The game's difficulty and judging content based off your skill level

[Retepeter]

Hey, the forums is a really wild place and as I could gather from my time here *certain* people judge a 100 people indie company waaay too harshly and I'd like to bring up something that forumers forget exists: player skill. I hope to give everyone a new perspective on why Klei is doing some things.

DS/T is a very unique game, there isn't much mechanical skill, once you've learned kiting and enemies' patterns you can kill them all and there isn't much you can do to improve (other than animation cancelling but that's not important outside of speedrunning)

But let's say I can kill every clockwork in the game and also ancient guardian, this doesn't mean I can rush the ruins because of what people forget:

DST's skill is primarily based off knowledge of the game and understanding the best way to achieve your goal with the given recourses 

This may be a little confusing at first but as an other example knowing every boss' kiting patterns doesn't guarantee an easy boss rush in year one. You have to juggle many things (such as wether to rush ruins, or what season to do pearl in or how many weather panes you need in total, knowing where to find everything from knowladge about world gen ect.) if you think about it enough you realise everything in the game from basic survival to advanced boss rushing strategies comes down to player skill. People are "good" at the game when they know every option to solve a problem and find the best/fastest/easiest solution to solve them (such as knowing which light source you need: torch being cheap, lantern being efficient, moggles being convinient)

Now most people on the forums forget this and I can't really blame them, this is really unconventional for games, however everything needs to be re-examined with this in mind. I like to think that I know a lot about dst and with a majority of my time spent playing public servers I know people of varying skill levels so I'll list off a few old and recent additions so we can discuss them from the perspective of different people with different levels of skill and why they don't need to be nerfed because you with 7k hours find the game easy.

 

Cooking

Cooking is generally regarded as a well balanced mechanic, with people of all skill levels getting use out of the crock pot (from meatballs to meaty stew and surf 'n' turf)

You need to experiment with the pot to find out which dishes are the best thing to cook in any given situation (for example having 3 berries 3 carrots and 1 leafy meat, you need to know about beefy greens to not cook meatballs from berries and eat the carrots, resoulting in 37 health that someone else may not have gotten if they only knew about meatballs) The more cooking recipes you know the more powerful the crockpot is

 

The "op p2w no downside easymode nerf now" lady

Looking at Wanda from an experienced player's perspecitve its completly different from a newbie's

For an experienced player getting time pieces, tusks, a shadow manipulator, marble is quite easy. A noob however is gonna struggle if they get the "best" dlc character first (trust me, i got her first and then didn't use her ever after dying over and over again for an irl day) If you dont know what you're doing you're lucky if there's a shadow manipulator at the communal base, not to mention knowing caves generation, the nightmare phases, tusk's location, the archives' existence at all, damage cancelling, night armor making and sanity managent ect. ect. ect. Point is if you know all the things I listed off and a bit more Wanda has no downside. There's nothing she can't do with the correct knowladge but a new player cant take advantage of any of her upsides besides making a backstep watch and teleporting into an enemy with it.

 

Skilltrees

There has been talks about skilltrees and how they make the game easier for new and old players 

I think it's very important to distinguish "easy" from "good" most skilltrees (at least so far but I believe they will keep this up) make the characters better, while not really making them easier. (as people also don't seem to realise) skilltrees aren't done yet and the "harder" characters haven't got their skilltrees yet.

Except wormwood, with arguably the harshest downside in the game his skilltree has done very little to make him easier to play. He has definately became a better character, better at farming, better at blooming, better at fighting. Even tough photosynthesis gives him passive hp he still cant heal from foods meaning you need to craft out of the way and expensive healing items to heal during bossfights, photosynthesis does let you regain a few health a day but that isn't worth much when tents already exist and wormwood already being the best character to produce food. The only way photosynthesis can be regarded as a gamechaning skill is if you don't know how to kill spiders, which is the second easiest mob to kill in the game just behind bees.

Lets also not ignore that you need to survive for quite a while to get insights (picture below) I do not think any of the first 4 skills are all that gamechanging (assuming people newbies to deerclops or winter or the first days of spring) this means  begginers won't get the full benifits of a skill bracnch (where usually the best abilities are locked behind mediocare at best abilities) Once again the only exception I can find is wormwood's shade plant ability but lets not beat around the bush, there are better skills to get and heat isn't the problem in summer when eyebrellas and thermal stones and the caves exist

 

I could go on and on. Many things in dst are more efficient then others, however because you with 7k hours know that doesn't mean it should be nerfed, Nerfing most things in the game (outside post boss content) would trickle down and greatly hinder new players who already have a lot to keep on top of. For example nerfing Wanda (with lets say nerfing the agless watch and adding a thulecite and orange gem healing watch) would likely still keep her being one of the best characters, however new players would regret purchasing her even more and make them not want to learn how to actually get good at the game.

