The hostile flares are kinda ill designed

[Mysterious box]

5 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

You can kill deerclops with a spear...

An umbrella + football helmet can be acquired by just killing a few pigs... You reduce the amount of items from 2 to 1, while also giving up some advantages (protection). 

Deerclops is a 4,000 hp boss with fuelweaver levels of sanity drain, so unless you're somewhat skilled, it requires preparation.

I think the progression is balanced.

I wasn't implying you can't kill him with a spear. A umbrella and football helm are two slots and one of which asks you not to use your hand slot your not really giving up anything using the eyebrella.

Deerclops prep=campfire, armor, weapon or cheese the progression can't really be balanced when it's simply a better option that you can order like your at a drive thru it's no different from comparing a grass suit to a log suit a grass suit is better than nothing but clearly your going to use the log suit if you only had a choice between the two.

5 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

So maybe you think deerclops is too easy?

Would it satisfy you if he was made harder? 

Killing multiple deerclops on tentacles is going to be hard to reproduce consistently, even on tree guards. 

I think Klei wants everyone to have a decent chance at boss loot. It's why in dst Dragonfly was given a multiplayer friendly item (furnace), why multiple moose spawn, why bearer sheds his fur.

I think the grievance people have with this item could be mended if the means by which to summon deerclops was different. 

So what if he had his own spawning item? Like in terraria, how one spawns the eye of Cthulhu. Maybe an item that requires an ocuvigil, or a recipe added to the pseudoscience station? 

You aren't skipping years of waiting by waiting instead for glommer to poop. Would it be better if the player had to work for it?

My issue isn't that he's too easy surprisingly enough my issue is being able to summon him on demand if we're going that route it should be something expensive or require you do something special to trigger him like a special event(a sudo moon event if you will) if we're supposed to be ok with ignoring cooldowns we should at least earn it in it's current state I just see it as a slippery slope feels like soon we'll be calling all kinds of bosses to us with minimal effort.

[Antynomity]

if you don't want the drops don't use them i say

[lakhnish]

5 hours ago, cybers2001 said:

Technically yes, but can you tell me right now what day the 4th deerclops spawns, then? If you can't, then its spawn is effectively unpredictable for you.

Yes, yes I can.

Add 71.8 days after deerclops has been killed, that is when clops will spawn next if that day is a winter.

If that day doesn't fall into a winter, the then leftover days carry over until the next winter and is the reason why some winters doesn't have a deerclops unless you take preventive measures, i.e. make sure to kite and kill deerclops for several days to kill int on a day that would make it spawn in another winter.

A chart can be found here.

The folks on Jazzy's endless server are extremely meticulous about tracking this because they are an open dedicated server and they need deerclops eyeballs for the many folks on their server.

This is the drastic measure they have to take just so people can get eyeballs for the 1000+ days that server goes through and is a prime example for why this flare is a good item.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

6 hours ago, Evelo said:

4) The only interaction with the Ocean is spawning the Pirates and nothing else (ie. Malbatross)

malbatross atack us because we eat their food. With the new nets is easy to summon them

5 hours ago, cybers2001 said:

Not a meme, though. Having to commit 2 slots instead of one to stay dry is a pretty huge handicap.

i wont say huge handicap... you can use umbrella instead of eyebrella and wear the eyemask/football helmet/miner hat at night that you are suppose to carry with you so you are wasting the same ammount of slots. The only downside is being hit by lightnings which is ridiculous and not wearing walking cane at day time

[Capybara007]

this is how you get klei to nerf hflare until it becomes irrelevant until late game where eyes and meat dont matter

[cybers2001]

3 hours ago, lakhnish said:

Yes, yes I can.

Add 71.8 days after deerclops has been killed, that is when clops will spawn next if that day is a winter.

If that day doesn't fall into a winter, the then leftover days carry over until the next winter and is the reason why some winters doesn't have a deerclops unless you take preventive measures, i.e. make sure to kite and kill deerclops for several days to kill int on a day that would make it spawn in another winter.

