World setting: Boss health scaling with number of players.

[Pomato]

This was originally posted in "Suggestions and feedback", but I leave a copy here so players can discuss about this together:)

 

True, this game is called Don't Starve Together. But I would laugh if someone tells me there are no solo players in it.

I cannot understand why Bosses remain at such an absurd healthpool even if you are on your own.

It irks me because from my experience, a excessive healthpool would make the fight over repetitive, and resource wasting. 

For single player, bosses have around 3000 health. With that in comparison, the boss health in DST are very hostile to solo players. 

True, some pros can do it. But just like mentioned in the roadmap, should the game not become "Easy to learn and hard to master"?

This is an insanely high skill floor even players with decent experience would struggle at. 

Instead, how about we make the boss health scaling with the number of players in the server to be a world gen setting?

So pros can still challenge themselves, and give the option to balance the boss fights to other players.

(Perhaps some bosses' minions, health regeneration should be scaled too...)

[Zeklo]

I'm definitely hoping the option will be added in one of these 'early focus' patches.

Personally I've found the sheer numbers can make some new players a bit disheartened in continuing beyond Deerclops & Goose.

[Mike23Ua]

I’ve been “On the Fence” about this change.. now please- let me heavily stress the fact that I am by no means a Pro, and I die quite often to inexperience or Mistiming, HOWEVER…

Over the past few years (more accurately since about 2020..) DST has been becoming significantly easier to play Solo. Just hear me out on this, Character Reworks have been giving characters more power, new foods, weapons & armor types have given us more choices, Reworking outdated mechanics have given us fair fights (Ancient Guardian)

Klei made the game ALOT Easier when they added the Beefalo Bell, Day 1 Mounts aren’t something to easily overlook- They Are Self Regenerating Health/Armor, Speed, & Weapon all in One.

Klei has reduced the crafting costs of cobblestone roads (which make you walk faster) and Marble Armor (heavy damage protections..) 

They've added new ways of Healing your damaged Health with things like Bunny Stew (1 Small Morsel + 3 Ice) or Seaweed Healing Salves.

Also unlike single player Don’t Starve, DST can also craft a bunch of Meat Effigy’s or Living Amulets so even if you DO Die in the fight you can revive yourself with these items.

And Finally… Newer Content updates have been adding new ways to creatively approach a boss fight. For example: I’ve successfully killed Dragonfly by using a structure that was added to the game with the “Setting the Stage” Update called the Manniquinn, this items intended purpose is to do the highly pointless stage play, BUT you can use them to store Weapons and Armor on and swap what your currently wearing for what the Manniquinn is Currently wearing in a second. What this means is you can craft 6-12 Manniquinns, place Marble Armor and Dark Swords on each on of them, and when one weapon and armor starts getting low on durability swap it to the fresh set on another Manniquinn.

These make a game that was unfairly geared towards Multiplayer, a tad bit more manageable for Solo players.

And while I wouldn’t mind a “Small” bit of boss health scaling, Klei needs to also still take into account what all they’ve added/changed over the past few years that make those older areas of content easier with newer content changes.

[dois raios]

If boss scaling were to be added in the game, do not forget about the loot( if the health of the boss will increase by 2 times if there are 2 players in the server) please, make the boss drop 2 times the loot.

Considering that health scale wont be just a nerf in all bosses health.

[Yuuko]

This topic has come up a lot, and I've yet to see anything change my opinion.

Currently bosses are (mostly) a great solo experience, and an absolute joke when 2-4 players team up on them.  The few that aren't a great solo experience have more issues with the core interaction (or lack there of) not the health pool.  Boss health is currently fine for solo, and should only be scaled UP for multiple players if anything.

So if you are suggesting this thinking health numbers should be lower, go watch some youtube videos and practice.  They do not require "pro" level dedication, just go through some practice runs.  They (most of them) really aren't that bad.

