My small rant about lack of players scaling mechanics

[Eughstein]

Just wanted to talk about things i was thinking a lot of time recently.

DST lacks mechanics that scale on amount of players on server, most noticable one is hp of bosses.Yes i understand that they are called "raid bosses" for a reason but what if i just don't want to play with other people?Playing dst until moment i can kill them all in solo?Well yes it is because it's mostly what's happening rn and a lot of people are ok with that, but i really don't like how this whole thing of "raid boss" really makes life of new solo players way more painful than it should.

Also i love how there are some mechanics that do scale based on amount of players on server but make things only worse, for example amount of bottles from Pearl spawning or moongleams spawning, that's only i know but im sure there's some more.

Another thing i want to mention about boss hp not scaling is also fact that when there are 4 players or more bosses just straight up melt, when you play dst intended way with big enough group of people biggest challenge in boss fight is getting equipment for all people, boss fight itself becomes even faster than fights in original solo ds.And that's just talking about Wilson's damage, if there is Wolfgang, Warly, Wigfrid or Winona boss fights will take even way less time(well of course not counting Crab Kleithanksforthisamazingbossing but it's different topic).

Also besides amounts of hp of enemies it would be pretty cool if some boss attacks also would increase or decrease basing on amount of players fighting them(like we already have with Klaus), for example Bee Queen's Grumble bees and FW's woven shadows.

Only mechanics that scale on amount of players and are good is Klaus spawning Krampi and hound waves. 

[abrocator]

I think specifically raid bosses are fine. It’s easier for multiple players but there’s more loot to share. However a good solo player can get things for themselves very early (good meaning: a lot better than me).

[Juanasdf]

In my countless hours of solo DST I have never killed fuelweaver withouth cheesing him, I always thought it would be awesome if they made his healing, woven shadows and shadow hands spawned based on the amounts of players *near the atrium gate*

I agree with the way attacks should scale with the amounts of players, but not their HP.
Bosses only have a few attacks, once you learn them you can practice kiting through the fight, by the end you can end up dodging most of the attacks.
If you reduce the amount of HP the bosses have, then players (especially wolfgangs or wigfrids) will have an easier time facetanking bosses.

[maradyne]

I was messing with a system a while back that actively scales boss damage received based on the number of players near it. Idea being that you could lower the HP of some bosses, then let them scale up on their own...

It worked actually.

The only issue is the balance of it, when I got to asking around. Some people like things the way they are. Some want bosses to start where they are, then scale way higher. Some think that any system that can result in a higher number than current is unfair. Some think direct scaling is good. Some want a curve. Some think any scaling means that you should tell everyone else to go away to make the fight easier. Some want the bosses to deal more damage or attack faster (both of which aren't that hard to implement), but obviously others like... can't deal with that at all.

 

TL;DR doable but pain peko

[Dextops]

It’d be very hard to implement boss scaling for the reason that there are a lot of separate ways to implement them each with some problems but no matter what they’d do the people who wanted it done another way would be angry

[Eughstein]

3 minutes ago, Dextops said:

It’d be very hard to implement boss scaling for the reason that there are a lot of separate ways to implement them each with some problems but no matter what they’d do the people who wanted it done another way would be angry

We literally had Wolfgang rework

Also I think adding boss hp scaling being customisable in world options would be a good solution for different people's opinions 

[Dextops]

2 minutes ago, Eughstein said:

We literally had Wolfgang rework

Yeah that kinda proves my point

[Chesterxito]

900 hp bishops

raid bosses can be somewhat bearable on solo (as long as they don't spawn ten thousand minions like bee queen)

yet bishops

why

[dzzydzzy]

I agree that boss hp would be nice to scale according to amount of players in an area. But in case that is totally off the table in terms of being able to implement, what if bosses scaled according to how many of them had been slain already in the world, similar to hound waves. It would eliminate the ease of being able to farm certain bosses with the same flimsy strategies and incentivize more experienced players (the ones who would be able to survive long enough to face round 2+ of bosses) with an extra challenge. Just an extra idea.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

im not sure about that. Lets say they reduce by half the boss hp for solo players so BQ would have 11250 hp, why would we have avaraible catapults, followers, volt goat jelly and x2 damage characters? would be pointless and very flat instead of having more variety of playstyles, just everybody with their armor and weapon and pressing F until death

also, by the time a single player has every boss drop a group of players would still waiting to get 1 boss drop for each of them

what the game needs imo, are more interesting fights and mechanics that scales per player like klaus or aoe atacks like CC not stunlock based on damage like DF or CC 1st phase

[Evelo]

I play exclusively solo so I use the Automatic Health Adjust mod to alleviate this. I wish it was baseline with adjustable health scaling so you can play how you want to. I killed Fuel Weaver and Celestial Champion only once but it was also while using the mod so does it really count?

