Suggestion for an actual alone mode for the game.

[Lennard]

This has been asked many times in the past but I'm still genuinely wondering why this still isn't a thing. Perhaps Klei has seen the demands for it at some point and declined it, and I'm unaware of it. If so, please let me know. If not, I'll say it again: 

A large chunk of the DST playerbase plays the game by themselves. The reason they don't play DS instead is because DST has essentially become a sequel for the original game (with many massive improvements) instead of just a multiplayer port. And this is something Klei acknowledges (I think). However, the game is still centered around multiplayer. This is understandable since Klei is still aiming mainly for a multiplayer appeal and they can't just make two versions of the same game where content is hugely different in order to be enjoyed by both playstyles. So while I'm not asking for any massive changes, It would be nice if there was a world setting that tweaked many things in the game that made it more balanced towards singleplayer. For example, the Bee Queen boss fight is insanely difficult for casual players that enjoy the game alone. You either have to look up exploits or just be very good at combat. An aforementioned singleplayer mode could make some tweaks where the amount of minions summoned by the Queen is reduced, both mobs become easier to kite by having their attack range reduced, and both mobs have their health reduced, etc. These are just examples. Some other stuff like loot chances or resource density can be changed as well. I think many players would appreciate it if you could have something RoG-like with the massive content of DST added on top of it. 

[Cheggf]

21 minutes ago, Lennard said:

This has been asked many times in the past but I'm still genuinely wondering why this still isn't a thing.

The answer to that question is in the many threads that you're referring to. There are a lot of reasons why there isn't an option to scale mob health down such as players not knowing what to expect when they join your world, causing toxicity in multiplayer sessions (such as kicking people who are "poor performers" and scaling the boss up), and not making any sense and going against the spirit of the game (they are creatures that exist in a world you happen to be in, why should they be weaker just because there's only 1 of you near them?). Bosses are a joke with multiple players and most are best experienced by yourself or at most 1 friend already, if any scaling were to happen it should be in the upwards direction. 

21 minutes ago, Lennard said:

For example, the Bee Queen boss fight is insanely difficult for casual players that enjoy the game alone. You either have to look up exploits or just be very good at combat.

That's simply not true. The extent of effort required to kill Bee Queen is literally just walking in a circle to dodge her attacks instead of a straight line. There are no exploits needed, and if you're too bad to fight her normally you can do plenty of non-exploits to help you. Switch to a combat character like Wolfgang or Wendy. Eat Volt Goat Chaud-Froid. Place structures like catapults or houndius shootius. Recruit followers like bunnymen. Wear Wormwood's bramble husk. Place walls to help manipulate the bees. So on and so forth.

Every single time I fought Bee Queen with a friend who hasn't fought her before they have seen what I was doing, copied me, and succeeded the fight first try (although possibly using an LGA or two). I never even needed to tell them what to do, the fight is simple enough where watching me is enough. Someone playing on their own may not succeed the very first try, but if they want to do the fight they have plenty of options of how to either figure it out on their own or look at guides (which is for some reason only considered a bad thing by Don't Starve players).

[_zwb]

8 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

The answer to that question is in the many threads that you're referring to. There are a lot of reasons why there isn't an option to scale mob health down such as players not knowing what to expect when they join your world, causing toxicity in multiplayer sessions (such as kicking people who are "poor performers" and scaling the boss up), and not making any sense and going against the spirit of the game (they are creatures that exist in a world you happen to be in, why should they be weaker just because there's only 1 of you near them?). Bosses are a joke with multiple players and most are best experienced by yourself or at most 1 friend already, if any scaling were to happen it should be in the upwards direction.

I love how you assume there would be other players even though he clearly asked for a single player tweak. Doesn't make much sense eh?

[Pet Rock]

Some bosses definitely could use nerfs for single player. However, personally I play with a friend about 50% of the time in the same world that I play in the other 50%. If this don't starve alone difficulty existed I would have to switch it on off every time I played with a friend. Soloing bosses with multiple players also wouldn't work out since the bosses would still be buffed during multiplayer gameplay. Finally, why wouldn't I just leave it on during multiplayer gameplay (if that's an option)?