Same thing goes for backpacks, you may know that it's a lot of valuable inventory however newbies already don't know what's valuable and what's not (I vividly remember debating wether to throw away 3 nitre or a tallbird egg in my first world), knowing what to throw away is also a skill you need to get with knowing the game's ins and outs

 I'm not good at writing these so if you have any questions or disagree go ahead spark a convo

[Uedo]

I think this a big issue we have on the forums is the gap between knowing the things and not. 
I'm not gonna hype myself up and say that because I can handle the bosses (Never fought malb though in all fairness), that i've done something great or that my skill level is higher - truthfully, I love a bit of cheese so that helps a lot, but there really does seem to be very different opinions in what's good/bad/balanced/what people should/shouldn't be doing. 

It took me years before I actually strayed away from surviving (just about) and tackling the combat side of the game and I found I really focus on that now, I can't say my experience will be or has been similar to other players but yeah it can be a lot to learn how to make things easier for yourself. 

I don't think the game is unfair, but uncompromising. I know some people directly state that the game is not uncompromising as it advertises itself to be, but I think it is, The game is as it is, and sure you might have ways of dealing with stuff but ultimately everything is generally a little unforgiving - I totally get that in many ways it's not as frustrating as DS but i'm not sure frustration is something I can't really be bothered with. Challenge is good but i want to be rewarded for my overcoming it, or at least that I feel it had a benefit which generally i think the game does well.

I've never understood the megabase vs survivalist arguement either and I think it comes from the time played - We all have to survive in the game but there are methods that ease it if you know what you're looking to do, I didn't really mind the post-rift boulders and I'm not sure i'm that bothered about the hail, but i'll still end up megabasing when i've finished the content and 'survive' through how the game develops going forward. I think people assume megabasing is like creative mode, i'm sure it is for a few people, but it requires work and time and during all of it you're still having to deal with things that can ruin what you're doing. 

We've all done the 'I've just lost my gear half way across the map and it's winter' walk right?

[Monkey Cups]

Hours played make a huge difference in this game. I couldn't keep my newbie friends alive even when I was right there to babysit them. One of them decided to run off into the swamp, immediately got got by tentacles. Another died to hounds. One starvation death (yes someone starved in Don't Starve, it does happen), two freezings, and one "oh if I hammer this hive it gets me honey".

[Gashzer]

Ngl from what ive saw the main difference between a noob and a pro player is armour. For some reason, noobs just straight up refuse to use armour or if they do use armour they never have a backup armour of the same type and get "surprised" when their single piece of armour breaks and they die.

99% of deaths are stopped by maintaining two armours of the same type (two football helmets for example) in your inventory. Thats my pro tip for today.

[Mysterious box]

7 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Ngl from what ive saw the main difference between a noob and a pro player is armour. For some reason, noobs just straight up refuse to use armour or if they do use armour they never have a backup armour of the same type and get "surprised" when their single piece of armour breaks and they die.

99% of deaths are stopped by maintaining two armours of the same type (two football helmets for example) in your inventory. Thats my pro tip for today.

This is true to a crazy extent I can't tell you how many Wilson, Webber, and Wendy players come to help me fight tentacles or tree guards with nothing but a axe or sometimes even their fists. However even for some more experienced players pride sometimes plays a role you'd be surprised how many players won't pick up a grass armor or log suit because they feel they should only be using football helmets or better as their armor even in a pig skin shortage...

And I know some people might say why would you ever use a grass suit  but when times are tough 60 is a lot higher than zero.

[Kwaik]

Maybe it's me but I HATE Wanda on console because of how hard it is to see her health bar. 

On pc and with access to mods I'm sure it's different but on console it's just so easy to get caught off guard and die, especially with her aging mechanic 

[Gashzer]

13 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

This is true to a crazy extent I can't tell you how many Wilson, Webber, and Wendy players come to help me fight tentacles or tree guards with nothing but a axe or sometimes even their fists. However even for some more experienced players pride sometimes plays a role you'd be surprised how many players won't pick up a grass armor or log suit because they feel they should only be using football helmets or better as their armor even in a pig skin shortage...

And I know some people might say why would you ever use a grass suit  but when times are tough 60 is a lot higher than zero.