The game isn't easy until you learn it, then its sometimes too easy lol

[mr. brj]

I don't think health scaling would do the boss fights any good. If anything should be scaled, I would rather have a scaled number of minions for bosses that spawn them or more multitargeting mechanics for the sake of more interactivity. Klaus is a boss that does both and he is fun.

[Zeklo]

It's something I've stated before, and I'll state it again: the fact that so many content creators SPEED UP the footage of boss fights, shows how much of a repetitive slog they are. A boss fight should be one of the most interesting things to watch, and engaging things to play.

If you have to skip through what should be the best content, then there's something fundamentally wrong.

It's not ALL due to health bloat, but it's definitely a component to it.

[firoborn]

health scaling or mechanic scaling any of those 2 needs to happen df and bq dont have to be at 3k hp like deerclops but they still need less life for solo players, dst bosses arent fun enough to deserve being 10 min or longer imo 

[AlternateMew]

I am against health scaling.

DST in my view does a mostly good job at making the bosses a part of the world, not just checkboxes of things to kill. I feel that scaling health would be a step in the wrong direction. When you are playing solo, you SHOULD be encouraged to use clever setups and tricks instead of being able to quickly and easily 1v1 the giant monster. High HP encourages you to do just that.

I can agree with others on the idea of scaling minion amounts. That's calling for more or less help with the level of the threat, not magically being more/less buff just because there's X number of survivors nearby.

 

[Ornge]

Health scaling is extremely difficult to implement for a variety for reasons, but I don't think that should stop it from being added. Most bosses are manageable with two players. But fighting toadstool by yourself? Have fun spending an absurd amount of time repeating the same kiting pattern. 
Setting the world to "Solo" Should lower the health of dst bosses. Upon first opening the game the solo setting says something along the lines of "to help you get settled into the game".
Now I don't know about you but it makes zero sense for bosses designed around multiple people to exist in a setting with a maximum of 1 player. Choosing this setting should lower the health pool of any dst boss by half. This way the game isn't unfairly balanced against you while not removing the challenge option of playing on a regular server by yourself.

Basically, Boss health is exactly the same in the normal game. But if you set the game to the Solo mode (make max playercount 1) It should lower the health of a lot of bosses.

4 hours ago, AlternateMew said:

When you are playing solo, you SHOULD be encouraged to use clever setups and tricks instead of being able to quickly and easily 1v1 the giant monster. High HP encourages you to do just that.

Lowering the health pool won't change this. Almost all of the post-dst bosses have some sort of gimmick that discourages fighting by yourself. Beequeen won't become any easier just because she has 10,000 health. She will become less tedious by yourself

[Yuuko]

50 minutes ago, Ornge said:

But fighting toadstool by yourself? Have fun spending an absurd amount of time repeating the same kiting pattern.

Lowering the health pool won't change this. Almost all of the post-dst bosses have some sort of gimmick that discourages fighting by yourself. Beequeen won't become any easier just because she has 10,000 health. She will become less tedious by yourself

I think the better route is to re-work the bosses to scale their abilities based on the number of players, similar to house Klaus casts his spell on each player.

What makes Toad and Bee Queen tedious for a solo player isn't their health counts, its their summons.  It doesn't matter how much health toad has if you can't get ahead of the tree spawns.  Same with bee queen - you have a dozen grumbles that instantly re-summon that make it so you can't actually engage with her.  If this were reworked to where you could deal with the shroom-trees or grumbles and have a reasonable window of time to engage them then their health pools would become reasonable for a solo player.

A good way to gauge this is by looking at the fights with cheese.  If you take out shrooms trees, or bee queens grumbles these fights become pretty quick.  The extra time fighting these bosses isn't spent slogging through their health, its spent running around not being able to attack.

[AlternateMew]

8 hours ago, Ornge said:

Lowering the health pool won't change this. Almost all of the post-dst bosses have some sort of gimmick that discourages fighting by yourself. Beequeen won't become any easier just because she has 10,000 health. She will become less tedious by yourself

My main point is that scaling health leans more towards turning bosses into checkboxes, which I dislike. I prefer the current design where they are just there, and don't magically gain more/less life energy with the presence of more/less survivors.