A chart can be found here.

The folks on Jazzy's endless server are extremely meticulous about tracking this because they are an open dedicated server and they need deerclops eyeballs for the many folks on their server.

This is the drastic measure they have to take just so people can get eyeballs for the 1000+ days that server goes through and is a prime example for why this flare is a good item.

Alright well, congrats. You are among the 0.001% that predict deerclops spawns I guess. Most players can't even predict when seasons change or lose track of full moons, and for them the experience is unpredictable.

As much as I prefer not to bring extreme outliers into conversations about general game balance, however, it sounds like eyeballs are a fun lottery prize in Jazzy's server. Would be a shame to trivialize it, tbh.

[lakhnish]

29 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

Alright well, congrats. You are among the 0.001% that predict deerclops spawns I guess. Most players can't even predict when seasons change or lose track of full moons, and for them the experience is unpredictable.

Just because you didn't know it was a thing doesn't mean it was not a thing.

Not only that, the most subscribed mod on the steam workshop is Combined Status, which tracks seasons AND full moons, and it's currently at 5.5 million current subscribers. That's a lot of people!

[cybers2001]

Just now, lakhnish said:

Just because you didn't know it was a thing doesn't mean it was a thing.

Not only that, the most subscribed mod on the steam workshop is Combined Status to track said seasons, with currently 5.5 million current subscribers. That's a lot of people!

That's my point.

[lakhnish]

3 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

That's my point.

Considering that you made several posts in this thread saying that it can't be predicted when they can (even if players don't know it), I would disagree.

[cybers2001]

10 minutes ago, lakhnish said:

Considering that you made several posts in this thread saying that it can't be predicted when they can (even if players don't know it), I would disagree.

You're getting too hung up on semantics. Would you be happier if I changed unpredicted to unexpected? I know Deerclops is on a timer, so yes, technically he can be predicted. But there's a huge difference about being able to do something and doing something. Just like how most players can anticipate a season change, yet fail to do so. It's kind of pedantic to say that players should know when every Deerclops is spawning because of a specific edge case where hundreds of viewers are investing the mental energy to count down the days on a particular server.

Let me ask you this, why do you suppose Klei chose 71.8 as the timer, when everything else is on 10, 15, 20 day increments?

[Mysterious box]

2 hours ago, Capybara007 said:

this is how you get klei to nerf hflare until it becomes irrelevant until late game where eyes and meat dont matter

How in the world is this possible when their items that are the best in their respective categories? 

3 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

i wont say huge handicap... you can use umbrella instead of eyebrella and wear the eyemask/football helmet/miner hat at night that you are suppose to carry with you so you are wasting the same ammount of slots. The only downside is being hit by lightnings which is ridiculous and not wearing walking cane at day time

If it's not a big handicap then why do we need to make the eye so farmable if lesser methods are so effective?

[archidus]

10 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

It's kind of pedantic to say that players should know when every Deerclops is spawning because of a specific edge case where hundreds of viewers are investing the mental energy to count down the days on a particular server.

Who said they should know? They're just saying you can tell when Deerclops is returning, not that you should. 

And in any case that has nothing to do with the topic. The issue would be the scarcity of eyeballs at the beginning of the game, because that's the only thing the hostile flare is trying to address. 

14 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

why do you suppose Klei chose 71.8 as the timer, when everything else is on 10, 15, 20 day increments?

Probably because they didn't want it to look too 'fixed', but also didn't want it to be fully random otherwise it could create a lot of winters without Deerclopses which would frustrate some players

3 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

How in the world is this possible when their items that are the best in their respective categories? 

Tbh in a solo world, some people would consider the second deerclops already irrelevant because they already got the Eyebrella from the first encounter and not everyone likes/spends time building Houndius Shootius. And meat is found everywhere.

[Mysterious box]

Just now, archidus said:

Tbh in a solo world, some people would consider the second deerclops already irrelevant because they already got the Eyebrella from the first encounter and not everyone likes/spends time building Houndius Shootius. And meat is found everywhere.