Grass suits are one of the most underrated armours in DST. Twigs and grass are resources you should always have on hand atleast during the early-mid game. Meaning you always have access to a grass suit if all your armour breaks. 

I remember i underprepped for dfly as walter, i had only 2 log suits. My kiting was shocking bad this time round and both my log suits broke towards the end of the fight... then i remembered about the grass suit and it kept me alive long enough to beat dfly. 

Was so proud of myself for remembering about the grass suit lol alot of people would rather go without armour rather than make a grass suit and its so strange.

[lenship2]

1 hour ago, Gashzer said:

Grass suits are one of the most underrated armours in DST.

just by wearing grass armor you effectively multiply your health by ~3

[Valase]

On 10/1/2023 at 3:39 PM, Retepeter said:

Skilltrees

There has been talks about skilltrees and how they make the game easier for new and old players 

I think it's very important to distinguish "easy" from "good" most skilltrees (at least so far but I believe they will keep this up) make the characters better, while not really making them easier. (as people also don't seem to realise) skilltrees aren't done yet and the "harder" characters haven't got their skilltrees yet.

Except wormwood, with arguably the harshest downside in the game his skilltree has done very little to make him easier to play. He has definately became a better character, better at farming, better at blooming, better at fighting. Even tough photosynthesis gives him passive hp he still cant heal from foods meaning you need to craft out of the way and expensive healing items to heal during bossfights, photosynthesis does let you regain a few health a day but that isn't worth much when tents already exist and wormwood already being the best character to produce food. The only way photosynthesis can be regarded as a gamechaning skill is if you don't know how to kill spiders, which is the second easiest mob to kill in the game just behind bees.

Lets also not ignore that you need to survive for quite a while to get insights (picture below) I do not think any of the first 4 skills are all that gamechanging (assuming people newbies to deerclops or winter or the first days of spring) this means  begginers won't get the full benifits of a skill bracnch (where usually the best abilities are locked behind mediocare at best abilities) Once again the only exception I can find is wormwood's shade plant ability but lets not beat around the bush, there are better skills to get and heat isn't the problem in summer when eyebrellas and thermal stones and the caves exist

I think that you are downplaying the gift from the heavens that Wormwood's skill tree has been.

Not only it allows you to use fight in a different way (using Bramble husk even when you are kiting/not being hit, luring mobs to your bramble traps for that sweet extra damage, heal with compost wraps midfight, have a pocket full of killer bees, put mobs to sleep at the risk of you sleeping), they also indirectly help you heal quite a lot, even the bottom-left branch (that I hate), beekeeper+monkey tails for honey thing, syrup for manure, mass production of mushrooms. And photosintesis thing is not to heal you to full during a boss fight, it is there to allow you to use more of your health on your everyday life, producing living logs on a cooldown, always having at least one rat (rat== seeds== food), and both lunar paths can help in fighting (what would be Wormwood weakness), the dragon fruit guys are great targets to distract enemies, the BS armor helps you to run and heal after you get hit and the lunar vines not only deal quite some damage, but they also may draw aggro from enemies.

The Re-worked version of Wormwood skill tree does its job quite greatly, as it gives you reasons to use new tools and rewards you for using them and playing better.

Currently, I'm using both top branches, and all lunar affinities except the fly one. 

[Retepeter]

2 minutes ago, Valase said:

I think that you are downplaying the gift from the heavens that Wormwood's skill tree has been.

Not only it allows you to use fight in a different way (using Bramble husk even when you are kiting/not being hit, luring mobs to your bramble traps for that sweet extra damage, heal with compost wraps midfight, have a pocket full of killer bees, put mobs to sleep at the risk of you sleeping), they also indirectly help you heal quite a lot, even the bottom-left branch (that I hate), beekeeper+monkey tails for honey thing, syrup for manure, mass production of mushrooms. And photosintesis thing is not to heal you to full during a boss fight, it is there to allow you to use more of your health on your everyday life, producing living logs on a cooldown, always having at least one rat (rat== seeds== food), and both lunar paths can help in fighting (what would be Wormwood weakness), the dragon fruit guys are great targets to distract enemies, the BS armor helps you to run and heal after you get hit and the lunar vines not only deal quite some damage, but they also may draw aggro from enemies.

The Re-worked version of Wormwood skill tree does its job quite greatly, as it gives you reasons to use new tools and rewards you for using them and playing better.

Currently, I'm using both top branches, and all lunar affinities except the fly one. 