The best way to add this would be proximity based attack scaling. I could turn this into a rant about player scaling, but I'll save that for its own post. In a nutshell, proximity based attack scaling would help the game become accessable by everyone to some degree without adjusting the settings.

15 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

(they are creatures that exist in a world you happen to be in, why should they be weaker just because there's only 1 of you near them?)

I agree with this. However, there are plenty of ways to add realistic scaling like dragonfly's increased loot drop with multiple players. Why can't more of such features be added? Toadstool could have decreased health in single player but use a protective move in multiplayer to not make him a snooze fest with too many people. The logical reason for this would be toadstool panicking as there are too many players (threats) around it. Obviously I'm not a game designer and way better scaling attacks could be added with proper brainstorming.

15 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

The extent of effort required to kill Bee Queen is literally just walking in a circle to dodge her attacks instead of a straight line.

And killing the endless hordes of bees (or tanking which wasn't intended). Half of the non-exploits you listed still are kind of exploits the game as 1. The developers did not indeed for these to be possible or 2. No player could possibly find these out by themselves. Idk it kinda depends on what your definition of an exploit is but building walls definitely wasn't intended and could be patched any update, and I've played against her as Wendy and still had to tank (not because the attack pattern was too hard, but because of the incessant bees).

[Cheggf]

8 minutes ago, _zwb said:

I love how you assume there would be other players even though he clearly asked for a single player tweak. Doesn't make much sense eh?

There is no singleplayer option. You always host a server. If you're suggesting that the option is restricted to only servers that manually change the maximum playercount to 1, then that makes even less sense and would just change the threads from "Why no easy mode?" to "Why easy mode locked to singleplayer?". It would also make new threads by people wondering why the option is grayed out and inaccessible to them, not knowing how to change the max playercount.

6 minutes ago, Pet Rock said:

I agree with this. However, there are plenty of ways to add realistic scaling like dragonflies increased loot drop with multiple players. Why can't more of such features be added? Toadstool could have decreased health in single player but use a protective move in multiplayer to not make him a snooze fest with too many people. The logical reason for this would be toadstool panicking as there are too many players (threats) around it. Obviously I'm not a game designer and way better scaling attacks could be added with proper brainstorming.

Klaus' magic attacks that target all players and Krampii that spawn on each player are good.

6 minutes ago, Pet Rock said:

And killing the endless hordes of bees (or tanking which wasn't intended).

Just walk away from the bees.

6 minutes ago, Pet Rock said:

Half of the non-exploits you listed still are kind of exploits the game as 1. The developers did not indeed for these to be possible

Show me the developers saying they accidentally coded being able to recruit followers and didn't realize that having NPCs help you fight would help you fight. Or whichever ones you're referring to.

6 minutes ago, Pet Rock said:

2. No player could possibly find these out by themselves.

So how does anyone know about them if nobody could find them out? It's impossible for you to see that enemies fight eachother even though you constantly see it happen automatically such as in the swamp? It's impossible for you to literally just open the crafting menu and look at the options? It's impossible for you to find the suspicious boulder that everyone always finds and uses to mark the public base? It's impossible for you to read the character descriptions instead of just instantly picking Wilson? What did I say that's impossible to figure out, or even difficult to figure out? The only one I can think of is using fences, which I never do anyways, but again you can just look at a guide which for some reason only you guys act like is bad when it's go-to advice in every other game (and also this game, except in the context of threads about health scaling for some reason).

[Pet Rock]

26 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Show me the developers saying they accidentally coded being able to recruit followers and didn't realize that having NPCs help you fight would help you fight. Or whichever ones you're referring to.

Half was an exaggeration sorry. Yes followers are a legitimate method here. Many of the non-exploits you mentioned also still involve tanking (Wolfgang/Wendy/Wormwood armor)

26 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Just walk away from the bees.

And get about 1 hit every 30 seconds in an already massive health pool for singleplayer? No thanks. And can't forget about the 3rd phase.

26 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

So how does anyone know about them if nobody could find them out?

The average player will not find out about them unless they look it up online. The way people have found out about exploits or whatever you want to call them is through years of trial and error since the games release.

26 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

you can just look at a guide which for some reason only you guys act like is bad when it's go-to advice in every other game (and also this game, except in the context of threads about health scaling for some reason).