[goblinball]

If boss hp scales with player count, then their drops would need to scale too, like how it works in terraria. Otherwise, ppl in multiplayer would be spending way more resources per boss than ppl in singleplayer while getting the same amount of loot, and that’s even more unfair than what we have rn.

Boss loot scaling with the amount of players is an entirely separate can of worms, one which I don’t entirely understand the implications of and would be a massive change.

[maradyne]

1 hour ago, goblinball said:

If boss hp scales with player count, then their drops would need to scale too, like how it works in terraria. Otherwise, ppl in multiplayer would be spending way more resources per boss than ppl in singleplayer while getting the same amount of loot, and that’s even more unfair than what we have rn.

...actually, yea. Maybe this would alleviate some of the issues people had with resistance scaling.

Still balance disagreements to deal with, but hey, that's closer.

[Cloakingsumo198]

1 hour ago, goblinball said:

If boss hp scales with player count, then their drops would need to scale too, like how it works in terraria.

Deerclops now dropping 6 eyes.

[Spep]

I personally think that boss health is ok as is, albeit a bit stupid in both directions, solo players taking foreeeeever to kill anything at decent risk, while adding one (1) extra player lets me casually facetank dfly with 0 consequences somehow, maybe that is just the wanda/wigfrid combo speaking though.

Now, spawns on the other hand? total garbage. bee queen, toadstool, fuelweaver, crab king, all magnitudes more difficult than they should be solo solely because of the 3 billion things you have to get rid of in one way or another just so you are allowed to play the videogame again.

Please just tone down spawns while playing solo, i don't want toadstool to secretly be a weather pain toll booth anymore.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

24 minutes ago, Spep said:

i don't want toadstool to secretly be a weather pain toll booth anymore

since glass axe were added i dont waste more than 60% of a single weather pain when fighting toad

25 minutes ago, Spep said:

bee queen

there are 332498 ways to deal with her and her army like using your own army or splitting the queen from the drones

 

[Mike23Ua]

I certainly don’t speak for everyone- but I don’t think anyone playing this game on a Xbox console has the time or patience to invest literal hours into a boss fight- it’s tedious & to be quite honest.. it’s boring.

When I think about boss fights I think about those epic encounters from Arkham Asylum/City- With DST… I feel like I’m being punished for not bringing enough players to fight the darn things.

When you play Left 4 Dead or L4D 2 even if you play completely alone: the game still fills your team with bots- but could you imagine fighting that health sponge tank without any extra bullets being fired at it? That is essentially what boss fights in DST is.

Now in the very beginning this was fine- because DST was only being treated as a multiplayer stand alone expansion to the single player game: However- as of 2019.. DST started branching out into being a full fledged sequel with a continued story narration, new characters, new biomes, mobs, resources and more effectively turning it from DS with friends into more of a DS 2.

And the hilarious part in all of this? HAD DST been actually released as a DS 2 and it had an actual mode dedicated and intended for single player play- I bet a million dollars absolutely no one would complain about bosses & mobs being weaker and easier to kill..

Instead: we have a game that’s designed for multiple players that forces those who don’t like playing with people to spend hours grinding or coming up with creative ways to take down an enemy they could’ve killed in significantly shorter time had they just brought some friends.

Should DST allow solo players to have computer A.I. versions of playable characters join them in their quest?? Just being able to put a computer A.I. Wendy, & Wolfgang on your team would make a significant difference in these fights.

and there are many “coop” games that fill your team with A.I. when there is no humans to “coop” with..

Boss fights shouldn’t be hours long- or take weeks to set up for, I don’t want to fight a tank in Left 4 Dead without other guns helping melt it’s ridiculous health..

And that’s the problem DST has.

[Guille6785]

34 minutes ago, Spep said:

i don't want toadstool to secretly be a weather pain toll booth anymore.

use torches

[Ardcrumb]

4 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

I certainly don’t speak for everyone- but I don’t think anyone playing this game on a Xbox console has the time or patience to invest literal hours into a boss fight- it’s tedious & to be quite honest.. it’s boring.

When I think about boss fights I think about those epic encounters from Arkham Asylum/City- With DST… I feel like I’m being punished for not bringing enough players to fight the darn things.

When you play Left 4 Dead or L4D 2 even if you play completely alone: the game still fills your team with bots- but could you imagine fighting that health sponge tank without any extra bullets being fired at it? That is essentially what boss fights in DST is.