I literally said that it makes wormwood better, not easier. Its convinent to heal outside of bossfights but tents achieve the same job

[Valase]

3 minutes ago, Retepeter said:

I literally said that it makes wormwood better, not easier. Its convinent to heal outside of bossfights but tents achieve the same job

I really can't think of a way to make Wormwood easier without getting on your definition of better.

Would you mind to give an example? (If you say healing from foods, I'm shoving some red caps on you).

[Gashzer]

Wormwood lacks that passive healing you get from eating any basic cooked food making him a bad character for a noob. His downside is easy to get around for a decent to pro player. Bramble husk means he can tank a spider quarry and craft like 20 healing salves from the glands pretty quickly for boss fights, tent/siesta for non boss healing. His downside is definitely not gamechanging for me (i use healing salves and tents for all characters anyway cause they are great healing for everyone)

Noobs are always going to die but atleast if they stay on top of their hunger they will passively heal with things like cooked carrots, morsels and berries. Wormwood lacks this passive healing without going out of your way to interact with his bloom mechanic and skill tree... which a noob is 100% not going to do. Manure heals wormwood but doesnt give him hunger like food does, so a noob will waste even more time hanging around beefalos trying to heal then starve to death lol

[Retepeter]

1 hour ago, Valase said:

I really can't think of a way to make Wormwood easier without getting on your definition of better.

Would you mind to give an example? (If you say healing from foods, I'm shoving some red caps on you).

I don't think he can, he doesn't need to be. Thats my point: skilltrees dont make him easier

[Reiko24]

18 hours ago, Kwaik said:

Maybe it's me but I HATE Wanda on console because of how hard it is to see her health bar. 

On pc and with access to mods I'm sure it's different but on console it's just so easy to get caught off guard and die, especially with her aging mechanic 

You can see her current health by looking at the SMALL arrow on the clock, and the current time to losing health by looking at the BIG arrow on the clock. You don't need to check it manually.

 

Edit: The closer the small arrow is to 12 AM, the closer you are to death.

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, Retepeter said:

I don't think he can, he doesn't need to be. Thats my point: skilltrees dont make him easier

I disagree his skill tree doesn't make him easier to beginners but it does to people with at the casual to experienced skill levels.

[Kwaik]

On 10/3/2023 at 2:07 PM, Reiko24 said:

You can see her current health by looking at the SMALL arrow on the clock, and the current time to losing health by looking at the BIG arrow on the clock. You don't need to check it manually.

 

Edit: The closer the small arrow is to 12 AM, the closer you are to death.

I understand that 

 

And on a pc when you're sitting 8 inches from a screen not so bad 

 

When you're on a console sitting 8-10  feet from a TV, it's extremely difficult. 

 

I'm surprised more console players haven't complained about it in the past 

[Reiko24]

22 minutes ago, Kwaik said:

I understand that 

 

And on a pc when you're sitting 8 inches from a screen not so bad 

 

When you're on a console sitting 8-10  feet from a TV, it's extremely difficult. 

 

I'm surprised more console players haven't complained about it in the past 

Your TV must be the size of a monitor then, idk I haven't had a problem like that.

[GelatinousCube]

On 10/4/2023 at 1:31 AM, Valase said:

I think that you are downplaying the gift from the heavens that Wormwood's skill tree has been.

Not only it allows you to use fight in a different way (using Bramble husk even when you are kiting/not being hit, luring mobs to your bramble traps for that sweet extra damage, heal with compost wraps midfight, have a pocket full of killer bees, put mobs to sleep at the risk of you sleeping), they also indirectly help you heal quite a lot, even the bottom-left branch (that I hate), beekeeper+monkey tails for honey thing, syrup for manure, mass production of mushrooms. And photosintesis thing is not to heal you to full during a boss fight, it is there to allow you to use more of your health on your everyday life, producing living logs on a cooldown, always having at least one rat (rat== seeds== food), and both lunar paths can help in fighting (what would be Wormwood weakness), the dragon fruit guys are great targets to distract enemies, the BS armor helps you to run and heal after you get hit and the lunar vines not only deal quite some damage, but they also may draw aggro from enemies.

The Re-worked version of Wormwood skill tree does its job quite greatly, as it gives you reasons to use new tools and rewards you for using them and playing better.

Currently, I'm using both top branches, and all lunar affinities except the fly one. 