Yes there will be guides on these things. I've followed some myself. But from a game design perspective you shouldn't have to. Bee queen is still manageable without cheese via followers, but crab king requires a guide to be beat. I doubt anyone has beaten him solo without the precise boat placement strategy or the many other strategies that had to be thought up to make him possible solo.

[Mike23Ua]

Even something as simple as trying to remove a Birchnut Treeguard can become a pain in the rear end to do while playing the game Solo.

For me I have noticed that it’s mostly because they can “Stun” You, yes I’ve actually died to Birchnutters before thanks to infinity stun locking.

This is where other players come into play: More Players = The mobs that would OTHERWISE be targeting multiple different people, are all Targeting the only player in the game, and when I ended up in this forever Stun-Locked by Birchnutters  misfortune, other players could have rushed in to save Me.

It’s no secret that DST was ORIGINALLY designed to be just a Multiplayer version of DS.

However since Klei decided to rework characters with new abilities, add new content, continue the games story- DST has Transcended its original design & now Technically Qualifies as a DS 2.

Klei should stop trying to treat it like it’s DS with Multiplayer, and treat it like it’s DS 2.. Make it more accessible to Solo Players who just want to experience DS 2- but don’t want to be forced to deal with the “Together” the game seems hellbent on sticking to.

Whoever thought letting 5+ Pirate Monkey invade a tiny little raft with no room to dodge or kite on is an EVIL Developer… this was CLEARLY Designed with the concept of having other players around to help out.

Which makes the entire game harder then it needs to be for Solo Players.

[Cheggf]

27 minutes ago, Pet Rock said:

Half was an exaggeration sorry. Yes followers are a legitimate method here.

And which are illegitimate? You still haven't told me. I think you know none are illegitimate and are refusing to answer on purpose.

27 minutes ago, Pet Rock said:

Many of the non-exploits you mentioned also still involve tanking (Wolfgang/Wendy/Wormwood armor)

Only the Bramble Husk directly involves tanking. And what's wrong with tanking, anyways?

27 minutes ago, Pet Rock said:

And get about 1 hit every 30 seconds

You have not even tried and only have exaggerations. You guys don't try the fight, you don't look up guides, you don't even watch a video, you don't do anything. You just assume what the fight must be like then ask for it to be made easier because this imaginary scenario you've created out of thin air is too hard.

27 minutes ago, Pet Rock said:

The average player will not find out about them unless they look it up online. The way people have found out about exploits or whatever you want to call them is through years of trial and error since the games release.

The impossibly difficult exploit of reading the character select screen descriptions. No one will ever possibly figure out that the entire right half of their screen actually has words on it. Those mystic shapes like "W", "o", "l", and "f" are completely indecipherable to the average player, and only very few people have figured out the unintended developer exploit of how to read simple English (which took many years of study to decipher this cryptic text).

P.S. Even if the average player doesn't know how to read the character select screen, doesn't know how to open the crafting menu, and doesn't know how to walk, you aren't even arguing that the fight is too hard for a single person and are just arguing that this one specific fight should be redesigned in general. How would lowering her health do anything to help this illiterate average player who just facetanks everything? He'll still be stunlocked by the bees.

[Tranoze]

Dont starve to get her - Alone edition.
Dont starve to get her - Alone edition with some friends.
Dont starve to get her - Alone edition with some friends - Single player DLC.
...

[Zhollow]

57 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

And which are illegitimate? You still haven't told me. I think you know none are illegitimate and are refusing to answer on purpose.

Only the Bramble Husk directly involves tanking. And what's wrong with tanking, anyways?

You have not even tried and only have exaggerations. You guys don't try the fight, you don't look up guides, you don't even watch a video, you don't do anything. You just assume what the fight must be like then ask for it to be made easier because this imaginary scenario you've created out of thin air is too hard.

The impossibly difficult exploit of reading the character select screen descriptions. No one will ever possibly figure out that the entire right half of their screen actually has words on it. Those mystic shapes like "W", "o", "l", and "f" are completely indecipherable to the average player, and only very few people have figured out the unintended developer exploit of how to read simple English (which took many years of study to decipher this cryptic text).

