Nerf berry bush needed ?

[NyuKlaus]

Hello !

I just want to suggest a little nerf on berry bush, and i explain why here :

With this, i will not starve before my old days.

I love this game, and his difficulty, the main theme is about eating for don't starve, and with this, i don't have to trap some rabbit or bird, or kill some pigs to survive, the berry bush are a bit too cheat, (it's my opinion).

So i suggest three things :

- Berry bush can die randomly (like in real life).

- In compensation you have a very small chance to loot berry bush seeds when you harvest them. The chance to loot a seed needs to be as randomly as the chance for the berry bush to die.

- Nerf cooked berries eat bonus and up cooked meat eat bonus (i guess it's more logic and less cheat )

Sorry if my english is not perfect, i'm just a french guy

EDIT, just got an idea with the new mob Gobbler ! Maybe it can block new spawn of berries if it in the berry bush (like he is eating all of it while you discover him with a shovel) ? ahah

Edited November 14, 2012 by NyuKlaus

[501105]

I agree to some extend, but we do need a steady food source for in the camp and much has already been nerfed. I would rather see a change of spawning a berry guardian or so like a tree guardian.

[NyuKlaus]

Ahah a Berry guard i could imagine how fun it would be

[501105]

Will be less fun when it chases and wants to eat you for eating all those berries:p

[NyuKlaus]

I agree but it's the game ! When i started this map, i got chased by three tree guard in two day! thanks to my stock of fire torch !

[conductorbosh]

It's fine without a nerf. It already gives a pretty small amount of hunger/health. As far as growing a ton of them go, there are a crapload of ways to get tons of food consistently at your home base. I've got chests full of food, and I never even use berries, except occasionally as bait. There's nothing wrong with having tons of food if you always stay in one place. Staying in one place the whole game is and should be relatively safe. It's when you go out and adventure that you run into problems, that you have to ration food, etc.

[Annoyed Grunt]

It's fine without a nerf. It already gives a pretty small amount of hunger/health. As far as growing a ton of them go, there are a crapload of ways to get tons of food consistently at your home base. I've got chests full of food, and I never even use berries, except occasionally as bait. There's nothing wrong with having tons of food if you always stay in one place. Staying in one place the whole game is and should be relatively safe. It's when you go out and adventure that you run into problems, that you have to ration food, etc.

That's REALLY true. In my first "serious" gameplay (the third) I survived 16 days, without problems. I had tons of food because i always in the same place (the map wasn't so big, too). Then I started again, because I was bored . I passed my first 5\6 exploring, then i continued exploring consistently. I died on my tenth night.

[mobius187]

I agree that surviving is easier with berries, especially once you replant them all at your base camp for convenience. It's also true that berry bushes are not the only food problem in Don't Starve. The other issue I have is with how easy it is to kill bunnies right now. Between meaty stew and boiled berries I hardly ever need any other food. In fact I often have so much food that I end up wasting some of it.

I don't think I would go with killing berry bushes though. In my opinion better solutions would be:

1) Increase the duration it takes for berries to grow back and add a random factor, for example, once picked a berry bush should respwn new berries 3-7 days later. That way it would also appear more natural, and not "harvest time at the farm".

2) Allow birds to land on bushes and eat berries. This way when you trek back to your base camp after exploring or working on another island you may find all your berry bushes empty, when normally they would be waiting for you full of berries. Pesky birds!

3) Tall birds are fairly uncommon right now, and while no serious threat when it comes to stealing their eggs... what if they LOVED berries. And wouldn't it be a shame if they were attracted to a location more if there were lots of berry bushes there? So now you have tall birds eating your berries and, if you get close, they attack you. Sure, you could kill them, but then you jeopardize your source of tastey eggs!

4) One word: Seasons. If the game later has season then winter would be a time when no berries would grow at all for, say, 60-90 days. That would certianly put a dent into our food supplies as we would be forced to hunt rather than rely on grown foods.

[heflar]

well, in nature, its normal for animals to flock to water and food supplies, why should it be any different here also in doing so, perhaps add fences that can merely slow them down

[deskp]

They should not nerf the berries.

sure surviving for long can be easy if you never leave your camp, and the boreddom of that is what challenges you to take trips to gather resources to craft new objects.

[mobius187]

also in doing so, perhaps add fences that can merely slow them down

I'm tapping the side of my nose right now, but you can't see it. So instead I'll say "Spot on". Fences or wooden walls would need to be placed around your camp to protect your resources from bunnies and tall birds, while in another thread I suggested beefalo should eat grass (another resource you collect). Now the walls and fences wouldn't stop normal birds, but as other users have mentioned in other threads this is where you need to invent/build a scarecrow (i.e. pumpkin + 4 sticks + 12 grass). It would show the radius it protects while you're moving it around for placement.

Of course wooden fences and walls should require wooden boards, so it should take the player some time to collect the wood he needs to build a proper barricade, which as we all know time is a valuable resource.

[NyuKlaus]

1) Increase the duration it takes for berries to grow back and add a random factor, for example, once picked a berry bush should respwn new berries 3-7 days later. That way it would also appear more natural, and not "harvest time at the farm".

