Player Choice and the Celestial Portal

[Evelo]

What's the point of player choice when they can change their mind whenever they want. All they need is a purple gem and some moon rock.

Want player choice to actually mean something? Lock it for the world so you can't change willy nilly.

Players on average, tend to optimize games to the point they find no fun out of it. "Optimize the fun out of the game" so to speak. Preventing players from optimizing will allow players to try out various things until they settle on one they find most fun. Or at least until there is a meta that is optimal, in which case balancing every patch to "spice up the meta" is what keeps players coming back.

We've already seen this with plenty of solo players swapping back and forth between characters for boss fights then swapping back to their preferred character for "megabase" stuff. So many players, not all of course, but many, swap to Warly to craft the Volt Goat Jelly then swap to Wolfgang or Wanda. Now those same players will feel incentivized into swapping to Woodie to gather a ton of resources then swap back to Maxwell with their Wickerbottom book cases to farm using Winona's catapults.

The celestial portal is here to stay and I can accept that. I don't like it but I accept it. However I feel for player choice to actually matter because currently it does not matter given the requirements to change your mind or flip flop or do whatever, is to lock players in their choice on a world basis.

This could be done by allowing the option in world settings from being able to craft the Celestial Portal, or remove the Postern entirely. This way players on that world are stuck with their character choice and their character skills.

I will always detest the Celestial Portal because of the feeling I remember being forced by my guild or the social structure of WoW to always do everything perfectly. I wanted to play one way and participate in content I found fun (high end raiding/dungeons) I was denied unless I played a certain way. I fear this societal pressure will seep into DST. It is not healthy for a game.

Please Klei, add an option to remove the Florid Postern or the Celestial Portal Craft, or alternatively lock skill tree choice to a per world basis. I feel the former will be more popular among the player base. Granted I play entirely single player but I am certain some other people out there in the community hate the Celestial Portal and play with others and wish those people would not abuse the power of the portal.

[Baark0]

Is there anything wrong with players wanting to optimize their play? While I do agree it would create an interesting choice of "do I want to get extra maximum mightiness on Wolfgang so I can spend less time training during the early game, or do I want to take bonus planar damage to scale into the late game?", depending on how the affinities work you maybe be locked out of new content (I don't see why a player with shadow affinity would help Wagstaff and vice versa). I've said this before in another thread, but it really feels like being able to reset skills using the Celestial Portal is more of an oversight than an intended mechanic. 

There should definitely be a more official way to swap skills that doesn't involve changing characters. That way we can keep that interesting early game vs late game skills choice, while not potentially locking players out of content.

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, Evelo said:

will always detest the Celestial Portal because of the feeling I remember being forced by my guild or the social structure of WoW to always do everything perfectly. I wanted to play one way and participate in content I found fun (high end raiding/dungeons) I was denied unless I played a certain way. I fear this societal pressure will seep into DST. It is not healthy for a game.

Honestly this is what pushed me out of a lot of mmos and multiplayer games and it's super common. Worse still is games often start balancing around these optimized builds.

[GenomeSquirrel]

this seems like a personal problem, the game doesn’t put very much pressure on you to optimize anything once you’re familiar with it. while I did see a video on why it’s rude to suck at world of warcraft, my family has led me to disengage with any level of undo fastidiousness.

 

if you want freedom from people that care, join pubs, i’ve seen more woodies change to monkeys than anyone bother to change characters for a boss fight in recent days.

[Valase]

2 hours ago, Evelo said:

All they need is a purple gem and some moon rock.

Then do it dude, no one is stopping you from that, just go there and get the rope, boards and lunar rocks and do it, also wait for the RNG of the orb to spawn, then do it. If you don't want to do it, thats okay too, but you can't force people to not be allowed to do it.

I don't even know if this is very common in public servers, but like, if your friend group do it all the time, you may ask them if they can do it less. I can't really see a friend group that has one person that goes rampant when one of them swaps out of Wick to play as Max. The odds are that the friend group doesn't even know about the celestial portal.

[Evelo]

6 hours ago, Baark0 said:

Is there anything wrong with players wanting to optimize their play?

Not inherently but there are circumstances that can lead to players optimizing SO much that they no longer enjoy the game. Honestly maybe I am just so traumatized from my 15 years in World of Warcraft that anytime I see a way for player to optimize I am against it. Yea, a personal problem. If Klei added the option to remove the Florid Postern then that little whisper in the back of my brain to "swap characters, it's what you should do, you aren't playing at peak efficiency" would finally go away. I can't be the only one who feels that. People can beat the game with Wes using his fist. Efficiency and optimization is just a tool for convenience rather than necessity.

