The Problem With New era of DS

[Dextops]

12 hours ago, Karitha said:

Minecraft: Only reason to progress is curiosity. But because of the game's sandbox elements, it's a good idea to discover and nails it in that way.

Imma be honest minecraft is not a good example for a survival sandbox game. At least for me it's extremely boring and mojang employees black out from exhaustion after doing 10 minutes of work. I am extremely thankful klei devs working so hard. don't really have anything else to say for the rest of the post.

[Just-guy]

13 hours ago, Karitha said:

Minecraft: Only reason to progress is curiosity. But because of the game's sandbox elements, it's a good idea to discover and nails it in that way.

The survival aspect of Minecraft is very weak because of how easy is to regain health, mass produce food, or dealing with enemies, the main thing of it is the sandbox elements and the open sky to build.

The combat in that game is quite bland with only 4 existing weapons and only two of them being useful for fighting.

[Guille6785]

2 hours ago, ButterStuffed said:

This confuses me. You appear to be against a combat system tune-up, then admit that a lot of those options in said combat system are underwhelming and need some tuning. Wouldn't the combat system tune-up you're arguing against fix this?

I don't understand why this isn't relevant to the discussion when it is one of the main arguments for a combat overhaul.

combat rework =/= combat improvements

I'm not against anything that makes the existing systems better but I am against grabbing a system that already has a solid foundation and redoing it unjustifiably

[Cheggf]

14 hours ago, Karitha said:

Terraria: Game have two main stage (pre/after Wall of flesh). Game is getting easier until you kill WoF and it gets hard again when you kill that boss. But game keeps pre-WoF bosses easy, so you will feel how strong was you. Best formula in a game I ever seen, progression is could be called "orgasmic" if you mind me.

Terraria has the worst progression ever. Nothing you get lasts more than 5 minutes because you are just constantly grabbing new things. Having a lot of fun with these 3 unique weapons that you can use in different ways? Well you just found something with 4x the damage in a really monotonous "hold left click" way of using, so there's no reason at all to use any of them any more! And if you think any fights are fun you better be keeping everything you ever obtain and organizing it by power so you can downrank yourself because now you're killing all the bosses in 2 seconds!

14 hours ago, Karitha said:

Minecraft: Only reason to progress is curiosity. But because of the game's sandbox elements, it's a good idea to discover and nails it in that way.

That's Don't Starve. You don't need thulecite suits, ender chests, magiluminesence, shulker boxes, dark swords, netherite gear, boss drops, or potions & enchantments, but they're really useful to have. 

[dzzydzzy]

Overall it sounds like OP is just bored of the game from being used to it (like so many of the other posts I've seen on this forum) My response will always simply be, play with Uncompromising Mode mod. Most people who find the game unchallenging is because they're vets and have simply outgrown the challenges of dealing with the unknown. Uncomp brings lots of the elements people seem to be asking directly for of additional seasonal bosses, added seasonal stresses, surprise events, new kiting patterns, new enemies, etc. So give that a go. 

Also the title "New era of DS" from what point do you mark the "downhill" of DST exactly? because you've complained about the lack of forced challenges because of all "new" bosses being raid bosses, but a player can survive for 890 days without killing a single boss other than Deerclops & Bearger (and even those you can easily just lure away from base and forget about) Antlion can be left alone, and the player would only need to avoid cave-ins and sinkholes. Moose/Goose, Dfly, ancient Guardian, Shadow Pieces, AFW, Toadstool, BQ, Eyes, Malba, Crab King, Celestial Champion can all be completely avoided. Some of these bosses introduced in RoG, others only as recent as 2021. So I'm just curious if you ever liked the game in the first place, and if you've been having such a miserable time since, why are you still playing?

