Outside of events, minigames should not be a staple of gameplay going forward

[Mangrove]

Just now, ArubaroBeefalo said:

gembells?

Yes, it's true that as you progress you can start avoiding the gym more, and the duration of the time sink from the dumbbells gets a little shorter too. To me it feels like new Wolfgang's core is arbitrary hoops where you're happier the less they hinder your gameplay, instead of things that make him more fun to play

[ArubaroBeefalo]

1 minute ago, Mangrove said:

where you're happier the less they hinder your gameplay

that is a good point

[bagherthegamer]

@sudoku

Sorry for long post but please read it since i read yours. 

2 hours ago, sudoku said:

*All the stuff above*

I dont get what your trying to say here. First there was the complain about how the gym is to tedious(you said this in another thread) . Then it turns out a max level gym takes 10 seconds to give you max mightyness and the gembells are enough to maintain mighty form 24/7 and now your complaining about it being very disengaging and that it breaks the gameplay loop. 

What? Also why you comparing it to wendy and wigfrid? Are you saying youd rather spent 10 minutes looking for mightyness ghosts or slaping small mobs constantly to have mightyness over just spending 10 seconds at the gym or literally spend 15 seconds throwing a gembell everytime mightyness hits 75?

I dont think it breaks the gameplay loop, infact who told you that the gameplay loop is defined by the things you mentioned? Where if i were to do none of those, say im waiting in the ruins for the nightmare phase to pass, than i broke out of the gameplay loop and my exepirience is ruined. 

I think your overthinking this man. In the long term, wolfgang spends more time looking for food and siting around crockpots and fighting spiders for meat than he does in the gym.just see for yourself. Rush the prestihatitator, get the gembell and enjoy yourself. 

The gym isnt the main core of wolfgangs perks, the gembell is. The gym is a luxery to jump from 0 to 100 mightyness in 10 seconds. I dont get why are you so tunell visioned on the gym,when its not even that bad. 

you might have minigame-phobia, but this thing isnt gonna kill the game bud. 

[Gi-Go]

OP, You are speaking the most reasonable of statements, to the point of me wanting klei to hire you as a rework director.

Altho I do wanna add that since gym is very similar in gameplay value to chopping threes for exsample (you just click buttons or hold space) - you could consider it as a gathering process where you gather meter points. Kinda like gathering food is. It's a very easy mini game to the point of it almost not being one is what I mean. 

I think it's better than eating food for mightiness, even if it dosen't fit in the game loop as nicely. 

[sudoku]

1 hour ago, bagherthegamer said:

@sudoku

Sorry for long post but please read it since i read yours. 

I dont get what your trying to say here. First there was the complain about how the gym is to tedious(you said this in another thread) 

Was that thread right when the details hit? Yes that was my immediate reaction, and as the branch became available it was apparent that it wasnt as tedious as it sounded. I stand by the fact that just looking at the notes it sounds tedious so i had what i think was a very reasonable reaction.

1 hour ago, bagherthegamer said:

@sudoku

Then it turns out a max level gym takes 10 seconds to give you max mightyness and the gembells are enough to maintain mighty form 24/7 and now your complaining about it being very disengaging and that it breaks the gameplay loop. 

I feel like you are getting caught up in my terminology or maybe im not doing a good enough job with my wording. It doesnt really matter how long it takes to do the break. If normal gameplay is a continous loop that is constantly going round and round and a character has a perk that requires you to break from this loop by doing something that exists in its own seperate bubble in order to recieve it, that is a break. 

I have already said the gembells are my preffered design when it comes to mightyness gain, precisely because fighting with them is part of the gameplay loop and why i did not mention them in the post. Even though, just standing still and watching them leaves a lot to be desired, i dont really consider this a break. Its was a tuning problem that they initially had with the numbers. Cooking in the crockpot is not a break despite having to wait for it to cook, however waiting a whole minute for 1 dish might make players feel that it is.

1 hour ago, bagherthegamer said:

@sudoku

Also why you comparing it to wendy and wigfrid? Are you saying youd rather spent 10 minutes looking for mightyness ghosts or slaping small mobs constantly to have mightyness over just spending 10 seconds at the gym or literally spend 15 seconds throwing a gembell everytime mightyness hits 75?