If you're interested in this topic of optimization I recommend checking out GDTK's video "How Game Designers Protect Players From Themselves"

[cybers2001]

6 hours ago, Evelo said:

I will always detest the Celestial Portal because of the feeling I remember being forced by my guild or the social structure of WoW to always do everything perfectly. I wanted to play one way and participate in content I found fun (high end raiding/dungeons) I was denied unless I played a certain way. I fear this societal pressure will seep into DST. It is not healthy for a game.

How does celestial portal do this? Same thing can happen without celestial portal, too. Oh, you joined a server as Wes/Willow/Webber? Banned.

[Dragonboooorn]

7 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

Oh, you joined a server as Wes/Willow/Webber? Banned.

based opinion tbh

[Cassielu]

42 minutes ago, Evelo said:

Not inherently but there are circumstances that can lead to players optimizing SO much that they no longer enjoy the game. Honestly maybe I am just so traumatized from my 15 years in World of Warcraft that anytime I see a way for player to optimize I am against it. Yea, a personal problem. If Klei added the option to remove the Florid Postern then that little whisper in the back of my brain to "swap characters, it's what you should do, you aren't playing at peak efficiency" would finally go away. I can't be the only one who feels that. People can beat the game with Wes using his fist. Efficiency and optimization is just a tool for convenience rather than necessity.

If you're interested in this topic of optimization I recommend checking out GDTK's video "How Game Designers Protect Players From Themselves"

Yes, whenever I played a Wickerbottom with a full library and Maxwell in the server, or Winona who had finished catapult array. This anxiety would come up and tell me that I was wasting on a useless character.

It seem will also happen in the foreseeable future on Wormwood when chooses the craft recipe skill.

Sure, some characters are inherently terrible, but the celestial portal is the source of all this, and it needs to be tweaked or at least make it more expensive.

[GenomeSquirrel]

24 minutes ago, Evelo said:

Not inherently but there are circumstances that can lead to players optimizing SO much that they no longer enjoy the game. Honestly maybe I am just so traumatized from my 15 years in World of Warcraft that anytime I see a way for player to optimize I am against it. Yea, a personal problem. If Klei added the option to remove the Florid Postern then that little whisper in the back of my brain to "swap characters, it's what you should do, you aren't playing at peak efficiency" would finally go away. I can't be the only one who feels that. People can beat the game with Wes using his fist. Efficiency and optimization is just a tool for convenience rather than necessity.

If you're interested in this topic of optimization I recommend checking out GDTK's video "How Game Designers Protect Players From Themselves"

 

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKP1I7IocYU

Here's the video I was thinking of, I'll admit I never liked that type of game, I like temporary single digit lobbies and no voice chat

[mima_]

i dont like spending each day with day 1 autumn so if i cant change character ill be stuck playing same gameplay for thousand days in game ?
is anyone everthought of that ? 
some people might find its interesting as a way for streaming content . but with repeatable cycle with same char would be really dull late game 

also swapping characters is actually supporting klei .
while u can saved up to get it for free but u also can buy them with real money lol 
with no a 1 char only main,
i maxed out all skin every character has .. 
 

[Castiliano]

I would love that option or at least a cooldown! As it currently stands, it seems disrespectful to the characters to play as if you're playing 18 characters at once and abusing his perks for convenience, like playing with them for 5 minutes and swap again and again

[Frosty_Mentos]

With skill trees if they won't be reworked on how you gain insight I'd say there should be a more difficult way to work towards Celestial portal albeit killing Celestial Champion or other, if all characters will be special then noone will feel like it when you pick swap all the time. 

In singleplayer you have to sacrifice the world and everything that's behind to swap character, even if it wasn't multiplayer it still was a big thing to sacrifice in terms of wanting some other character. Even if swapping in other DLC worlds you had the challenge of needing to find all the pieces and survive till you get to that point. There was work to be had and exploration with it, even if it costed time there was a sense of adventure in terms of getting the character to do what you want before a swap.

So tell me, Klei, I know it was added before all the lunar stuff but shouldn't that mechanic have some sort of meaning to when investing into playing a character? All experiences would feel unique and interesting to watch on YT or twitch for viewers or enjoyed by players to see how well you can handle the perks and limitations of each one of the characters, using the tools they got and start with as they progress in killing bosses and surviving?

[Nikki Darks]

12 hours ago, Evelo said:

What's the point of player choice when they can change their mind whenever they want. All they need is a purple gem and some moon rock.

Want player choice to actually mean something? Lock it for the world so you can't change willy nilly.

Players on average, tend to optimize games to the point they find no fun out of it. "Optimize the fun out of the game" so to speak. Preventing players from optimizing will allow players to try out various things until they settle on one they find most fun. Or at least until there is a meta that is optimal, in which case balancing every patch to "spice up the meta" is what keeps players coming back.