[Mike23Ua]

It’s no secret at all that DST is a vastly different game from solo DS, DS had an adventures mode, it had areas of the game that forced the player into “Chokepoints” you could not simply “Walk” through a Biome of Pigmen protecting their torches, you needed to apply some armor to traverse through whilst being punched for trespassing in their torch rituals.. you needed to make sure you brought the right resources for traversing the area, such as- light sources for chapter 5 Darkness, or.. Gas Masks to travel Hamlets poisoned biomes, with DST- they throw all of that out the window in favor of completely optional ridiculously high health time sinks of Boss fight after boss fight, after boss fight…

Thats NOT and Never was what I enjoyed about DS, and it shouldn’t be what I enjoy about DST either.. JoeW teases an exciting 2023 Roadmap, I’m waiting for said Roadmap to see if DST ever returns back to being anything like what I enjoyed about Solo DS- Otherwise…

They can just do me one tiny favor & release one more good single player DLC expansion that delivers the kind of experience I enjoyed with DS’s Adventures Mode & it’s DLCs.. & I’ll give up all hope on DST.

 

[slendyproject]

13 hours ago, Guille6785 said:

I don't see how making combat even more complex would make it any less confusing and unintuitive for newer players

Well luckily you dont have to imgaine it because because I didnt say that simply making it more complex would make it less confusing. I do believe however is that it could be more complex than it is now while also being much more intuitive. Like for starters attack animations need to actually convey the range of the attack so that new players dont feel constantly cheated and confused by the game early on. Nightmare creature attack animations seem especially bad in this regard.

So heres a simple thought experiment: Do you think that the current feastclops fight is better or worse for new players than the regular deerclops fight was before its attack range got tuned to be in line with the animation? Because current feastclops is both more complex with having an additional attack to react to, and more intuitive for new players because the first thing they try against deerclops is dodge behind it since the animation always encouraged that.

I really dislike this sentiment on the forum that if any suggestion comes up to make combat more engaging everyone pretends that it will involve a stamina bar, an ultimate ability for every character and seven different weapon classes, and it will both "ruin" dst and make new players confused.

 

8 hours ago, Guille6785 said:

far more than frankly any other game I've ever played

Half of these are not options. This isnt even that many and you are really stretching it. I get to bring friends to gain an advantage in this multiplayer video game? Thats not an option thats what the game is designed around.Outsmart mobs by restricting their movement? Literally every video game has this that has combat with mobs. Freezing, sleeping and panic are literally just stuns, again most games that feature combat not only have these but give them much more depth than this game does. Thats not necessarily a bad thing but lets not pretend that there is a deep intrticate combat system here. Im not gonna go over all of them but like you either dont play many video games or again, really stretching this list.

[GuardDuty]

Praising other games in the DST forum seems like a bad idea, so many players in the forum hold DST in high regard and definitely not regconize that other games have executed certain aspects better than DST. 
With that being said, Terraria's progression system works very well for a block-based building game, with more room to breathe, and buildings whereas it may not be as suitable for a  survival game with building element like DST. 
The issue of new players (including the devs on stream) struggling with the learning curve and lack of instructions is such a prevalent problem for so many years, I don't know why it was not in their best interest to address it to retain more players and keep the player-base growing. Implementing more comprehensive tutorials or guides, or improving the in-game UI first to make it more intuitive and easier to understand should be a priority task.

[Karitha]

4 hours ago, dzzydzzy said:

So I'm just curious if you ever liked the game in the first place, and if you've been having such a miserable time since, why are you still playing?

Good question. First time I was playing game, I was wearing armors to kill even spiders and pigmans. Now I'm able to kill bigger guys without armor. This is not because I'm good at it. Believe me, I'm a really bad gamer. I'm a person that prepare for hours for 10 minutes fights. But DST don't make me feel like that anymore. So the new updates are coming are builded around armor and weapons. Same weapons with higher damage, same armors with higher protection. The only real change is textures. That's what changed for me over years. But the game's style was the thing that keep me over years.

[Gashzer]

27 minutes ago, Karitha said:

Good question. First time I was playing game, I was wearing armors to kill even spiders and pigmans. Now I'm able to kill bigger guys without armor. This is not because I'm good at it. Believe me, I'm a really bad gamer. I'm a person that prepare for hours for 10 minutes fights. But DST don't make me feel like that anymore. So the new updates are coming are builded around armor and weapons. Same weapons with higher damage, same armors with higher protection. The only real change is textures. That's what changed for me over years. But the game's style was the thing that keep me over years.