2) Allow birds to land on bushes and eat berries. This way when you trek back to your base camp after exploring or working on another island you may find all your berry bushes empty, when normally they would be waiting for you full of berries. Pesky birds!

3) Tall birds are fairly uncommon right now, and while no serious threat when it comes to stealing their eggs... what if they LOVED berries. And wouldn't it be a shame if they were attracted to a location more if there were lots of berry bushes there? So now you have tall birds eating your berries and, if you get close, they attack you. Sure, you could kill them, but then you jeopardize your source of tastey eggs!

4) One word: Seasons. If the game later has season then winter would be a time when no berries would grow at all for, say, 60-90 days. That would certianly put a dent into our food supplies as we would be forced to hunt rather than rely on grown foods.

Your ideas are pretty awesome, i totally agree with it

[CoolRanch]

I love the idea of seasons! As for berries I dunno where I stand there. I use berries and carrots as food on the go, when I come upon them I eat them on the spot. I save rabbit meat and tallbird eggs for the night. That keeps me safe from starvation. An individual berry doesn't give enough health/hunger to qualify for a nerf imo. Yes if you have a ton of them hoarded in one spot near your basecamp that is pretty powerful but I think that's sort of the idea of a basecamp. I'm more worried about my rabbits getting a more advanced AI and figuring out they can go in ANY rabbit hole instead of their special one.

[Mineral4r7s]

Well I stuffed the Pig King with Meat to get gold that I can then exchange into RP. So well... Feeded him 2 stacks of cooked morsel. I am not sure if it is my imagination or not but he seemed slightly fatter =P (jk)

[mobius187]

Your ideas are pretty awesome, i totally agree with it

Thanks. I think we can all come up with great ideas, it just takes time feeling how the game works and seeing what needs to be rebalanced after every update. For example, I was glad to learn that if you drop vegitables on the ground, say because you lack room in your chests, that rabbits will sneak up and eat them. Very nice, and it gives you potential hunting ideas. Or it would, if it wasn't already painfully easy to hunt rabbits. Bugs Bunny they are not.

I love the idea of seasons!

Thanks. I'm sure the idea of seasons has been brought up before on the forums, as it's a wonderful idea. "Dealing" with berries hasn't been discussed too much lately though. I'm hopeful that something is done at some stage.

As for berries I dunno where I stand there. I use berries and carrots as food on the go, when I come upon them I eat them on the spot. I save rabbit meat and tallbird eggs for the night. That keeps me safe from starvation. An individual berry doesn't give enough health/hunger to qualify for a nerf imo.

Have you tried roasting your berries over your camp fire? This, for some reason, actually lets them restore higher amounts of hunger. I assume because "berry goop" is delicious.

And yet try to cook 4 fish meat in the crock pot and you get gunk. What's up with that?

Yes if you have a ton of them hoarded in one spot near your basecamp that is pretty powerful but I think that's sort of the idea of a basecamp.

I have four to five stacks of 24 cooked berries... and with the way berry bushes keep respawning I can't keep up. I mean, by the time I get close to eating a full stack all 30+ bushes are ripe with berries. I literally made a new chest for berry goop.

I'm more worried about my rabbits getting a more advanced AI and figuring out they can go in ANY rabbit hole instead of their special one.

Yes. I suggested this, or giving each rabbit 2-3 holes to choose from, but I imagine it's the same difference so long as there are at least two rabbit holes. Then we'll finally need to lure them with food and/or traps.

Well I stuffed the Pig King with Meat to get gold that I can then exchange into RP. So well... Feeded him 2 stacks of cooked morsel. I am not sure if it is my imagination or not but he seemed slightly fatter =P (jk)

Well now that gold ore found inside boulders was nerfed I may finally need to start doing this too.

[darrent83]

I think increasing the respawn time would help, I've gathered two islands worth of berry bushes around my camp. I use them instead of filler in recipes and when I get too much I force the poor piggies to eat them for manure. It really can't be healthy for one pig to make twenty piles of manure in a day.

[Balthizaur]

leave berries as they are, why is it people are determined to make this game so you can't survive if you don't keep exploring?

[Bogpad]

people that call for these nerfs do forget something.

This game is still in the "early game" development phase, and the devs already mentioned that we still will get a "mid game" and a "late game" added to it.

if you start swinging the nerf bat on everything in the early game mode, making it impossible for you to sustain yourself without spending huge amounts of your daytime just exploring for food, how are we ever supposed to get something done in the "mid game" and "late game", because the content added with these phases surely will take a huge deal of your time aswell, time you do not have, because you can not sustain yourself with basic items like food.

What good does caves, mines, dungeons, boss monsters or what ever gets suggested again and again for "mid" and "late game" have if you don't have time to care about them, because you need to go out in the wood and gather berries?

because one thing is for sure, the hunger meter will stay in game, and so does the need of food. so beeing able to get to a point where you are able to get food in a appropriate amount to sustain yourself without spending 6/10 daylight just to gather food so you eventually can do the real funny stuff in the remaining 4/10 befor it gets dark is absolutely necessary if we ever want to get "mid game" and "late game" content.