P.S. Even if the average player doesn't know how to read the character select screen, doesn't know how to open the crafting menu, and doesn't know how to walk, you aren't even arguing that the fight is too hard for a single person and are just arguing that this one specific fight should be redesigned in general. How would lowering her health do anything to help this illiterate average player who just facetanks everything? He'll still be stunlocked by the bees.

I thought in the last thread someone said "different players should play the game, in different ways, and that's fine". Don't know why you're still bothering anyone regarding that question.

 

Also, this could be solved by (not so simple) making a "solo mode" option, with no servers to run your world.

[Cheggf]

3 minutes ago, Zhollow said:

I thought in the last thread someone said "different players should play the game, in different ways, and that's fine". Don't know why you're still bothering anyone regarding that question.

 

Also, this could be solved by (not so simple) making a "solo mode" option, with no servers to run your world.

Why did you click on a thread about scaling boss health if you do not want to see people discuss scaling boss health?

[Shosuko]

tbh - its exactly as @Cheggf says.  If any scaling were to happen, it would be upward scaling to accommodate 3+ players hacking down a boss.  There isn't a boss in the game that can't be stormed with 3-4 moderately skilled players with minimal knowledge.  Bee queen with 3-4 people doesn't even take 1 whole bee hat each, and zero healing if everyone is full health.

Also certain characters have strengths and weaknesses that change the boss fight.  You can always pick a character like Wendy, who's ghost sister Abigail can pretty well annihilate the grumbles leaving you to easily 1v1 bee queen (her damage isn't even that bad, its the grumbles that get you.)  Or you could do Winona - my favorite - and set up enough catapults to kill her without even attacking.  Bonus points - Winona can also make a great gem farm to easily rake in the red and blues you'll want for fueling her many catapult setups.  There is a reason we have so many character options, and a character swap portal.  Try some things out, you might like it.

There are definitely some tweaks I would accept to better scale the game, but it would be more like Bee Queen spawning 2 grumbles per player in first wave, and 4 per player in second.  Toadstool capping the number of trees he can summon based on the number of players.  Things like that, kinda emulating Klaus who casts a spell on each player adjusting the difficulty a bit to prevent multiple characters overwhelming him.

I take a big issue with this though:

2 hours ago, Pet Rock said:

1. The developers did not indeed for these to be possible

Klei is absolutely against the idea of "intended ways."  Its kinda a founding principle of the company.  DST is a game based on emergent game play.  That doesn't mean all glitches are off the hook, but they do bug fixes and balance patches.  Its fair to say that you can try whatever you want, and if it works - it works.  I kinda feel that is one reason they often debut their new features in god mode, its so they don't accidentally show "how you're supposed to..." allowing you to tap into your own resourcefulness (even if that resourcefulness includes tapping into other players.

 

[Cheggf]

4 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

There are definitely some tweaks I would accept to better scale the game, but it would be more like Bee Queen spawning 2 grumbles per player in first wave, and 4 per player in second.  Toadstool capping the number of trees he can summon based on the number of players. 

Yes, exactly. Natural ways to balance the fights like with Klaus are great and I'm all for them. Your ideas for Bee Queen and Toadstool sound great. Arbitrarily scaling health isn't necessary when the players can already do that themselves in a much more natural way. Picking Wolfgang effectively halves the bosses' health, and if you do everything you can to increase your damage the boss'll basically have something like ⅒ its normal health. 

[Pet Rock]

1 hour ago, Cheggf said:

And which are illegitimate? You still haven't told me. I think you know none are illegitimate and are refusing to answer on purpose.

Only the Bramble Husk directly involves tanking. And what's wrong with tanking, anyways?

You have not even tried and only have exaggerations. You guys don't try the fight, you don't look up guides, you don't even watch a video, you don't do anything. You just assume what the fight must be like then ask for it to be made easier because this imaginary scenario you've created out of thin air is too hard.

The impossibly difficult exploit of reading the character select screen descriptions. No one will ever possibly figure out that the entire right half of their screen actually has words on it. Those mystic shapes like "W", "o", "l", and "f" are completely indecipherable to the average player, and only very few people have figured out the unintended developer exploit of how to read simple English (which took many years of study to decipher this cryptic text).

P.S. Even if the average player doesn't know how to read the character select screen, doesn't know how to open the crafting menu, and doesn't know how to walk, you aren't even arguing that the fight is too hard for a single person and are just arguing that this one specific fight should be redesigned in general. How would lowering her health do anything to help this illiterate average player who just facetanks everything? He'll still be stunlocked by the bees.