Yeah i agree with what your saying about the armour, like the new dread armour is just the same old barebones armour... nothing special to it at all, atleast for now.

In singleplayer DS we have the vortox cloak that acts as a backpack and armour and looks cool as f, the living artifact that makes you iron man for a couple minutes. Which is Pure Awesomeness! 

Klei need to get more wacky and creative with their body slot items. The enlightened crown is great but bone armour and helm are practical but boring in terms of effects. 

Edit: man i wish klei would just port over DS:shipwrecked and hamlet to dst! Just raise the hp of mobs and bosses and messy port over the rest. Even with bugs for days it would be so awesome.

[Mr Giggio]

19 hours ago, Guille6785 said:

when in reality there's a ton of room for improvement in a lot of the fights, the raid bosses are beautifully designed for this kind of thing if you take the time to look into it further

Thats pretty much what I think, also

Like beef strats, snurtle Shell parrying, staves and singular char perk related like  shadow bishops last when Wendy/Wortox. The veterans always have a lotta Room to improve and explore 

[Hupo]

I think it's easy to answer.

DST is DST.

Terraria is Terraria.

The game is not easier, you become skilled.

If you think it is too easy, try this. Shut down all the mods. Only night. Only winter. No resources. Pick Wes. Kill all the bosses in 70 days.

If this is still too easy for you. 

Try another game

[goblinball]

On 3/9/2023 at 7:41 AM, Karitha said:

Terraria: Game have two main stage (pre/after Wall of flesh). Game is getting easier until you kill WoF and it gets hard again when you kill that boss. But game keeps pre-WoF bosses easy, so you will feel how strong was you. Best formula in a game I ever seen, progression is could be called "orgasmic" if you mind me.

I’m sorry I know this thread is about DST and not terraria but this is just so so wrong.

Terraria progression is genuinely horrendous. Prehm is actually pretty solid, you can fight them in any order, and nothing is “mandatory” to enter hm. (Skeletron is needed later but you can fight him literally whenever you want even in hm so it’s fine) This is good since it’s an open world game so the progression kinda has to be open too.

But then in HM the progression just takes a complete 180 and now becomes absurdly linear. You need to suffer through early hm, then beat mech bosses, then plantera, then golem, then cultist, then celestial pillars, then ml all in that order. And that’s just the mainline boss progression!!! Almost all other hm content is locked behind some sort of boss. You can’t do EoL until post plantera, you can’t do Martian madness until post golem, OoA tiers are locked behind bosses, etc. This is bad, since it goes completely against the point of having an open world (and also just clashes with prehm progression so much, you’d think hm and prehm are 2 different games but they aren’t). What’s the point of having an open world the player can explore and do whatever they want with, if you’re going to railroad them to do the exact progression you want them to do?

[Just-guy]

On 3/10/2023 at 5:04 AM, Karitha said:

Good question. First time I was playing game, I was wearing armors to kill even spiders and pigmans. Now I'm able to kill bigger guys without armor. This is not because I'm good at it. Believe me, I'm a really bad gamer. I'm a person that prepare for hours for 10 minutes fights. But DST don't make me feel like that anymore. So the new updates are coming are builded around armor and weapons. Same weapons with higher damage, same armors with higher protection. The only real change is textures. That's what changed for me over years. But the game's style was the thing that keep me over years.

That sounds like a combination of burnout and getting too experienced with the game; at that point you should give the game a rest for some time.

On 3/10/2023 at 5:04 AM, Karitha said:

So the new updates are coming are builded around armor and weapons. Same weapons with higher damage, same armors with higher protection. The only real change is textures.

This is pretty much what Minecraft did with the Netherite.

[Yuuko]

8 hours ago, Karitha said:

First time I was playing game, I was wearing armors to kill even spiders and pigmans.

Now I'm able to kill bigger guys without armor.

That is because you got gud.  I guarantee there is a lot more room for improvement, but lets be real here:

Some games are stat checks.  These are usually rpg style games but they can happen in adventure games too.  A stat check is when the game basically forced you to have xyz thing in order to progress.  For a lot of rpg's this is your own health and defense or dodge, as well as your dps and hit chances.  Sometimes games do it by requiring a certain item where without xyz item equipped you just cannot complete the scenario.