I wouldn't mind a NEW boss designed specifically with this mechanic, if it was part of their lore that they siphon power from survivors or something. But I wouldn't want it universally applied to all bosses.

[Ornge]

9 hours ago, Shosuko said:

The extra time fighting these bosses isn't spent slogging through their health, its spent running around not being able to attack.

It is both the combination of high health and running around not being able to attack that makes them take so long to kill. I've cheesed toadstool before as wolfgang by turning him into a hold F simulator and it still took most of a day to kill him.

I wonder if asking "Should dst have boss health-scaling" is the right question. The question should be "Should you be playing don't starve together by yourself" since health scaling itself is a suggestion based around benefiting the solo player. 

[Lardee]

Stat-wise, bosses are fine as they are. There are ways for solo players to beat all of them despite their extremely high HP, all this does is incentives solo players to do their research, develop their skills and put in the work to obtain the necessary resources to overcome these challenges.  

It also encourages people to play multiplayer (which is how this game was intended to be played) since numbers drastically reduce the skill and resource requirement to beat bosses.

 

If anything, they need to add more powerful versions of raid bosses that players can fight if they fulfill certain conditions. The only boss that has this right now is Misery Toadstool and it comes as no surprise that it's the only boss that offers a little challenge when you rush raid bosses with a group of really good players.

[Yuuko]

52 minutes ago, Ornge said:

It is both the combination of high health and running around not being able to attack that makes them take so long to kill. I've cheesed toadstool before as wolfgang by turning him into a hold F simulator and it still took most of a day to kill him.

I wonder if asking "Should dst have boss health-scaling" is the right question. The question should be "Should you be playing don't starve together by yourself" since health scaling itself is a suggestion based around benefiting the solo player. 

I mean, Toad is like "the" high health boss.  Clearing him in a day with cheese sounds about right*.  Of course holding F for a day can feel monotonous, but why are you doing that?  You cheese him because dealing with all of the shroom-trees solo is a slog.  If shroom-tree count scaled based on proximity player count like Klaus spells do I could stay ahead of them and probably do the fight in 1.5 days solo w/o cheese compared to the 2-3 it takes now (not to mention reducing the time on weather pain farming.)  I wouldn't get bored during this because I'm actually doing the fight, not holding F.

"Should you be playing dst alone?" is a fair question.  Most of my play time in DST is solo and I've done all content that way.  I have rarely felt that multiplayer was needed to enjoy any aspect of the game.  As I said above I feel most bosses are actually more engaging and well balanced for a solo fight.  Even just 1 or 2 people joining in can trivialize the fight to where I'm actually dissatisfied with it lol.  I did AFW the other day with 2 other people and he was dead before he did a second shield / summon rotation lol  We cleared misery toad really quick too, so much that it almost felt like I was doing normal toad lol.  Its fun to play with people for the friendship, powerful character synergy, and seeing different people's skills and ideas, but I often leave a multiplayer game and want to play through all of the same stuff solo so I don't feel like I missed or skipped anything lol

Just going off the top of my head I would want a rework of Bee Queen, Toad, and possibly Crab King... and that's really it.  The rest of the bosses are all pretty good.

*** Just a side note - if you want to speed up your "hold f simulator" on toad, one thing I've done to increase my dps is I pin 4-6 depth worms nearby (easy to do with depth worm waves) and I get them aggrod on toad after he's locked into position.  Once toad dies I just pin them back up for next time.  I enjoy both cheesing and manually fighting the bosses.