Then the flare itself is irrelevant in this scenario but as this is a multiplayer game that's more so where the focus is.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

20 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

If it's not a big handicap then why do we need to make the eye so farmable if lesser methods are so effective?

the eye is also used in hondious which can be obtained every 20 days

[Mysterious box]

1 minute ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

the eye is also used in hondious which can be obtained every 20 days

Call me crazy but I doubt that's what most people use them for.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

1 minute ago, Mysterious box said:

Call me crazy but I doubt that's what most people use them for.

i don't care why people want to use them. Im just telling facts to answer your question

[Mysterious box]

3 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

i don't care why people want to use them. Im just telling facts to answer your question

I mean it's an answer but I'm not really sure if it's a good one considering the implication that the eye isn't "that" good.

[Capybara007]

28 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

How in the world is this possible when their items that are the best in their respective categories? 

what are you even saying

[archidus]

4 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Then the flare itself is irrelevant in this scenario but as this is a multiplayer game that's more so where the focus is.

I think that's the point.

Hostile Flares (when used to summon Deerclops) are mostly beneficial in multiplayer worlds because they will allow the entire server to reap the rewards of slaying Deerclops. Well, not entire server, I guess that depends on the number of players. Anyways there will be no more squandering over who gets to keep the Eyebrella because you can get more than one. 

And yes, pretty much everyone knows there are other options for fighting rain and heat, but it's obvious that everyone would rather get the premium option instead of making do with an unoptimized option. If you want to survive spring with just an umbrella and a hat, then by all means go and do that, I'm pretty sure those items exist for that reason (especially for people who join the server DURING spring or summer), but what's the problem with letting 2-people worlds be able to enjoy the glory of having 2 Eyebrellas after the first winter?

Again this is just like the character swap mechanic. You shouldn't feel bad that you're fighting a boss with Wes or Wilson instead of a volt-goat-jellied Wolfgang. But you also shouldn't feel bad that other people do that. That's just enforcing your playstyle into the entire community.

"Well if I don't want to use this item/mechanic then nobody else should be allowed to".

[Mysterious box]

2 minutes ago, Capybara007 said:

what are you even saying

I'm not sure how to respond I feel like I was pretty clear.

[cybers2001]

32 minutes ago, archidus said:

Who said they should know? They're just saying you can tell when Deerclops is returning, not that you should.

And in any case that has nothing to do with the topic.

You're telling me what has been my point since the start of this thread.

1) Yes, Giants should be unexpected events for players. That's part of the experience.

2) It absolutely has everything to do with this topic, which is about the overall design of the flare and how it alters that experience.

Quote

The issue would be the scarcity of eyeballs at the beginning of the game, because that's the only thing the hostile flare is trying to address. 

Wait... what? What gives you the impression that the hostility flare was introduced specifically for this purpose? People have been suggesting such a flare for weeks before it got introduced, but it was mostly as a request to be able to spawn pirate raids.

[Mysterious box]

2 minutes ago, archidus said:

I think that's the point.

Hostile Flares (when used to summon Deerclops) are mostly beneficial in multiplayer worlds because they will allow the entire server to reap the rewards of slaying Deerclops. Well, not entire server, I guess that depends on the number of players. Anyways there will be no more squandering over who gets to keep the Eyebrella because you can get more than one. 

And yes, pretty much everyone knows there are other options for fighting rain and heat, but it's obvious that everyone would rather get the premium option instead of making do with an unoptimized option. If you want to survive spring with just an umbrella and a hat, then by all means go and do that, I'm pretty sure those items exist for that reason (especially for people who join the server DURING spring or summer), but what's the problem with letting 2-people worlds be able to enjoy the glory of having 2 Eyebrellas after the first winter?

So how long till we get to the point where we go no boss should have cooldowns because it's unfair that their drops can only be used by one person in multiplayer then?