[501105]

A very good point and one I have been thinking about too. People often forget that the current game is only the begin phase of your survival. They already view it as a whole experience. In games like Terraria things are fairly easy in the start of the game to let you build up a solid base to survive and proceed with. After having a solid start and basic tools more advanced elements and challenges are introduced. A really difficult beginning would make reaching the mid and eventual late game nearly impossible and frankly not much fun.

[Slipfish]

I think to those who call for increased difficulty, they see the focus of the game to be one of survival. Survival of the fittest, survival of the brainy-est. Not everyone will want to experience that degree of difficulty. Yes Don't Starve is the name of the game, yet it should not be made into the 'Be All' objective. Exploration counts for a large part of the game. People who have already played for a long time, they will make new worlds in order to explore. I do not think even they want their avatars to be killed off over a few missteps. I want to explore without worrying about 'Game Over' after few minutes.

[mobius187]

Well I certainly wouldn't suggest nerfing everything to the point where you're only just barely staving off hunger. Part of the reason why this comes up is because were caught right now in a cycle of repeating the early stage of the game, which is easy and leads to huge stockpiles. Even so there are some aspects which could be improved. Why do we really need rabbit traps if it's easier to catch rabbits by hand? I would just like a fix that either makes that harder to pull off or renews the usefulness of said traps.

As for the bushes... again, I have tons of them because I've wandered all the islands as they are now. Whose to say what the final game will be like, so anything that's nerfed now could always be un-nerfed later when new content rebalances the situation. I can only judge based on what I know exists now. The Devs know more, so I'm sure that if we ask for something they plan to fix another way, then it's just forum talk. Then again, maybe some of these ideas will prove useful to them.

[501105]

I get that, but it is almost like you want the game to be extremely punishing, a game in which you have to keep on moving every second otherwise you are dead within a minute or so. That would ruin the game for me, I dont mind a challenge in surviving, but I dont want a Dark Souls survival game difficulty wise.

[mobius187]

I get that, but it is almost like you want the game to be extremely punishing, a game in which you have to keep on moving every second otherwise you are dead within a minute or so. That would ruin the game for me, I dont mind a challenge in surviving, but I dont want a Dark Souls survival game difficulty wise.

Nope, I have no interest in making the game insanely difficult, but right now there are lots of options available when it comes to dealing with hunger. Some are fair, like requiring a fishing pole to fish, bird trap to catch birds, or building a beehive to make sustainable honey sources. Others are challenging, like hunting beefalo or spiders. I see these as balanced and I wouldn't change them.

But there are just too many options on the "easy" side, namely berry bushes, crops, and rabbits. Rabbits were harder for me back when I needed to catch them with traps, but after I discovered they were super-easy to catch just by cutting them off from their rabbit hole... well my maps became littered with meat morsels. Berry bushes also seemed great at first, a quick survival snack that I would discover during my explorations. But once you learned to dig up the bushes and plant them in huge collections at your base camp it led to massive stacks of berries (or in my case, I also cooked them for maximum hunger restoration). Crops would be nice, but allowing manure to excelerate growth allows players to stockpile food too quickly. And we all know how easy it is to steal tall bird eggs.

My short list of improvement would be to make rabbits harder to catch, so players rely on rabbit traps again. And by either reducing the number of rabbits that spawn OR reducing the number of rabbit holes, you balance out how much meat can be collected. Of course if you're now relying on traps which wear down and need to be rebuilt, that may already help balance things out as players need to spend time/resources replacing traps. The same is true for the other food sources. If crops couldn't be fertilized to grow faster then players would opt to build more gardens, which in turn could be balanced by the need to protect said crops from animals and so on.

Do I have all the answers? No. Should every suggestion I make be implemented? Probably not, because as you pointed out the difficulties stack and could make the game too difficult. But I wouldn't mind if one or two ideas were found to have some merit and were used to help improve the game.

Edited November 15, 2012 by mobius187

[phantomspiker]

*snip*

Great ideas, I completely agree.

[Bogpad]

I actually catch rabbits more or less exclusivly with traps, yet, I always have a chest filled with morsels.

the issue with rabbits is not that they are easy to catch with or without traps, the issue is just that they respawn way too fast. same for the bushes, there is no need to prevent people from making berry farms if they want to, just make the berry respawn slower, not every 5 days, but every 8 or 10 days.

Same goes for the farm issue, if it can get abused with too much poop, just make the beefalo poop less.

all these issues can be dealt with just by some number juggling, there is no need to spend time on coding mechanics that rebalance parts of a game that isnt even finished yet. Not to mention that tweaking numbers of game mechanics that are already implemented usually is much less likely to cause new bugs compared to whole new game mechanics, so thats even more time the devs can spend on development progression.

I am not saying that the suggestions made in this thread are bad, imo, they are just not needed and a, sorry for the harsh words, waste of time right now, since I am very sure that the development team has a ton of stuff on their to do list already.