is tedious and not fun. In a majority of situations, I don’t think this is true. I’m no game-design expert, but I think people create farms because it’s just fun. It’s satisfying to build a farm that makes your life easier then go “yes! I built that!” It feels great and rewarding to feel like you have conquered the game mechanics and made your life easier as a result. Farms are integral to DST because their main purpose is to make sure you Don’t Starve, and if you couldn’t tell by my use of capitalizing and underlining, that is literally the name of the game.

[MondayNight]

7 hours ago, goblinball said:

..people create farms because it’s just fun.

Yep, that's the essence of "emergent gameplay" sitting at DST's core and why is such a versatile and full of possibilities game, enduring all this time. If it had one single way of dealing with things, I for one would've been gone long-long ago (almost 10k h of irl play to date since Beta for yours truly). Hence why farms aren't only ok, but an integral part of playing DST in advanced manner. Sure, one can subsist the nomad fashion off the land (efficiently), yet basing implies a lot more than that. Varg farms, Goat farms, Shadow Chess-pieces farms, seasonal Giant farms via statues, AG farms, AFw farms etc etc etc. Loads of ingenuity and, as you state, entertainment.

[ziberithesailor]

On 7/23/2021 at 7:10 AM, Guille6785 said:

haven't checked that but I got banned for holding down m2 while lighting some object on fire which caused multiple notifications to pop up lol

Depends where you were and what you have lit on fire. You have probably been banned by our bot. It's not only announcements that we have, whole system is more complex. Bot can recognize base as it is , so if you light anything inside of it you will get certain amount of greifer points depending on items you have lit and base radius. Same goes for hammering, reading certain books in base or at portal and ect.
We don't say accidents can't happen, this is made to separate one type of players from another. We are peaceful community that likes casual style gameplay without anyone else interacting with our progress in such ways as greifing or just being rude.
A lot of times ppl come and ask for unban on discord, we can always check it as we have all chat/greif history in our discord channels since 2018.
So if you want to play again on our servers, come and drop us a message on discord, we believe this was a accident most likely so we would only need your klei id to sort things out

[ziberithesailor]

On 7/23/2021 at 7:06 AM, Cheggf said:

Does it spam notifications if you keep dropping and picking up the boss drop repeatedly?

It does, its not meant to do any harm towards players in game. Its only point is for us , moderator/admin team, to track if someone stole valuable loot.
We have covered almost 80% of all possible greifing, most of it is automated. But some things like those, picking up loot, re important and can be done only manually. So here's the scenario: guys leave item on the ground/chest to do something else for short/long period of time, someone comes and yoinks it and logs out, since that is only possible way of greifing still available on our servers. I mean even if we don't have that announcement, we can still track all user inventories, online and offline. Boss loot drop and pick up announcement is there only to make search for certain item faster.