Other games are skill based games.  These are games where you have all of the options available to you from the beginning, the only question is if YOU have the skill to play it out.  Many games are a hybrid of these like the souls games where player skill can overcome many bosses but you also need upgraded equipment to make the fights more realistic.

DST is a pure skill game.  It make take time to acquire the pieces to build a certain item or structure, but this is not "progression" in the rpg / character growth sense of the word.  Our characters enter the world fully formed with all options available to us.  It is up to us to find these things, but if we spawned into a world as Wanda and someone had left the materials and crafting station we could instantly make our alarming watch and all other clocks we want.

Once you're good at a skill game you don't ever go back.  No matter what Klei adds to the game you will never be a day 1 noob.  You have the knowledge and skill, and that's that.

Personally I love games based on player skill.  They let me engage with a game and become skilled first, and then easily return to the game to replay it over and over again.  As my skill increases I'm able to accomplish tasks faster, more efficiently, and in more creative ways.  Player skill also translates to other games which makes it great to continue following a series or genre.  Monster Hunter is a great example, and one where this same complaint of "everything is too easy" hangs over the head of every release.  Its not because there is any problem with the game.  New players struggle as new players always have.  These experienced players just don't acknowledge that after mastering their first game that all of that player skill carries over.  OF COURSE the lowest tier bosses of the new game are going to feel easy when you dumped thousands of hours into the end-game monsters of the previous release.

So really the problem is just this line here:

Quote

This is not because I'm good at it. Believe me, I'm a really bad gamer. I'm a person that prepare for hours for 10 minutes fights. But DST don't make me feel like that anymore.

YOU are good.  Maybe you're not the best, but you are GOOD.  If another player started right now they would also have to wear armor for killing simple spiders just as you did.  The only reason you do not is because YOU learned how to engage them.  YOU don't need to prepare anymore because YOU are good enough to no longer need that preparation.  That is you being a good player.

[Mario384]

Yeah, DST abandoned the development angle it was originally going with (the game becomes harder as time progresses) when they dropped Through The Ages for everything else they've done since then. DST took DS's survival game structure and essentially forced game progression akin to Terraria's into it, its a sloppy mix. Most of the people who enjoyed what DS used to be about are gone now though, so you probably won't see much sympathy.

I just came back to see what the Wilson rework was personally, and hoo boy cross-progression for the default character! Incredible.

[lowercase skye]

11 hours ago, Karitha said:

First time I was playing game, I was wearing armors to kill even spiders and pigmans. Now I'm able to kill bigger guys without armor. This is not because I'm good at it

are you proposing that your level of experience never got higher and that somehow spiders and pigmen got easier

[Mike23Ua]

30 minutes ago, sylvia wander o said:

are you proposing that your level of experience never got higher and that somehow spiders and pigmen got easier

I’d love to see how anything about that got easier when Spider Queens now spawn Medical Spiders 

[Hemolymph]

I don't like it when people compare Don't Starve to other games (or any of those games with each other) when the only things they have in common is really the genre of survival. They all have vastly different forms of gameplay. Don't Starve has it's own form of progression as do the others as you mentioned. They're all different and I fail to understand how Don't Starve is somehow doing their own game wrong. The additions you mentioned wouldn't really help with the loop, it would just make it more inconsistent and confusing.

[Mike23Ua]

7 minutes ago, Hemolymph said:

I don't like it when people compare Don't Starve to other games (or any of those games with each other) when the only things they have in common is really the genre of survival. They all have vastly different forms of gameplay. Don't Starve has it's own form of progression as do the others as you mentioned. They're all different and I fail to understand how Don't Starve is somehow doing their own game wrong. The additions you mentioned wouldn't really help with the loop, it would just make it more inconsistent and confusing.

Sadly I can’t say that I agree, sure comparing Don’t Starve to Sonic the Hedgehog may not be very relevant, but comparing Don’t Starve & it’s two DLC Expansions to DST is.

There’s some missing puzzle/exploration elements that are present in Solo DS & it’s respective DLCs (examples needing armor to go through a chokepoint full of pig torch warriors, or needing a gas mask to traverse hamlets poisoned biomes) that are pretty much completely absent from DST.