I find tanking (so all methods that involve it) illegitimate. Why do I hate tanking? It turns bosses from skill checks and fun challenges into "how many dark swords can you craft" checks. There is nothing more boring or less creative than holding f to end a fight. No boss should incentivize it.

You have swayed my opinion on bee queen though. Although having to switch characters isn't great, there seem to be many methods of dealing with her without too much tanking.

For the record, I have tried to fight bee queen legitimately (but without followers or pan flute) and am not just making things up. I also don't think expecting everyone to play Wolfgang is a good idea.

44 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

Klei is absolutely against the idea of "intended ways."

Coming up with creative methods is one of the best parts of this game. I just think tanking or abusing the game doesn't really follow their vision of allowing players to be resourceful.

37 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Natural ways to balance the fights like with Klaus are great and I'm all for them.

I totally agree! I never stated I wanted to lower bee queens health pool, just that she could go a little easy on the bees in singleplayer as shosuko said. You seem to agree with them so I don't see why we're arguing. I guess our opinions of what exploits are are a little different.

[Mike23Ua]

Playing Wolfgang Cuts a Bosses Health Down to Half. All players playing Wolfgang = Boss?? What Boss?

Its Safe to Say Wolfgang was designed to be the boss fighter.. there’s no disputing that.. like it’s literally his one best use- Same as Willows one best use is Bernie To fight Shadows.

You can change settings to take 40% Reduced damage from all incoming attacks, or 40% Increased Damage from all Incoming Attacks.

So “Technically” the game already has tweaking options, but they aren’t the greatest.

40% Reduced Damages, Play as Wolfgang?? Why can’t the bosses just be made to be more fun?

Hell I’d even say LOWER their overall health and time it takes to fight them, but make them hit like Deadly Brightshades (Aka like a truck that’s a one hit kill)

Less grind, more skill.

[sudoku]

considering klei has a hard enough time balancing things for multiplayer already, i'm not sure asking them to have a separate, additional set of balance for singleplayer is a good use of their already limited resources, especially when more and more people are critiquing the amount of content and frequency of updates as it is.  

[chirsg]

2 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Which makes the entire game harder then it needs to be for Solo Players.

i disagee

[Baark0]

I don't mind the raid bosses personally, I think half the fun is coming up with strats to beat them solo instead of just hit them until they die. The main thing I'd like from an alone mode would be the removal of cave lag.

[Zhollow]

3 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Why did you click on a thread about scaling boss health if you do not want to see people discuss scaling boss health?

*Point* --------------> You 

 

1 hour ago, Baark0 said:

I don't mind the raid bosses personally, I think half the fun is coming up with strats to beat them solo instead of just hit them until they die. The main thing I'd like from an alone mode would be the removal of cave lag.

Cave lag and Overworld lag. Input lag. All types of lag.

[Cheggf]

1 hour ago, Zhollow said:

*Point* --------------> You 

Yep, I agree. The point went straight into me and I absorbed it because I am a genius.

[_zwb]

7 hours ago, Cheggf said:

There is no singleplayer option. You always host a server. If you're suggesting that the option is restricted to only servers that manually change the maximum playercount to 1

Host an offline mode server/set password/change max player count all allows you to play alone.

I'm not suggesting the option is restricted to only servers that manually change the maximum playercount to 1. It can be implemented as how incoming damage reduction option works, you can make it higher or lower, or just default DST experience.

7 hours ago, Cheggf said:

 then that makes even less sense and would just change the threads from "Why no easy mode?" to "Why easy mode locked to singleplayer?".

Making the fight less tedious!=making it easy. If I know how to kite a boss then I will kill it no matter the health, but repeating something for 8 minutes is boring, nothing challenging.

There's literally a relaxed mode you can choose that won't let you die to starvation. Is it locked to certain players? Of course not!

[_zwb]

6 hours ago, Zhollow said:

I thought in the last thread someone said "different players should play the game, in different ways, and that's fine". Don't know why you're still bothering anyone regarding that question.

 

This post?

https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/148453-buff-followers-to-compensate-for-together-design/?do=findComment&comment=1642252