Is this game even difficult?

[chirsg]

Let's open up the discussion.

What exactly is easy and what is difficulty? Survival, boss fights, the sea, food farming, preparation, what exactly?

 

Also, lets discuss buffs and nerfs. The quickest buff I can name was the general boons that were given to the Ornate chest. Before the loot table was pretty atrocious, but it was a necessary step to move forward in the game. It's not something anyone ever asked for, but something that adds incentive to go to that portion of the ruins early. 

The point I wanted to make about the ruins is that on the return trip, generally, winter is made a lot easier and indirectly, so is summer, however, the ruins are some of the most deadliest and dangerous biomes in the entire game. One mistake and you lose your entire run, but the reward in some ways, make winter the 2nd most easiest season.

 

Spring with multiple people often leads to the team going insane and having more trouble surviving the cold because thermal stones are less effective, however the trade is that food is generally a lot more abundant. 

 

Another thing to discuss are annoyances. Things that can be difficult, but often, in the hands of a veteran, difficulty is trivialized, but serves to annoy, such as lureplants. Annoyances for some can be a difficulty slider as one who isn't a good fighter is liable to die to a lureplant, but there is also a mode of difficulty where the plant will digest precious items.

An annoyance for me is the time sink when chests are crafted without signs signifying what it contains. Some will have mods that highlight a chest when you have grabbed an item which the chest contains, thus streamlining organization which under a microscope, does buff it, but will it affect survival significantly? Others have even advocated for more slots in chests across the board which in my opinion, isn't a deciding factor in matters of life and death.

 

In my very humble opinion, this game is still difficult. I venture into the land of public servers and all I see is death. The spirit of the game is still very consistent and for lack of a better term, uncompromising. 

What challenges are trivial and which ones are legitimately a danger for you, the esteemed reader?

 

For me, I'm still extremely bad at the caves and will often die there if I don't have moggles, however, I don't wait for nightmare cycles to begin and end. I beeline. I know some to just camp out.

My boss fights are inconsistent. Without a damage modified character, my dragonfly is often a 50/50.

If I elected to just survive without interacting with bosses, perhaps I myself would survive indefinitely. '

 

So what's difficult? what's easy? Do you play the game in different ways or use the sum of what you know to ensure general success? Have you optimized the fun out of the game?

 

 

[Evelo]

Game is hard. Knowledge makes it less hard.

Yes this is a simple reply but I think it just boils down to something that simple.

[CuteC]

Game's difficulty comes mostly from a lack of knowledge, given players won't know effective ways to do things or how dangerous certain things actually are, game is trivial to me given how much I've played and how much I know, to the point I often don't carry amulets and I pay the price of a 3 hour flight back home because something silly killed me.

New players will have an absolute disaster of a playthrough if they do not have someone holding their hand, but once they learn they'll start having less trouble so long they do not try unnecessarily risky things.

It all comes down to knowledge and preparation, always have enough weapons, armor and healing for anything that may catch you off guard, once people learn that they'll have an easier time.

Oh and seasons exist I guess, you pretty much just make a thermal and call it a day, but new people won't know that and that you can somehow sew stones.

[chirsg]

50 minutes ago, CuteC said:

Game's difficulty comes mostly from a lack of knowledge, given players won't know effective ways to do things or how dangerous certain things actually are, game is trivial to me given how much I've played and how much I know, to the point I often don't carry amulets and I pay the price of a 3 hour flight back home because something silly killed me.

New players will have an absolute disaster of a playthrough if they do not have someone holding their hand, but once they learn they'll start having less trouble so long they do not try unnecessarily risky things.

It all comes down to knowledge and preparation, always have enough weapons, armor and healing for anything that may catch you off guard, once people learn that they'll have an easier time.

Oh and seasons exist I guess, you pretty much just make a thermal and call it a day, but new people won't know that and that you can somehow sew stones.

Would you do anything to make it a little less forgiving, or should difficulty be backloaded?

[arubaro]

the franchise is one, if not the most, difficult sandbox survival game

For sure is the most difficult crafting survival sandbox i have ever played

Other games in the same category dont punish that much the player, dont have mechanics that need to be managed with the urgency of this game and the enemies, even when other games has more flashy combat mechanics, aren't as lethal as the dont starve ones

that only considering early game newbie survival, without adding ruins, raid bosses, ocean, etc

most games has a hunger bar that you can mostly ignore, dont have temperature or a equivalent to insanity. Just hunger and implemented in a lazy way. Food having spoiling time isnt really a common thing neither

dont have perma death neither you become a ghost until someone revives you or you waste a, not so accessible for a noob, item to revive

in those games fighting usually consist in getting quickly stronger tier armor and weapons and faceroll everything. Also, after the initial boring, long grind the gear last forever, at most you might need to repair it, usually for free

yeah, the game is difficult and you can see it if you introduce into the game new players, they will suffer a lot even with babysitting 

[Horsheen]

I mean as people say it's all knowledge is power

I do think that mechanics should be explained in-game better, this game turns into a "read the wiki" kinda game which is something I'm against

Thankfully the introduction of the scrapbook might help, but we have a ways to go atm

[Dextops]

Game was hard at first, then I got good and no matter what Klei adds it’ll never become hard again. Simple 

[grm9]

Imo it'd be better to talk either about knowledge checks (something that requires little to no skill or practice to perform and only requires you to know stuff, can be gained just as easily by either playing on your own or just listening to someone's advice) and execution "checks" (word doesn't really fit in but idk, call it however you want, something you won't be able to just do on first try and that requires practice to be able to perform even if you know everything about it) instead of calling both as "difficulty".