We've already seen this with plenty of solo players swapping back and forth between characters for boss fights then swapping back to their preferred character for "megabase" stuff. So many players, not all of course, but many, swap to Warly to craft the Volt Goat Jelly then swap to Wolfgang or Wanda. Now those same players will feel incentivized into swapping to Woodie to gather a ton of resources then swap back to Maxwell with their Wickerbottom book cases to farm using Winona's catapults.

The celestial portal is here to stay and I can accept that. I don't like it but I accept it. However I feel for player choice to actually matter because currently it does not matter given the requirements to change your mind or flip flop or do whatever, is to lock players in their choice on a world basis.

This could be done by allowing the option in world settings from being able to craft the Celestial Portal, or remove the Postern entirely. This way players on that world are stuck with their character choice and their character skills.

I will always detest the Celestial Portal because of the feeling I remember being forced by my guild or the social structure of WoW to always do everything perfectly. I wanted to play one way and participate in content I found fun (high end raiding/dungeons) I was denied unless I played a certain way. I fear this societal pressure will seep into DST. It is not healthy for a game.

Please Klei, add an option to remove the Florid Postern or the Celestial Portal Craft, or alternatively lock skill tree choice to a per world basis. I feel the former will be more popular among the player base. Granted I play entirely single player but I am certain some other people out there in the community hate the Celestial Portal and play with others and wish those people would not abuse the power of the portal.

The point of player choice is... For the player to choose?

The "over-optimization" thing is just a per person issue. It's based on the player, their subjective perception of fun and their preferred way of playing the game.

I as a Wicker main, will never use the Celestial Portal to swap into Maxwell once I set up my bookcase and books, why?

Because I don't like the character.

This in general seems like a personal issue from past gaming experiences, which is fine I guess. But the portal is an option that lets people add variety to their game.

But I do want DST to have as many settings as possible, so I fully support being able to disable the Celestial Portal since it gives the game more customization.

Giving people more ways of creating their own world more unique is always great in my opinion. 

[flamboyant wolf]

I like swapping the character I'm playing, when I wanna try something new without making a new world, so I'm of course biased towards the celestial portal staying in some capacity, however, it is pretty ridiculous just how cheap and often you can change characters. You can find plenty of Moon rocks in the meteor biom, on lunar or even in the archives(all of which you'd need to visit at least once to complete Celestial Champion questline anyway), and you'll get a bunch of purple gems from ruins, which can be reset. 

Still, when it comes to "swap characters", I feel like the main problem is not that a character's power can be utilized without them, but that they're not engaging/fun enough for people to stay as them(I mean, really, look at Winona, she has one(1) useful building and an annoying downside, of course most people don't want to stay as her!). 

[abrocator]

1 hour ago, Frosty_Mentos said:

In singleplayer you have to sacrifice the world and everything that's behind to swap character, even if it wasn't multiplayer it still was a big thing to sacrifice in terms of wanting some other character.

Not really. You can connect Hamlet+Forest+SW, build a base in one of them, and then change via one of the other two. In practice you might only need to sacrifice small bases that you use while looting the world.

I ended up building a main base in Hamlet and switching in the others. Or maybe I was just switching in Forest/RoG. Can’t remember.

[Dodo_merm]

How would you react if moon idols couldn't be created, but you could get 1 for defeating the crab king? Would you farm it for a character change?

[GolographGUSlo]

4 hours ago, Frosty_Mentos said:

In singleplayer you have to sacrifice the world and everything that's behind to swap character, even if it wasn't multiplayer it still was a big thing to sacrifice in terms of wanting some other character.

Actually, if you complete Adventure mode with character that you want swap with and then complete Adventure mode in world where you want to swap characters, you swaped character to other and you have your world. (Amount of time spent is questionable but it’s an option)

[Gashzer]

Celestial portal is awesome. People would just use console commands to swap to different characters if klei removed it or nerfed it. At that point only console players would be hurt.

As woodie or even walter, rushing celestial portal by rushing the lunar island is a pretty good strategy when starting a new world. 

Woodie can use beaver tail slap to mine entire rock biomes, use moose to farm loads of silk, use goose to find lunar, rush celestial portal and switch to winona/wurts to make catapults/merms/clever disguise at bee queen then switch back to woodie to make hardwood helmets for the merms and kill bee queen. I like the freedom in playstyle options the celestial portal provides. The ability to merge different character perks together is great.