I did not make the Wendy comparison someone else did.  As for Wigfrid, would i prefer to have goals set for me in a gameplay environment and to then be rewarded, yes i would. What gameplay oriented thinking is there behind the usage of the gym other than when to use it which accompanies every activity you do.

Again, ive stated i like the idea of fighting or throwing with a gembell giving you mightyness.

1 hour ago, bagherthegamer said:

@sudoku

I dont think it breaks the gameplay loop, infact who told you that the gameplay loop is defined by the things you mentioned? Where if i were to do none of those, say im waiting in the ruins for the nightmare phase to pass, than i broke out of the gameplay loop and my exepirience is ruined.

I am merely trying my best to break down the facts of the game in accordance to my own interpretation. I could be wrong but this is what rings true to me. No one told me anything, but that doesnt mean im not able to critically think about something.

Again, i think you misunderstand my wording here. I am not equating a break with time. Time is a function that exists in any action you perform. The time it takes you to complete an action exists at any length. The break is just referring to a gameplay cycle, every game has one.

Waiting out the nightmare cycle in my theory is just a facet of exploration, just like waiting for your food to cook on the crockpot a facet of crafting. You are still present in the gameplay loop.

1 hour ago, bagherthegamer said:

@sudoku

I think your overthinking this man. In the long term, wolfgang spends more time looking for food and siting around crockpots and fighting spiders for meat than he does in the gym.just see for yourself. Rush the prestihatitator, get the gembell and enjoy yourself. 

The gym isnt the main core of wolfgangs perks, the gembell is. The gym is a luxery to jump from 0 to 100 mightyness in 10 seconds. I dont get why are you so tunell visioned on the gym,when its not even that bad.

Again, this is where break gets misinterpreted.

I have tunnelvission on the gym because its what i have issue with from a game design standpoint, not a how long does this action take one. 

1 hour ago, bagherthegamer said:

@sudoku

you might have minigame-phobia, but this thing isnt gonna kill the game bud. 

K

EDIT:

Enjoy this crude drawing i made on mobile to better help illustrate what i mean by a break

[eldr1ch]

Well said, OP.

[bagherthegamer]

29 minutes ago, sudoku said:

Was that thread right when the details hit? Yes that was my immediate reaction, and as the branch became available it was apparent that it wasnt as tedious as it sounded. I stand by the fact that just looking at the notes it sounds tedious so i had what i think was a very reasonable reaction.

I feel like you are getting caught up in my terminology or maybe im not doing a good enough job with my wording. It doesnt really matter how long it takes to do the break. If normal gameplay is a continous loop that is constantly going round and round and a character has a perk that requires you to break from this loop by doing something that exists in its own seperate bubble in order to recieve it, that is a break. 

I have already said the gembells are my preffered design when it comes to mightyness gain, precisely because fighting with them is part of the gameplay loop and why i did not mention them in the post. Even though, just standing still and watching them leaves a lot to be desired, i dont really consider this a break. Its was a tuning problem that they initially had with the numbers. Cooking in the crockpot is not a break despite having to wait for it to cook, however waiting a whole minute for 1 dish might make players feel that it is.

I did not make the Wendy comparison someone else did.  As for Wigfrid, would i prefer to have goals set for me in a gameplay environment and to then be rewarded, yes i would. What gameplay oriented thinking is there behind the usage of the gym other than when to use it which accompanies every activity you do.

Again, ive stated i like the idea of fighting or throwing with a gembell giving you mightyness.

I am merely trying my best to break down the facts of the game in accordance to my own interpretation. I could be wrong but this is what rings true to me. No one told me anything, but that doesnt mean im not able to critically think about something.

Again, i think you misunderstand my wording here. I am not equating a break with time. Time is a function that exists in any action you perform. The time it takes you to complete an action exists at any length. The break is just referring to a gameplay cycle, every game has one.

Waiting out the nightmare cycle in my theory is just a facet of exploration, just like waiting for your food to cook on the crockpot a facet of crafting. You are still present in the gameplay loop.

Again, this is where break gets misinterpreted.

I have tunnelvission on the gym because its what i have issue with from a game design standpoint, not a how long does this action take one. 

K

EDIT:

Enjoy this crude drawing i made on mobile to better help illustrate what i mean by a break

Oh i see i thought you had problems with the gembell too my bad. 