[mr. brj]

10 hours ago, Ornge said:

Lowering the health pool won't change this. Almost all of the post-dst bosses have some sort of gimmick that discourages fighting by yourself. Beequeen won't become any easier just because she has 10,000 health. She will become less tedious by yourself

Don't get me wrong, I agree with this statement. However like I said, I would rather see a different kind of scaling per player first instead of HP scaling. Let's go with the Bee Queen example. In my opinion, it isn't the huge health pool that makes fighting her so tedious, it is the lack of opportunity to land more hits unless you are spamming panflutes, which you would primarily do to overcome the unfair number of Grumble Bees that would otherwise be stunning you constantly.

On the other hand, if you aren't spamming panflutes, the fight becomes long and repetitive. Even though the huge HP does contribute to that, this wouldn't be the case to begin with if Grumble Bees gave you a fair fighting chance. You would have much more opportunities to land extra hits on Bee Queen without worrying about wasting multiple thulecite crowns, and the huge HP would feel much more suited for the boss.

This is why I think that scaling the number of minions, and reducing this number for solo players, would be a good start, which can allow you to have more flexibility on when to kite and when to tank and to not turn the fight into a resource sink. I would also suggest different types of Bee Queen minions to keep things more balanced and interactive, but this is not the thread for this:P

[Guille6785]

21 hours ago, Zeklo said:

It's something I've stated before, and I'll state it again: the fact that so many content creators SPEED UP the footage of boss fights, shows how much of a repetitive slog they are. A boss fight should be one of the most interesting things to watch, and engaging things to play.

If you have to skip through what should be the best content, then there's something fundamentally wrong.

It's not ALL due to health bloat, but it's definitely a component to it.

besides the fact that I strongly disagree with basing an argument about game design on content creators (who do not represent in any shape or form the bulk of the playerbase), your argument is illogical because if we look at a game like elden ring where bossfights are rarely 2 minutes long content creators for that game still speed up the bossfights; this isn't because 2 minutes is obscenely long for a bossfight, it's because if you're cramming 12 bossfights in one video you cannot have half an hour of uncut combat footage, that is horrendous for engagement, content creators only want to showcase the most interesting parts in the least amount of time to keep people from clicking off the video

[ShadowDuelist]

6 minutes ago, mr. brj said:

This is why I think that scaling the number of minions, and reducing this number for solo players, would be a good start, which can allow you to have more flexibility on when to kite and when to tank and to not turn the fight into a resource sink. I would also suggest different types of Bee Queen minions to keep things more balanced and interactive

If this was implemented it would have to be a proximity thing, sometimes in pub servers there are only 2-3 people doing bosses and 4-5 other players that either can't fight, don't want to, or are just onto another thing. I guess it's part of a sandbox-y game that has an open world.

It would still be unfair to have to convince everyone to join the boss battle because since there are 8 players in the server, bee queen will behave as if everyone was fighting, even if its just 2. It would also make sense that BQ, seeing more players attacking her, will spam more minions. I can see this same logic applying to toad and misery toad.

I am not sure the larvae of DF works the same, though. I think perhaps the behavior, attack rate, etc of DF should change when more players are fighting, to make it more challenging. Dragonfly against 4-5 players is mostly a punching bag.

[Mike23Ua]

3 hours ago, AlternateMew said:

My main point is that scaling health leans more towards turning bosses into checkboxes, which I dislike. I prefer the current design where they are just there, and don't magically gain more/less life energy with the presence of more/less survivors.

I wouldn't mind a NEW boss designed specifically with this mechanic, if it was part of their lore that they siphon power from survivors or something. But I wouldn't want it universally applied to all bosses.

See I disagree with this, and I can give a really good example.

In Multiplayer (with at least one other person) it is possible to “Stun” Dragonfly and force her to drop a Dragonscale, you can also get in Several Free hits while she is down on the ground Stunned.

In Single Player it is hard As heck to trigger the Stun Mechanic, it’s even harder to get her to drop scales (if at all..)

So here’s how Dragonfly should work in Solo: She Spawns significantly Less Larvae minions, can’t be “Stunned” but has slightly lower health, and she can’t trigger her “Enraged” Mode, scales dropped off her body indicate how close she is to defeat.