Now in the very beginning this was fine- because DST was only being treated as a multiplayer stand alone expansion to the single player game: However- as of 2019.. DST started branching out into being a full fledged sequel with a continued story narration, new characters, new biomes, mobs, resources and more effectively turning it from DS with friends into more of a DS 2.

And the hilarious part in all of this? HAD DST been actually released as a DS 2 and it had an actual mode dedicated and intended for single player play- I bet a million dollars absolutely no one would complain about bosses & mobs being weaker and easier to kill..

Instead: we have a game that’s designed for multiple players that forces those who don’t like playing with people to spend hours grinding or coming up with creative ways to take down an enemy they could’ve killed in significantly shorter time had they just brought some friends.

Should DST allow solo players to have computer A.I. versions of playable characters join them in their quest?? Just being able to put a computer A.I. Wendy, & Wolfgang on your team would make a significant difference in these fights.

and there are many “coop” games that fill your team with A.I. when there is no humans to “coop” with..

Boss fights shouldn’t be hours long- or take weeks to set up for, I don’t want to fight a tank in Left 4 Dead without other guns helping melt it’s ridiculous health..

And that’s the problem DST has.

I have never seen a public server defeat a boss in my 5+ years on dst. 

The one time I did it was me fighting deerclops

[ArubaroBeefalo]

19 minutes ago, Ardcrumb said:

I have never seen a public server defeat a boss in my 5+ years on dst. 

The one time I did it was me fighting deerclops

then you didnt played enough. I played less times that fingers i have in my hand in public servers and i have experience people killing klaus (i joined winter and revived on of the guys fighting him) and in other world we killed df and bee queen in autumn

[Mysterious box]

2 hours ago, Ardcrumb said:

I have never seen a public server defeat a boss in my 5+ years on dst. 

The one time I did it was me fighting deerclops

Um what? Most pub servers have people rushing dragonfly, the eye of terror/twins, ancient guardian and bee queen often it's even players soloing them.

Edit: maybe you just didn't notice they killed them did you notice a furnace, mask, or crown for example?

[Mike23Ua]

16 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Um what? Most pub servers have people rushing dragonfly, the eye of terror/twins, ancient guardian and bee queen often it's even players soloing them.

Edit: maybe you just didn't notice they killed them did you notice a furnace, mask, or crown for example?

On Xbox? No.. 

[Cheggf]

Boss health is way too low in multiplayer. If it were to scale at all it should only be up. But it shouldn't scale because it makes no sense that they randomly get more hp for no reason, it makes the fights inconsistent, and it would cause tension in multiplayer since failures in the fight would be blamed on other people scaling it up and not pitching in. And how would scaling even work? Based on everyone on the server so soloing is tedious in mp and you need to convince everyone who doesn't want to fight to help? Based on nearby players so people can come heal the boss if they coincidentally pass by? It has so many issues and doesn't really bring anything positive.

If you think the bosses have too much health for single player pick Wolfgang, and if it's still too high add some catapults. 

[Notecja]

8 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

im not sure about that. Lets say they reduce by half the boss hp for solo players so BQ would have 11250 hp, why would we have avaraible catapults, followers, volt goat jelly and x2 damage characters? would be pointless and very flat instead of having more variety of playstyles, just everybody with their armor and weapon and pressing F until death

also, by the time a single player has every boss drop a group of players would still waiting to get 1 boss drop for each of them

what the game needs imo, are more interesting fights and mechanics that scales per player like klaus or aoe atacks like CC not stunlock based on damage like DF or CC 1st phase

Pool of health don't force playstyle. Best example: old ancient guardian, who was just mostly pool of health and people were fighting him same as they were wilson with every character. 

What really forces playstyles and tactics is build, area and skills of boss.

Health mostly matters for lenght of fight, where with 6 players you can shred toadstool in few minutes, and 1 player might even four in-game days fight him (flingo + burning flowers)

[cybers2001]

I used to agree, but power creep has been a continuous thing since then. Not just Warly food buffs... I'm talking back before even ruins regeneration, which now lets you stack up green gems to help with rare resource management, or bundle wraps, which save time and resources on food management. Playing solo those days were true pain. Meanwhile in my current world, I haven't fought toadstool in over 3000 days. If I want more toad skin, I just dupe with deconstruction staves. Any other high HP boss I just fight in spring with voltgoat jelly.  

The bosses feel pretty fair to me right now. Hell, even with a group of players, I still prefer to solo most of them. Adding more people make some fights more chaotic, especially Klaus and Fuelweaver, from my experience.