True Randomness In The Game Is Not Fun

[goatt]

I killed Glommer every night during moon storm for over a year, and killed 300+ maybe 400+ Krampus and didnt get a sack. (I got 200 glommer goops from this cruel event)

I killed every single beef in a herd of 7, and got no horn, when the drop chance is supposed to be 33%

I mined over 200 stone fruit and got no sprout.

I killed toadstool 4 times, and got 4 mushlight blueprint and 4 red cap blueprint

I killed Mac Camp as soon as they spawn during the entire winter, but only got 1 tusk, no tam.

I traced suspicious dirt 5 times in late game trying to find an ewecus, but it was always koelaphant or varg.

 

All above are real events that happened to me. Sometimes, it's just grinding RNG and it's not fun.

I need pseudo-random algorithms to save me from this desperation.

 

We have so many pseudo-randomness already built in. The biome generations are all pseudorandom.

For example

- the portal always spawns at a place with lots of grass, twigs, berries and flowers

-The water logged biome always spawns near shallow ocean

- All the different biomes in cave are neighbors of mud turf

- Hound wave attacks interval has a max and min limit.

- All kinds of set pieces giving hints

- Location of hutch, chester, and stagehand.

- The total number of resources.

- etc. etc.

 

Pseudo-randomness brings the game replay-ability, but it also eliminates super bad lucks and bring a perception of fairness to players. Why not bring the same thing to loot drops?

 

Edit: not complaining about drop rate. Drop rate is fine with me. Only complaining about the negative impact of true randomness.

Edit2: I'm not complaining about not getting all the loot I'm supposed to get. I'm complaining about subjective experience where bad luck destroys a perception of fair game and filled me with disappointment after lengthy dedicated effort (twice or 3 times more) with no fruit.

[Pruinae]

- You can do Krampus farms with Wickerbottom's Sleepytime Stories + Birds of the World. Make the farm at the moon island for maximum efficiency.
- No way to really work around Beef RNG that I know of...
- You can also use Wickerbottom's "Horticulture, Abridged" to farm stone fruits + gunpowder to open them (you do have to drop them one by one, but ends up being faster anyway. Maxwell minions are also pretty fast).
- Misery toadstool is guaranteed to drop the glowcap, if you you're willing to kill it 4 times might as well just kill the misery version.
- The best way to have Mac Tusk drops is by having the world generate with 4, you can use mods to force this.
- If I'm not mistaken, you can sleep in a tent to force suspicious piles to spawn, making the search for a specific one more efficient. The later in the world is, the easier it is to find a non-koalephant.

RNG can suck, but in DST there's plenty of ways to alleviate the impact it can have over you.

[goatt]

23 minutes ago, Pruinae said:

RNG can suck, but in DST there's plenty of ways to alleviate the impact it can have over you.

I know. And I know all the workaround you mentioned. Because I'm experienced and I'm knowledgeable, my complaint and reasoning has its value.

Just because you have niche workaround for those bad lucks, doesn't mean bad luck is no longer a bad factor in the game play.

In competitive gaming that I know, pseudo-randomness is implemented for fairness. This game is not always competitive, but its bad luck can suck really bad sometimes. And all of it can be avoided by implementing some sort of pseudo-random number generator (PRNG), without forcing people to go through specific options.

[SapoLover]

1 hour ago, Pruinae said:

You can do Krampus farms with Wickerbottom

I don't like the idea of having to play or change to an specific character to get better chanches to get one of the most useful items in the game.

I think it would be better to get a guaranted Krampus sack for killing enraged Klaus. (I've never tried to fight enraged Klaus,  so I don't know if it is  challenging enough)

(Now I'm wondering if it was intended to farm Krampus Sacks easier with Wickerbottom or if it was accidental)

[Spino43]

If you need to use a mod just to circumvent a bad RNG (mactusk), it's pretty bad game design imo.

I don't mind the character-specific farms though, Celestial Portal exists.

As for suspicious dirt piles, you can change the settings in "surprise hunt" to more or lots. Koalaphant loot is basically useless in late game anyway.

Stone sprout being that rare is justified imo, since you can just plant it and it will grow stone fruits infinitely without the need to fertilize. You can use gunpowder, weather pains, or even Bearger's charging attack to break them in massive amount.

About Beefalo Horn, hmm, I suppose bump the drop chance to 50%? A bad world seed can leave your world with very few beefs early on.