I remember the good old days of Dont Starve where jumping into a Wormhole could’ve spit you out right on top of an Angry Bee Hive Biome, and pretty much the only way you survived that unfortunate incident was to wear armor/bee masks.

DST on the other hand went in a completely different direction from DS & it’s two DLC expansions.

The Shipwrecked DLC saw the player sail from Island to Island gathering resources to repair/upgrade their boats or just find the right resources for torches/weapons etc.. DST HAS a sailable Ocean- but instead of breaking the land mass up into islands forcing us to sail between them In an “Archipelago” We hardly ever need to interact with ocean content- while in Shipwrecked it was MANDATORY.

Even the HAMLET DLC sometimes had ponds of water that blocked you from reaching another area until you built a small vessel to paddle across the water on.

And more importantly- since Klei added in the Easy to craft Grass Boats, and removed needing to learn those crafts at any kind of research station: We can now quickly build a water vessel as fast as (if not faster than..) we could in Shipwrecked.

There was also literal mazes filled with enemy mobs that in order to traverse through cautiously you needed to visit the area at the Time of Day that the horde of mobs in the path would be sleeping.

I don’t know what was lost in translation between DS, it’s DLCs & DST- but we have every single right to compare DST to DS and complain about it.

Because DST is supposed to be an expansion to DS- it should play like most the stuff I’ve come to love and expect from DS…  It’s not like it’s Mario 64 vs Mario Kart 64..

At the end of the day DST is supposed to be more DS, and while Mario 64 is a platform jumping action game, and Mario kart is straight up go kart racing- they aren’t meant to be the same genre or even play remotely the same way as one another.

DS/DST however IS… and I think that’s what “some” of us are upset about.  
I’m hoping that someday they will make DST have more of the type of content and features I loved about DS+it’s DLCs, but for right now… Ocean Content in DST leaves much to be desired and there are NO Trapped Hamlet Temples full of Indiana Jones style traps & treasures.

[Hemolymph]

On 3/12/2023 at 12:56 PM, Mike23Ua said:

DS/DST however IS… and I think that’s what “some” of us are upset about.  I’m hoping that someday they will make DST have more of the type of content and features I loved about DS+it’s DLCs, but for right now… Ocean Content in DST leaves much to be desired and there are NO Trapped Hamlet Temples full of Indiana Jones style traps & treasures.

There are still things that are progression locked in DST. You still need to make a boat to access Lunar island. Does that not make it a progression based biome? or if crafting a boat not enough to warrant that? If so then you can't say that Shipwrecked has an example of a progression based biome either really. There will always be tools you have to craft and items you need to get to areas. Places like the Lunar Island, Ruins, Archives, and Atrium always exist that have the same style it sounds like you want in the game. DST isn't full of ocean locked basic materials because that's Shipwrecked's thing. It doesn't have a bunch of "Trapped Hamlet Temples full of Indiana Jones style traps & treasures" because that's Hamlet's thing. That's their niche and if it's what you prefer just play those DLC instead of DST.

[Evelo]

I'm still holding out hope for an eventual World Generation update. Would love to have worlds be more torn apart and random. Right now it's really consistent.
Eg: Bee hive biome will always be attached to a desert, Swamp and Deciduous are always next to each other (granted this is for loop worlds since those are the most fun for me). Beefalo lands are in between Mosaic and Bee Queen. Some spice would be awesome.

[Brago-sama]

12 minutes ago, Evelo said:

I'm still holding out hope for an eventual World Generation update. Would love to have worlds be more torn apart and random. Right now it's really consistent.
Eg: Bee hive biome will always be attached to a desert, Swamp and Deciduous are always next to each other (granted this is for loop worlds since those are the most fun for me). Beefalo lands are in between Mosaic and Bee Queen. Some spice would be awesome.

I'd love for more world presets. Having an island preset where the world is fragmented and sailing is more encouraged kind of like shipwrecked sounds fun.

Another preset I'd love is choosing the sizes of biomes in the world. I'd love the challenge of an all/almost all moon island world, or having the ability to choose an all/almost all Swamp world as wurt