Should Explosion Resistance be Removed from the DST?

[Fufuji]

Explosion Resistance for Bosses was introduced soon after AFW's debut in early 2017, probably because that AFW has relatively low HP and 2 stacks of Gunpowder will instantly kill it without him activating force shield. A stack of 40 Gunpowder explosion will apply 100% resistance to Bosses, which remains at maximum for 2s and gradually fades away in the next 8 seconds. 

This mechanic didn't work well however. The most factor that prevents players from using Gunpowder against Bosses isn't this explosion resistance, but is that farming Gunpowder takes too much effort and time and is boring. If the player has managed getting enough Gunpowder to defeat a Boss, explosion resistance becomes a minor barrier and can be avoided by watching some guiding videos or checking the Wiki. Even against AFW, the resistance just adds 1 single round of clearing Unseen Hands and Woven Shadows which literally still requires no skill and little other equipment. 

So I don't get it why this mechanic is still here, since it doesn't provide any "protection" from the players' Gunpowder strategy, only a little botheration of having to wait for 10s before detonating the next stack of Gunpowder. 

For myself I am a player of mere mediocre skills and I only use characters with 1.0 damage multiplier against Bosses without any so-called cheeses, and have taken down Bosses flawlessly except for AFW, The Twins, Beequeen and Toadstool (those are too hard for me). However I do think that farming a large number of equipment and dishes for taking down Bosses with little fighting skills cannot be considered "cheese", including Gunpowder strategy. It is because that IMO DST is more of a survival game than a fighting game, and knowing how to farm more resources is more important than dodging all Bosses' attacks. Skills of obtaining resources makes up for one's lack in fighting skills and vice versa. 

Please feel free talking about your opinion on this topic. Like, how you think of "Gunpowder cheese", Explosion Resistance, and their impact on the game. 

[Ardyn]

It should be removed. Even using Wilson to collect saltpeter from raw materials, accumulating enough gunpowder is still a lengthy task.

[Spino43]

I don't mind if it goes away, I rarely use gunpowders to kill bosses. The 10s explosion res cooldown is negligible anyway since you can just wait it out, then blow them up again.

[Captain_Rage]

The current implementation is perfectly fine.

[_zwb]

If they make the bosses actually fun to fight solo(and in groups) and not just "craft this to win", nor having the bosses spam attacks every 5 seconds when their stats are already ridiculously high, players wouldn't need gunpowder cheese in the first place. I think they should rework the bosses instead of straight up removing the resistance, that'd be a lazy solution.

[goatt]

3 hours ago, Fufuji said:

The most factor that prevents players from using Gunpowder against Bosses isn't this explosion resistance, but is that farming Gunpowder takes too much effort and time and is boring.

I think this is precisely why gunpowder resistance should stay. Let me explain.

(Everything I will be talking about is based on my limited understanding of MDA model in game design explained in this video.)

Basically, game mechanics change how players act, and consequently, change how players feel.

A brief summary: according to this theory, game design should control (in most subtle ways) how players behave, so that it can create exactly the emotions and atmosphere it wants players to feel.

We know farming nitre is boring. But the game doesn't want players to feel boring. And this resistance discourages players from deciding to go through this process in the first place.

This freedom (of using gunpowder freely) is limited by game intentionally to create a feedback loop that repel players from participating in a boring experience that they may or may not know about.

In other words, this resistance can prevent players from the boring nitre farming, in addition to slightly cheesy boss fight. Without this resistance, more people will farm nitre, for sure.

[_zwb]

1 hour ago, goatt said:

this resistance can prevent players from the boring nitre farming,

But the boring weather pain farming still exists somehow

[Fufuji]

1 hour ago, goatt said:

We know farming nitre is boring. But the game doesn't want players to feel boring. And this resistance discourages players from deciding to go through this process in the first place.

People already know this is boring but they still choose the Gunpowder, generally because that they think practicing boss battles is more boring or too hard for them. Plenty of players just simply "skip" boss battles and enjoy other contents of DST.

1 hour ago, goatt said:

In other words, this resistance can prevent players from the boring nitre farming, in addition to slightly cheesy boss fight. Without this resistance, more people will farm nitre, for sure.

This "slightly chessy" method gives them enough fulfillment and leaves less guilty feeling of "I am unworthy of this game". If these slightly cheesy strategies are no longer available, they will likely turn to more "infamous" bugs and chesses, or just simply abandon the game. 

What I am gonna say may be a little offensive but here is my limited (and probably biased) understanding of DST. DST's battle system is very old-styled and conserved. Both players and devs have little space to improve it. It's like leavening dough in a nutshell -- the limit is here, and this limited system happens to be the foundation DST was built on. Most likely CK is one of the failed attempts Klei trying to bring new flavors to boss battles. For me DST should probably be more of a "survival game" than a fighting game, and creative approaches for defeating enemies should be more encouraged (both by community and Klei). That's why I think Explosion Resistance should be removed, for the purpose of conveying the signal that farming more resource to make up for fighting skills is not considered a "bad" way for battles. 

The video is interesting and helpful. Thanks you for sharing your thoughts! 

[lenship2]

9 minutes ago, _zwb said:

But the boring weather pain farming still exists somehow

not with the brightshade staff now! 

[goatt]

15 minutes ago, Fufuji said:

People already know this is boring but they still choose the Gunpowder, generally because that they think practicing boss battles is more boring or too hard for them. Plenty of players just simply "skip" boss battles and enjoy other contents of DST.