[goatt]

@Spino43 I think the drop rate is acceptable. And I'm not complaining about drop rate. Just bad luck exists in the game and it can suck very bad, especially in grindy tasks. Sometimes, the actually effort needed is 3,4,5 times or even more than what is needed theoretically in those grindy tasks. For example, the killing of toadstools and the years long farming of Krampus sack.

[GelatinousCube]

I get a ton of sacks from Klaus *shrug*, maybe turn winters feast on and set Klaus to max for easier krampus sack farming? You can fight him every ten or so days and you get a bunch of other goodies as well like boss drops and festive lights.

[Wonz]

I like how you can get guaranteed pig skin if you turn pig into pigman. But how would you make mctusk drop his tusk? Kill him with hammer only? Leave him candy like taffy so they damage his teeth so they fall out more easily?

[Owlrust]

There's a balance that needs to be had for sure. True randomness can be a roadblock for skill and planning in the bigger picture, but can also make things predictable enough to barely call it random if done too much. Not sure what my personal take is on it though, I never really gave randomness a thought before; I just took things as a matter of fact.

[ALCRD]

2 minutes ago, Wonz said:

I like how you can get guaranteed pig skin if you turn pig into pigman. But how would you make mctusk drop his tusk? Kill him with hammer only? Leave him candy like taffy so they damage his teeth so they fall out more easily?

These are hilarious ideas that would somewhat fit in DST

[Mike23Ua]

With all events always active 24/7 now, wouldn’t you just be able to get MacTusk tusk and tams from sleeping under a WinterFeast tree?

You can also apparently get them from the ocean using a pinch winch on sunken chests.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

3 hours ago, Spino43 said:

If you need to use a mod just to circumvent a bad RNG (mactusk), it's pretty bad game design imo.

set them to more or lots. Is even more interesting since you need yo fight more than 1 at a time in a little area instead of exploiting their AI in a huge biome

[Eughstein]

Luck issue

[DajeKotlyar]

(use gunpowder or slime to explode stone fruits)

[Ornge]

This thread got me thinking, why is it that the mactusk doesn't always drop the tusk? There's no good reason I can think of other than some crap about "game needs to be hard so lets lock some items behind a random drop chance". Mactusk is already a really special enemy that you will barely ever see so why not make the special tusk a guaranteed drop. if someone goes out of their way to hunt for mactusk then they should get the item they're looking for. No reason to lock it behind rng. It seems so odd that this is still a thing in this game. really feels like a feature from a bygone era

[ArubaroBeefalo]

15 hours ago, goatt said:

I killed Glommer every night during moon storm for over a year, and killed 300+ maybe 400+ Krampus and didnt get a sack. (I got 200 glommer goops from this cruel even

one of the best items in the game. Is more like a trophy than something you must have. Klaus has 10% drop chance or something like that

15 hours ago, goatt said:

I killed every single beef in a herd of 7, and got no horn, when the drop chance is supposed to be 33%

bad luck but doesnt matter because you got enough wool to craft a winter hat. Adapt, is a survival game

15 hours ago, goatt said:

I mined over 200 stone fruit and got no sprout

only 5 stacks...with the ammount of stonefruit you get in no time do you expect to have their better version after opening few? Also wait to have atleast 1 chest full of them and use weather pain to open all of them

15 hours ago, goatt said:

I killed toadstool 4 times, and got 4 mushlight blueprint and 4 red cap blueprint

misery says hi

15 hours ago, goatt said:

i killed Mac Camp as soon as they spawn during the entire winter, but only got 1 tusk, no tam

again, adapt. No having a tam isnt blocking any kind of content, isnt needed

15 hours ago, goatt said:

I traced suspicious dirt 5 times in late game trying to find an ewecus, but it was always koelaphant or varg

ewecus are a punishment and for that the chances are low in early days (and i think 0 in the very firsts days) and higher in old worlds

every videogame have probabilities so a game that was designed to be a "rogelite" wont be the exception 

[Captain_Rage]

The odds in Don't Starve Together are really not bad. You end with the loot you desire simply by playing the game. They are not detrimental in any way. In a few other games, sure, but not this one.

[Wonz]

1 hour ago, Captain_Rage said:

The odds in Don't Starve Together are really not bad. You end with the loot you desire simply by playing the game. They are not detrimental in any way. In a few other games, sure, but not this one.