In Multiplayer: Dragonfly spawns more Larvae based on how many players are involved in the fight, Dragonfly can be stunned, but after stunning her it Enrages Her.. Dragonfly has Higher Health that even Regenerates under a specific circumstance- her Larvae will run to her and jump onto her back when she is stunned, and upon triggering “Enraged” mode they Harden up into New Dragonscales. This would make Dragonscales more easily farmable.. and opens up a new dynamic of needing to work together with other players to deal enough damage to her armored shell that scales start falling off and she exposes weak points.

Obviously this would require a Dragonfly boss fight rework, but you get the idea.

I have a suggestion for a Reworked Bee Queen Too.

In Single Player She attempts to “Sting” the player by essentially Mario Ground Pounding the ground getting her stinger temporarily stuck in the ground allowing the player to get free hits in.

In Multiplayer: Instead of a Ground Pound getting her stuck in the ground, she instead lounges herself stinger first towards one of the participating survivors.

Without lowering her Overall Health, I just made it easier to whittle it down when fighting her alone vs fighting with multiple other players.

[Zeklo]

2 hours ago, Guille6785 said:

besides the fact that I strongly disagree with basing an argument about game design on content creators (who do not represent in any shape or form the bulk of the playerbase), your argument is illogical because if we look at a game like elden ring where bossfights are rarely 2 minutes long content creators for that game still speed up the bossfights; this isn't because 2 minutes is obscenely long for a bossfight, it's because if you're cramming 12 bossfights in one video you cannot have half an hour of uncut combat footage, that is horrendous for engagement, content creators only want to showcase the most interesting parts in the least amount of time to keep people from clicking off the video

The argument isn't based off Content Creators, it's showing how far the issue goes in relation to time and the value of that time (which is what content creators focus on). Elden Ring is ABOUT bosses. People might cut down on the minor ones, but the major ones will always be the focus. Even if they chop that to all hell, that's just algorithm riding you'll find everywhere—that's not my what I'm talking about.

My point is exactly what you said in the middle: Elden Ring bosses are rarely 2 minutes.
While the Fuelweaver is like what...? 10-12 minutes? (just from picking first non-wolfgang results off yt)

There's a difference of cutting out one minute, compared to cutting out like eleven.

[_zwb]

Definitely need this change.

With 6 Wolfgangs, you can kill Fuel Weaver in 10 seconds. Meanwhile solo fw will take you forever because of that cheap immunity trick used over and over and over again.

It is still possible to solo those bosses but it simply add intentional difficulty rather than an actual challenge. Just look at crab king and toad stool, massive health pool+healing/dmg reduction, just unbearable to fight when you're not cheesing.

[BiddoBams]

We already have config options to make the game easier or harder in other places, so I don't see why the option to change boss HP isn't a thing yet. It could be there for the people who want it, and can be ignored for the people who don't want it. Gatekeeping difficulty really isn't needed, especially in a game that already has mass ammounts of difficulty options.

[Seero]

well we've been coping with the increased health for 8 years now and I think we do fine the way it is, but maybe for solo fuelweaver can be bumped down to 10k health, toadstool's health cut in half and decrease CC's health by a little bit

[firoborn]

I agree that this game is made for multiplayer but as a 25 decrepit old man the reality is that i dont have much free time and so do the little friends i have and they also have other things they may want to do besides playing DST with me, so having a solo mode with scaled down stuff should be a natural thing for klei to consider, like we have so much options in the world generating menu i dont see how adding health scaling there would be such a bad idea.

If not klei can do the harder thing and maybe add and in-game "Request board" of sorts so players have a way to ask the help of other players in-game for specific objectives like killing bosses or ruins clearing and stuff.

[ALCRD]

They added option to lessen or increase the damage that Player recieves.

Logical progression from that now would be adding option either to lessen or increase damage Player deals to enemies or option to lessen or increase enemy / boss HP.

I am hoping for the first one ^^