Also thanks for taking the time to respond to my arguements. Never have i ever been so invested in a conversation online and i just want to make sure that we both agree that this is just exchanging opinions and i hope you dont hate me for this. 

Also cool drawing. I kinda get what your saying about this minigame being too different than the rest of the game but its kinda Refreshing is it not? If every part of the game was the same that would make it more tiring in the long term right? 

[. . .]

dst strays further and further from being a survival game with every new minigame and skin  T^T

[sudoku]

2 hours ago, Gi-Go said:

Altho I do wanna add that since gym is very similar in gameplay value to chopping threes for exsample (you just click buttons or hold space)

I see alot of people echoing the same statement that the gameplay is the same because its just clicking. But clicking is only the input which allows you to perform actions. Clicking on a tree in dont starve allows you to collect wood, which can then be used to craft. A true gameplay comparison is mining, where you are clicking on a rock to collect stone in order to craft. You are experiencing the resource gathering part of gameplay.

However, clicking on a pig causes you to attack and you are now experiencing combat.

The gym has you clicking, so in other words entering an input for an action to be done, but the actual gameplay is not tied to anything other than exclusively filling your meter.

Talking outside of DST for a moment, if you were playing a first person shooter and you clicked your mouse to shoot another player in an online match would you compare this gameplay to clicking on a gun attatchement so that it is equipped on your gun? 

40 minutes ago, bagherthegamer said:

Oh i see i thought you had problems with the gembell too my bad. 

Also thanks for taking the time to respond to my arguements. Never have i ever been so invested in a conversation online and i just want to make sure that we both agree that this is just exchanging opinions and i hope you dont hate me for this. 

Also cool drawing. I kinda get what your saying about this minigame being too different than the rest of the game but its kinda Refreshing is it not? If every part of the game was the same that would make it more tiring in the long term right? 

No problem, thats the thing with the internet its hard to judge tone, but i am having fun too analyzing what makes Dont Starve the game it is. Perhaps my disappointment originally had me entitled to thinking i was the only one who can be right, but once that started to settle my disappointment became more of a math problem and i was trying to break down and solve it.

As for content being refreshing, i think it has to be a permutation on activites inside the gameplay loop, or else its essentially something seperate, like a minigame tends to be.

For example,  sailing is a permutation of exploring, and the concept of sailing the DST ocean is more in line of what i find to be refreshing when it was added,  no pun intended.

For what its worth i do think Klei had a hard time deciding what exactly would raise mightyness. They needed something  thematic, and of course strength is tied to combat thematically, but Wigfrid kind of already builds her meter in a way that you would expect Wolfgang to. So they had to find a further permutation that feels unique and maybe gembells, a specific tool you use in combat, didnt feel unique enough on its own to them. Either way, game design is hard, especially with limited resources.

[Blunty_x]

18 hours ago, Majestix said:

Other people like the minigame, and don't like staring at the screen while he lifts dumbbells. The solution is simple: if you dislike a character's core game mechanic, either just don't use it (it's perfectly feasible to play Wolfgang without ever building the stationary gym) or choose a different character. Why do you have to ask for the removal of a mechanic that is so easy to avoid?

The whole point of these reworks has been to give different characters unique mechanics, so that people can choose how they want to play the game. Old Wolfgang had no interesting unique mechanics, his "unique" mechanic was just "eat more than others, and be essentially invincible". New Wolfgang has some unique mechanics, so that people have an actual choice: if you like his play style, play Wolfgang, if you don't, play another 

A note about this refresh
When we started these character refreshes, we approached them by saying "This is what we're adding to a character to make people who like that character like them more. We made X more X-like". 

 

This was said by the Devs when it came down too wolfs refresh, so I think your take is a bad one. Don't like it don't play it! This goes against what the developers supposedly want. On one hand they did this knowing people were gonna be upset and decided to do it anyway, and now he is the only character that needs to do some tedious mini game to access his buff. No other survivor has that, you don't have too Hunt pipspooks to make Abigail excel at what she is meant to do. Wigfrid wasn't changed at all and was given a gimmick mechanic that you don't have to go for...but with wolf they decided it be a good idea to make you stop what what doing to pimp iron and then constantly carry an extra item to keep Meter while still having food or else tour Meter drops faster. It's horrendous