Well, I once got a tusk after a first try and another winter I was visiting mctusk as efficiently often as possible and ended with 3 tam o's and no tusks. Odds are odds, they're just really bad because there's nothing you can do to alter your luck. I understand random loot for ancient guardian because you can get the rewards with no rng if you keep going deeper into ruins and just craft it from stuff you 100% time find there. But there's no other reliable source of Tusks. Outside those two I can get the cane only from treasures with a 10% chance which you locate with a 1/3 chance through bottles that spawn with 1-2 days gaps which you might miss if you're not cheating with mods that show you things outside of the screen which would mean that by average you would find the right chest after 1.5*10*3=45 days if you luckily or through cheating didn't miss any bottle.

[SomebodyRandom]

6 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

With all events always active 24/7 now, wouldn’t you just be able to get MacTusk tusk and tams from sleeping under a WinterFeast tree?

You can also apparently get them from the ocean using a pinch winch on sunken chests.

You get walking canes from those, no Tusks. No Tam in Sunken Chests either. Although you can get green gems from both so you could deconstruct them if you need the tusks.

[Well-met]

Absolutely disagree.

Low drop chances can be what keeps a long game going. It would be extremely boring to get every good item within the first year.

[Lumine04]

"True randomness isn't fun"

Well I hope you never touch an mmorpg. No but in all serious a couple of these items that you mentioned, like Krampus sack, are supposed to be an insanely rare backpack.  Also you can tune settings to suit your needs. I put resources on more when I play in a large group all the time, its not cheating, the game gives you the options and you still get achievements so-

 

[axxel]

So, what is the exact problem? Do you want these drops as trophies or do you need them for easier gameplay? If I have to guess by reading between the lines the purpose the items is just owning them in your eyes (Gotta Catch 'Em All). I wouldn't advise to have that kind of trait because -if I read all the posts about resetting and rollbacks- it will only hurt your soul. Obtaining your wanted items through other ways like mods or the console makes you feel betrayed by yourself. If you have something awesome only to be killed by a random bee makes you furious! Nah, don't be like that. It's not good for you. It seems you are pretty focused on routine grinding (not a fun part anyways) and it means you've done pretty much in that world which would be your problem.

If you seek a challenge by collecting rare items legally, here's my advice. Take your time for every task! Don't overdo it, be disciplined and do your item grind for a few times, then stop and do another task. Don't play too long, pause and take a walk outside. The game is fun, you are just bored of following your set routine!

 

 

.

[Cheggf]

12 hours ago, DeadWhereX said:

I don't like the idea of having to play or change to an specific character to get better chanches to get one of the most useful items in the game.

If it really is "one of the most useful items in the game" why are you so opposed to spending a measly 2 purple gems to get it? 

12 hours ago, DeadWhereX said:

I think it would be better to get a guaranted Krampus sack for killing enraged Klaus. (I've never tried to fight enraged Klaus,  so I don't know if it is  challenging enough)

You are not supposed to fight enraged Klaus. And I'm pretty sure he doesn't heal when he enraged so you'd need to make him start doing that, screwing with the fight just so 0 people can use it to get the most overrated item in the game. 

[goatt]

10 hours ago, Owlrust said:

True randomness can be a roadblock for skill and planning in the bigger picture, but can also make things predictable enough to barely call it random if done too much.

I think this is a very good point. I think a balance need to be had here via pseudo-randomness between maintaining feeling of randomness and feeling of meeting expectation.

2 hours ago, Well-met said:

Absolutely disagree.

Low drop chances can be what keeps a long game going. It would be extremely boring to get every good item within the first year.

You have completely missed the point. I explicitly pointed out I’m fine with the dropping rate. 4 times road is 20 days waiting time + 3 days fighting time, 4 times. 200 glommer goop is another 100 days without fruit. This is 3,4 and even 5 times lower than normal drop rate of 1%, in other words, it’s 0.33%, 0.25%, 0.2% or lower equivalence.

it’s not a result of low drop rate. It’s a result of bad luck. I’m not interested in changing drop rate, only protecting myself and other players from ridiculously bad luck.

[SapoLover]

48 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

"one of the most useful items in the game"

Yes, I've been thinking, and it's not super necessary. But, is very confortable to be able to bring more things for more situations, or collect more materials before having to go to base again.

48 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

why are you so opposed to spending a measly 2 purple gems to get it?

Again, I don't like the idea of having to change characters just to get that 1% chance more times. Also, I like the florid portal.

53 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

You are not supposed to fight enraged Klaus. And I'm pretty sure he doesn't heal when he enraged so you'd need to make him start doing that, screwing with the fight just so 0 people can use it to get the most overrated item in the game. 

Sorry, I don't understand this part. English is not my main lenguage.