[SullyD]

Bro, literally everyone plays as they want, if you don't want to use the damn portal, don't use it, have you ever stopped to think that you have that choice, the game doesn't force you to change characters. For God's sake, think for newbies too who want to know the characters and can change, imagine having to create a new world every time because you got sick of playing with some character? Wtf people like you think? I really wanted the devs to make a post ''WE WILL NOT CHANGE ANYTHING IN CELESTIAL PORTAL, THANK YOU.''

[GelatinousCube]

This is honestly one of my least if not least favourite suggestion that gets brought up. 

If you dont like to character swap/skill tree swap then don't. Done. Simple as that. No one is forcing you at gunpoint. If you think this means you don't get to play in an optimal way too bad, suck it up. Do you really need to take other people's options away from them to feel better?

What's with this "Little voice" or "I must play the most absolutely and utterly optimised way possible so if the portal exists I'll use it even though I don't want to" absolute nonsense. You guys realise it's a video game not a career right? It exists to have fun/provide escapism from the real world. 

Yeah having it as a world gen option isn't the end of the world if You want to stop others using it in your private world but simply play with those you know won't do so if you request it or play wilderness (no portal in the first place right? Isn't this basically what you want?). Or put a description for your world that you don't allow swapping and ban/kick those that do (Honestly I think this is childish to force randoms to play the way you want but that's just me). 

What's with trying to force others to play the way you want? Play your way and let others play their way. 

Klei want the portal to exist so it does. If you don't like it again for the tenth time don't bloody use it. 

6 hours ago, Nikki Darks said:

But I do want DST to have as many settings as possible, so I fully support being able to disable the Celestial Portal since it gives the game more customization.

I agree with everything else you've said but I just don't know about this. If it's a purely private world and the owner has this bizarre issue of hating the portal but feeling like they have to use it anyway sure but if it's public you're just forcing others to play the way you want and taking any choice or agency away from them. 

It's going to be yet another thing where it's like oh right this player has night turned off I'm gonna bail from this server sort of situation. 

It doesn't seem necessary when you can literally just not use it. 

[Nikki Darks]

3 hours ago, GelatinousCube said:

This is honestly one of my least if not least favourite suggestion that gets brought up. 

If you dont like to character swap/skill tree swap then don't. Done. Simple as that. No one is forcing you at gunpoint. If you think this means you don't get to play in an optimal way too bad, suck it up. Do you really need to take other people's options away from them to feel better?

What's with this "Little voice" or "I must play the most absolutely and utterly optimised way possible so if the portal exists I'll use it even though I don't want to" absolute nonsense. You guys realise it's a video game not a career right? It exists to have fun/provide escapism from the real world. 

Yeah having it as a world gen option isn't the end of the world if You want to stop others using it in your private world but simply play with those you know won't do so if you request it or play wilderness (no portal in the first place right? Isn't this basically what you want?). Or put a description for your world that you don't allow swapping and ban/kick those that do (Honestly I think this is childish to force randoms to play the way you want but that's just me). 

What's with trying to force others to play the way you want? Play your way and let others play their way. 

Klei want the portal to exist so it does. If you don't like it again for the tenth time don't bloody use it. 

I agree with everything else you've said but I just don't know about this. If it's a purely private world and the owner has this bizarre issue of hating the portal but feeling like they have to use it anyway sure but if it's public you're just forcing others to play the way you want and taking any choice or agency away from them. 

It's going to be yet another thing where it's like oh right this player has night turned off I'm gonna bail from this server sort of situation. 

It doesn't seem necessary when you can literally just not use it. 

Nobody is obligated to join a pub they dislike, configs and world settings just add more customization to your gaming experience. It's just a benefit.

If you don't like the settings on a public server... Don't join it?

Or make your own.

[goblinball]

I don’t understand the problem with being able to swap characters or other stuff whenever you want

you don’t see ppl complaining about being able to swap classes whenever you want in terraria

[Arcwell]

I think the argument has been a bit misconstrued here. OP is not asking to get rid of the celestial portal, they are asking for a world settings option to disable it for their world. It'd be similar to disabling Deerclops, for example.

I love the celestial portal and would never disable it, but having the option to disable it doesn't harm me in any way. I see no issue with the proposed change, and if it would make some people happy, that's a good thing.

[Nikki Darks]

1 minute ago, Arcwell said:

I think the argument has been a bit misconstrued here. OP is not asking to get rid of the celestial portal, they are asking for a world settings option to disable it for their world. It'd be similar to disabling Deerclops, for example.

I love the celestial portal and would never disable it, but having the option to disable it doesn't harm me in any way. I see no issue with the proposed change, and if it would make some people happy, that's a good thing.

World settings are the best way to please everyone.

Want to make the game harder? Set the dangers to more or lots, and benefits to less.

Want the game to be easier? Set the dangers to less, and benefits to more or lots.

Literally everyone wins.