I agree. I think most measures are put in the game as an attempt to control players behavior using their knowledge and past experience. Players' actual decision making has multiple layers, like Game Theory. Therefore, the effectiveness of this implementation may not be optimal, and will fluctuate as the player base learns more and experiences more of the game.

But none of them would take away the value in repelling (I think "repel" is better than "prevent") players from certain decisions, which consequently improve their feeling in playing the game and overall perception of the game (hopefully? I have no data, only speaking from my own experience).

 

15 minutes ago, Fufuji said:

This "slightly chessy" method gives them enough fulfillment and leaves less guilty feeling of "I am unworthy of this game". If these slightly cheesy strategies are no longer available, they will likely turn to more "infamous" bugs and chesses, or just simply abandon the game... ...For me DST should probably be more of a "survival game" than a fighting game, and creative approaches for defeating enemies should be more encouraged (both by community and Klei)

None of the existing cheeses in my opinions, are too exploitative. They are cheesy compared to extremely normal strategies. But they are not really cheese. All the really cheesy cheeses have been and will be patched sooner or later, I think. What cheeses gets to stay and which doesn't depends on how the game want to control players feelings, and again that's the MDA model talk.

I agree good cheeses should stay. They are not bugs, but one of the main features of the game. They are not hurting the game, but the fun of it.

The gunpowder cooldown doesn't take away players' option of using gunpowder, but asking them to do more than lighting gunpowder. Take fw as an example, players will have to actually engage some distinctive features of the fight while using gunpowders. If killing every boss is as simple as lighting gunpowder with little variation, then arguably, boss fights are just boring. With gunpowder cooldown and engaging with actual fights, players can claim to be gunpowder experts, rather than feel like they skipped the fight.

In other words, to address your point that the cooldown took away a creative approach, I think it doesn't. It repels players from using gunpowders / farming nitre but they still can, and it prevent players from killing hard bosses without engaging the fights or trivialize hard bosses.

[Frosty_Mentos]

I never really seen much reason as to why it even existed. It feels more like a nuisance than anything, only thing being that Fuelweaver can't be easily blown up unless you deal a certain amount of damage before it's second phase. 
Gunpowder is a good alternative to armies of mobs when you wanna just blow bosses or mobs and do quick burst of damage. Most bosses have stupid amounts of HP like BQ with her bees so even I use powder to cut through that health. I play Willow so any method for me to kill a boss is a way to kill a boss.
What I do think is that gunpowder should get some blunderbuss alternative or explosive blowdart rounds (like fusion with fire dart) as a ranged weapon option. Or explosive boomerang. Both maybe.

[Cassielu]

8 hours ago, goatt said:

We know farming nitre is boring. But the game doesn't want players to feel boring. And this resistance discourages players from deciding to go through this process in the first place.

If that's true, they should fix pathfinding and ice flingomatic cheese first, which also is the real reason people stopped using gunpowder.

Or, they don't want to annoy the people who enjoy them, then at least they should buff gunpowder to encourage people to use gunpowder instead of these more boring things for the rest of people.

[goatt]

1 hour ago, Cassielu said:

If that's true, they should fix pathfinding and ice flingomatic cheese first, which also is the real reason people stopped using gunpowder.

Pathfinding (bug) is one of the most underrated and underutilized features in the game that can spark lots of creative solutions. Until some those cheeses appear and become popular, I don't think they will be fixed anytime soon. (Unlike the recent BQ pathfinding fix over water, which got Klei's attention)

Flingomatic cheese is not too much of an issue, I think. Although its fix has been attempted when bosses' freeze resistance was introduced (which also affects ice staff now). There are several reasons why it's not much of an issue. 1. recent boss designs consider this effect in mind and flingomatic can't work well with them. 2. It is not popular because the strategy is too expensive for new players but too inefficient to seasoned players. There aren't many popular flingomatic cheese I think, (crab king, toadstool?). I can't find the exact update that introduced freeze resistance so I can't guess the purpose with high confidence. But I think my theory checks out.

[Antynomity]

I don't really care if it stays or gets removed, to be honest.

[Fufuji]

9 hours ago, goatt said:

extremely normal strategies

haha this really LMAO

9 hours ago, goatt said:

The gunpowder cooldown doesn't take away players' option of using gunpowder, but asking them to do more than lighting gunpowder. Take fw as an example, players will have to actually engage some distinctive features of the fight while using gunpowders. If killing every boss is as simple as lighting gunpowder with little variation, then arguably, boss fights are just boring. With gunpowder cooldown and engaging with actual fights, players can claim to be gunpowder experts, rather than feel like they skipped the fight.

You might be true on this aspect of the problem. 

2 hours ago, goatt said:

2. It is not popular because the strategy is too expensive for new players

Many of the chesses are expensive but for Flingomatic I think it is more expensive on learning costs. Players must watch some videos or something to study this method rather than discovering it during normal gameplay. 

[reddocc]

mfw wormwood and Walter Speedrun fuelweaver cheese with lureplants in the next update

[goatt]

1 minute ago, Fufuji said:

expensive but for Flingomatic I think it is more expensive on learning costs

and gears and ice are both difficulty. Gears are rather random on surface, and honestly, I don't think new players will have good luck killing clockworks, not to mention ruins. Ice are hard to find most of the time. And once it hits winter, they worry more about freezing than cheezing.