 

5 minutes ago, archidus said:

Again this is just like the character swap mechanic. You shouldn't feel bad that you're fighting a boss with Wes or Wilson instead of a volt-goat-jellied Wolfgang. But you also shouldn't feel bad that other people do that. That's just enforcing your playstyle into the entire community.

"Well if I don't want to use this item/mechanic then nobody else should be allowed to".

It's more a question of immersion and limits that argument can be used in some pretty slippery context for example if in the next update Klei released a new item that was available from day one that one shot everything someone could make the very same argument and they really wouldn't be wrong but would you be okay with it? 

[archidus]

7 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

You're telling me what has been my point since the start of this thread.

1) Yes, Giants should be unexpected events for players. That's part of the experience.

2) It absolutely has everything to do with this topic, which is about the overall design of the flare and how it alters that experience.

They should be, and for a lot of people they are, because not everyone counts those 71.8 days. They just expect to find a Deerclops and a Bearger during winter and autumn, respectively. When exactly they will spawn is kinda irrelevant because unless it's your first winter/autumn, you know something is coming and you need to be somewhat ready to deal with it.

Adding hostile flares don't suddenly make bosses unexpected. It just allows people to summon extra bosses, as I'm pretty sure the yearly deerclops will still spawn regardless of whether another one was summoned through the flare. This is why I think the talk about 'how expected the bosses are' is offtopic. 

2 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

So how long till we get to the point where we go no boss should have cooldowns because it's unfair that their drops can only be used by one person in multiplayer then?

But there is a cooldown. Flares are not free. You still need glommer goop to make them, and unless you're creating full moons every night with Wickerbottom's new book, that will take a while. And even if you do, it will still take a while because that's only 2 goops a day. 

Maybe the problem is how easy it is to get that goop? Or maybe how cheap the flare is? If that's the problem then let's just change the recipe, but don't remove the flare.

6 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

if in the next update Klei released a new item that was available from day one that one shot everything someone could make the very same argument and they really wouldn't be wrong but would you be okay with it? 

Now that's a hyperbolic example lol I'm sure if said item existed, it would require a lot of effort from the player.

Are you seriously comparing "spawning more bosses because I can craft this new item" to "I can kill everything with a single strike"?

 

[maxwell_winters]

15 minutes ago, archidus said:

Now that's a hyperbolic example lol I'm sure if said item existed, it would require a lot of effort from the player.

I wouldn't be so sure about it considering that we almost got Lunar Grimoire and Rain Rituals for ridiculously cheap price. And those 2 books almost completely nullify major mechanics of the game. 

[Captain_Rage]

17 hours ago, sylvia wander o said:

Hi! I'm aware of the different items in this game and I use a rain coat when I can. This does not change that, in a multiplayer environment, it has never felt good for a singular player to get access to the one piece of rain protection that doesn't require you to change how you play. The design of such an item is questionable, of course, but it's never felt good to simply use another item because only one person in the 6 person server gets to keep the best one.

Hii. Well, you are already playing differently and have to change your play style if you play together with others. Initial resources will be more scarce. In that sense it makes things more difficult than when playing alone, at least in the beginning.

Can't say I share that it 'never felt good' that only one player gets to have an Eyebrella on the first winter. I gladly resort to any of the alternatives, playing as Willow.

You can switch the item around. You can help each other in different ways until next winter where a second Eyebrella may be obtained. The funny / sad / scary thing is the pigeon mentality simply continues even if everybody gets a top tier item right at the start. Now the crowd only wants more. Soon they complain that the game is stale and there is nothing to do (because they already have the most convenient items). Now they want more updates with even more convience and will complain everything in the game is obsolete.

If you play around with underused items DST becomes more fun, especially on crowded servers. There are plenty of items to go around. That is my opinion.

There is actually quite a lot to do in DST, which is not artificial progress. Rushing and spamming farms in one place makes for a rather boring experience. Wandering the world and foraging is rather fun, morseso when you have a Beefalo.