Continuing the discussion surrounding hail, mitigating it personally and effects on mobs.

[chirsg]

Above is Wigfrid. Behind her is Chester. I took a screenshot at this angle to indicate the shard of hail falling. She is very photogenic.

 

Here's another screenshot at an angle where Chester is more visible.

Where I am standing, hail is unable to damage me. I'm not fully clear if ONLY fully grown trees are unable to damage players, but hail is still damaging Chester.

 

As it stands, what I can interpret from the design philosophy, they're currently limiting the options we have to protect mobs if Chester isn't protected while under the tree like Wigfrid is. 

[Theukon-dos]

Out of curiosity. What exactly is the point of hail? I like it thematically, but is it really just Klei going "Hmm. The world should be more dangerous? I know! Let's add earthquake mechanics to the surface!" Is it really that simple?

 

Ever sense the From Beyond arc started, I've noticed a lot of comparisons to the Uncompromising Mode mod. And I think another one's warranted here, because a lot of these new "challenges" feel a lot like early UM changes. Back in ye olden days when the mod's ideas of a "challenge" was anything that could harm, irritate, or otherwise annoy the player. This is especially apparent with Acid Rain, because that is just a feature that UM used to have and removed for several reasons, not least of which is that it was an under cooked mechanic that desperately needed reworked.

 

Conveniently, Uncompromising Mode also introduced some new weather effects lately, which means we can see just what the difference is. In the aptly named "Under the Weather update", UM introduced tornados. These spawn occasional during Spring. And in addition to the usual tornado things you'd expect, sucking up plants uprooting trees and stumps, the usual (No destroying structures though. Obviously). However, there are a few more things that make tornadoes real interesting.

For starters, the storm around a tornado is so intense that you need more than 100% rain protection. Eyebrella+rain coat, Rain hat+ rain coat, Rain hat + umbrella. Pretty much any combination of rain-protecting gear will do so long as you reach at least 150% protection. There You can even get a nice water-resistant suit of armor if you do a bit of sailing that'll let you fight by the tornado if need be.

The storm also creates magical lightning around it, a stronger form of electrical damage that's only partially negated by insulating wetware.

And if you don't want to get swept up? You can use a rainometer to track the tornado from your base. Because when's the last time you've made one of those? And then use a weather pain to redirect it if you need it to not be in a specific area.

 

Now obviously I'm not advocating for Klei to steal from Uncompromising Mode again, Tornados aren't a perfect mechanic. And they still have that "base destruction" aspect that many have been complaining about with hail, the difference being that Mega basers aren't a facet of the player base UM is catering for. But I at least hope the comparison makes it obvious just how Stellar Hail falls short. One of these is a genuine survival challenge with unique mechanics and several ways to approach it. And the other is a recycled mechanic that's ultimately just playing chicken with a giant rock's dandruff.

 

Even removed from the context of rifts and planar what haves you. It's an under baked mechanic that ultimately doesn't serve any purpose other than to irritate the player rather than supply any actual challenge.

[Antynomity]

4 hours ago, Theukon-dos said:

Snip

I hope this is just a phase just like original acid rain was part of a phase of dangers in UM being stupidly annoying to seem challenging. I hope that klei will be able to add some real, fun, and creative weather / environmental effects and threats in the future thanks to the feedback given.

[Valase]

@Theukon-dos, I think that your discussion deserves its own topic.

10 hours ago, chirsg said:

Where I am standing, hail is unable to damage me. I'm not fully clear if ONLY fully grown trees are unable to damage players, but hail is still damaging Chester.

On my beta world something similar happened, I usually leave chester in the middle of the base, under a giant tree canopy, but he was still taking damage from the hail, but once I placed him near the base of the giant tree, he did not take damage.

So my guess is that mobs have a lower protection radius from trees.

[GelatinousCube]

29 minutes ago, Valase said:

@Theukon-dos, I think that your discussion deserves its own topic.

On my beta world something similar happened, I usually leave chester in the middle of the base, under a giant tree canopy, but he was still taking damage from the hail, but once I placed him near the base of the giant tree, he did not take damage.

So my guess is that mobs have a lower protection radius from trees.

So turns out tree canopy isn't even a "solution" to mobs being damaged by hail. 

So hail damaging mobs advocates can't even use oversized trees as an excuse that there are solutions to this extremely lame and problematic mechanic. 

[Valase]

17 minutes ago, GelatinousCube said:

So turns out tree canopy isn't even a "solution" to mobs being damaged by hail. 

So hail damaging mobs advocates can't even use oversized trees as an excuse that there are solutions to this extremely lame and problematic mechanic. 

I said that, apparently, the protection radius is lower.

But we still will see changes to that mechanic, as the devs confirmed. After those changes, I will voice my concerns.

[Capybara007]

Thank you klei for adding another wildfire mechanic that only affects megabasers and no one else

You can tell people that want hail to stay havent played ever a world that is over day 30

[Theukon-dos]

1 hour ago, Valase said:

@Theukon-dos, I think that your discussion deserves its own topic.

Eh, maybe. But we're talking about hail regardless, right?

[Valase]

1 hour ago, Theukon-dos said:

Eh, maybe. But we're talking about hail regardless, right?

His discussion is about how it currently is working and is giving the proposition that the mobs being vulnerable to the hail as the Devs intention.

While yours question about the need to the hail to exist followed by a suggestion on another weather effect. I do believe that it warrants a new topic.

But as fun that a tornado and its related storm would be, people would complain that it "moves my items on the ground". So we will always have a "loss/loss" situation, as we can't have anything new, because it never makes past the playtest, and when it makes it through, the "other" side loses, because its a new thing for them to manage on their handcrafted world. (basically that other topic where the guy complains that klei is destroying his life or something with this beta).