I think the Wormwood skill tree is easily the best so far with Woodie in close second. The wormwood tree is just super inventive, interesting and gives lots of new options and abilities to him without being too good. I love so many aspects of it even weird stuff like the Ipecaca syrup which honestly the first few times I applied had me laughing hysterically at the pigs just absolutely shitting themselves everywhere and freaking out while doing so, its so good for farming manure and no longer do you have to do the Werepig + Lightbulb trick. 

[Mike23Ua]

After having spent the past 3 real world human days attempting to fight Crab King & Failing Miserably at it despite my best efforts with Bee Mines, Gunpowder, Darkswords- I am actually now convinced that this games learning/difficulty curb is a little too high in certain areas.

I need people to understand that just today ALONE I have been doing NOTHING but attempt to fight this thing for the past SIX HOURS.

This is Ridiculous Klei… and the fact that people actually expect me to “Git Gud” and fight this thing is quite baffling.

Am I really supposed to be able to fight this thing alone? Do people actually find this “Fun?!” I am annoyed and bored with it..

But I have to learn how to do it & interact with content I don’t enjoy just so I can have a valid opinion about the type of content I actually DO enjoy.

[GenomeSquirrel]

6 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

After having spent the past 3 real world human days attempting to fight Crab King & Failing Miserably at it despite my best efforts with Bee Mines, Gunpowder, Darkswords- I am actually now convinced that this games learning/difficulty curb is a little too high in certain areas.

I need people to understand that just today ALONE I have been doing NOTHING but attempt to fight this thing for the past SIX HOURS.

This is Ridiculous Klei… and the fact that people actually expect me to “Git Gud” and fight this thing is quite baffling.

Am I really supposed to be able to fight this thing alone? Do people actually find this “Fun?!” I am annoyed and bored with it..

But I have to learn how to do it & interact with content I don’t enjoy just so I can have a valid opinion about the type of content I actually DO enjoy.

Crab quest is a list of the worst content in the game, don’t subject yourself to the misery.

[Popian]

33 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

After having spent the past 3 real world human days attempting to fight Crab King & Failing Miserably at it despite my best efforts with Bee Mines, Gunpowder, Darkswords- I am actually now convinced that this games learning/difficulty curb is a little too high in certain areas.

I haven't tried with controller, but I imagine it being a lot easier with KB/M with the ease of switching items and being able to freely adjust the direction you want to row. I would suggest using Bee Mines with a sail and steer in circles around the claws.

[lenship2]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

After having spent the past 3 real world human days attempting to fight Crab King & Failing Miserably at it despite my best efforts with Bee Mines, Gunpowder, Darkswords- I am actually now convinced that this games learning/difficulty curb is a little too high in certain areas.

I need people to understand that just today ALONE I have been doing NOTHING but attempt to fight this thing for the past SIX HOURS.

This is Ridiculous Klei… and the fact that people actually expect me to “Git Gud” and fight this thing is quite baffling.

Am I really supposed to be able to fight this thing alone? Do people actually find this “Fun?!” I am annoyed and bored with it..

But I have to learn how to do it & interact with content I don’t enjoy just so I can have a valid opinion about the type of content I actually DO enjoy.

my friend and i were able to kill crab king first try with console by using bee mines and sailing from the geysers

[Valase]

29 minutes ago, lenship2 said:

my friend and i were able to kill crab king first try with console by using bee mines and sailing from the geysers

There is nothing that a Wormwood and a pocket full of killer bees can't fix!

[somethin]

Wormwood using the bee method on crab king is even better. If you use killer bees instead of bee-mine, just bloom and you don't even have to do the 'clean up' after. And you don't even have to waste wood&flint for crafting the mines in the first place.

[Gashzer]

7 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

After having spent the past 3 real world human days attempting to fight Crab King & Failing Miserably at it despite my best efforts with Bee Mines, Gunpowder, Darkswords- I am actually now convinced that this games learning/difficulty curb is a little too high in certain areas.

I need people to understand that just today ALONE I have been doing NOTHING but attempt to fight this thing for the past SIX HOURS.

This is Ridiculous Klei… and the fact that people actually expect me to “Git Gud” and fight this thing is quite baffling.

Am I really supposed to be able to fight this thing alone? Do people actually find this “Fun?!” I am annoyed and bored with it..

But I have to learn how to do it & interact with content I don’t enjoy just so I can have a valid opinion about the type of content I actually DO enjoy.

Dude you play wendy all the time. Slap Abigail with some nightshade potion, get a thulecute club or 2, a few ice staffs, and some boards then just wreck him. Crab king and bee queen are the two bosses that a wendy main such as yourself should have no issue with.