There's a lot of knowledge checks in the game and it's almost entirely built on those, but very few execution checks, things like correctly performing a fight, even on low resources.
Fingers of one hand are enough to list hard execution checks, although difficulty is subjective, but imo it's primarily just FW, dfly, somewhat CC, somewhat bq, ruins (obviously all of those on minimal resources without cheese). Stuff like the ink blight trio and mutated bosses are much easier than anything on that list imo.

[Mike23Ua]

2 hours ago, chirsg said:

Would you do anything to make it a little less forgiving, or should difficulty be backloaded?

You ever played GTA Online, Fortnite, Or Minecraft? There’s a serious Reason why those 3 games are among the most played in the entire world: & it’s got everything to do with being able to offer the player many many many many MANY different gameplay styles & preferences.

A lot of people hate on Fortnite (I guess because they suck at battle royales, hate kids screaming in their mics, or simply dislike the brand/franchise monetization) But the Reality of things is that you can play experiences that are pure battle Royal, and you can also play experiences that feel like your straight up playing an old Silent Hill or Resident Evil game.

the 3 games I listed at the top are the best sellers because they offer the player with a large variety of what they can do or how they can play the game..

And DST doesn’t really do this, at least not to the extent of the other 3 I’ve listed here, DST instead has this formula of add a feature, then turn right around and add the permanent solution to that feature..

Maybe some people (like myself..) would enjoy some weather and hazards that you CAN’T manipulate or control? Maybe some people would enjoy more combat related content that challenges them as they explore the game world, rather then having a few bosses tucked away in a particular area that you can summon when your good a darned ready for them? There’s a reason that the Gorge & Forge are brought up often in conversations on these forums- and that’s because they offered players a new way of playing the game/franchise they enjoyed, but in a completely different way or format from the Norm.

I know a lot of people disagree with a lot of what I post on these forums.. but I’m really tired of DST being the same old formula over & over & over again when it has the “potential” to be so so much more.

So to answer your question: As long as DST sticks to only one gameplay format, it’ll always be conquerable & easy once you learn what to do/not do or how to counter everything.

[arubaro]

16 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

You ever played GTA Online, Fortnite, Or Minecraft? There’s a serious Reason why those 3 games are among the most played in the entire world

and that reason is rat kids having a lot of free time instead of a work with split schedule, debts and obligations

18 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

the 3 games I listed at the top are the best sellers because they offer the player with a large variety of what they can do or how they can play the game..

And DST doesn’t really do this, at least not to the extent of the other 3 I’ve listed here, DST instead has this formula of add a feature, then turn right around and add the permanent solution to that feature..

emmm dst is a sand box with many strategies, ways of playing and wide world generation settings

you are just biased because you can build a lighting rod and dont see your base burning or a pillar and prevent boulders falling into your structure bacause for some reason think that is challenging and fun but later complain about the real challenges of the game being too difficult or unfair because you cant beat them with a spear and without armor

[Wonz]

Game is easy it tries to be hard in just unfair way of learning things you had no way of figuring out before they became deadly. 

It's silly bundling wrap exists. Makes hunger more easy than it is.

It's silly stonefruits exist to preserve food without wrap forver while you can't even preserve farming seeds forever to make farming more equal to stonefruits. With no wrap you will be forced to farm maybe twice a year to use the seeds to get fresh ones and that's when it stops being fun, when you're forced. If you have wrap you have to go through even one more process like if farming wasn't time consuming already. That's fun activity until you have to think about what to do to not start completely over when you again feel like doing it.

Armor, enemy stats and healing are silly they're super high so new player who didn't figure out how to gear up might try punching things or slashing them with axe, I saw some die to frog 2 minutes into the first game while figuring out how to fight. Don't you find it weird that early armors give whooping 80% dmg reduction, I can't recall a game that would give you such power spike that early?  Make a walk around desert to get cactus, kill bunch of dogs and spiders, get bird, make 20 pierogi and now you can fight god because your health is 4-5x higher add 80% armor and it's 20-25x highe, some absurd balance state. Base stats bad, armor too good, healing too good.  

Somehow game is too hard for newbies what makes some repelled from the game and too easy for people who stayed what makes it get boring to them.

It's like game is designed to repel new players with less willpower to go through some shiii. Learning hard way here is learning too hard way. More players would be nice good especially that I see EU servers more empty and empty/

[Mike23Ua]

Speaking of Pierogi there’s something strange I noticed in the Scrapbook notes under Birdcage, it says if you feed a bird meats it “May” Drop an Egg.. not that it was GUARANTEED to do it every single time. It makes me wonder if Klei plans to nerf the Birdcage in a future patch, or if the bird always giving eggs is an unintended glitch they just haven’t got around to fixing yet?

Eitherway- I’m carefully paying very close attention to the scrapbook, AND how descriptions within it describe things, because we as Players can only “guess” what Klei’s intentions for the game are- But this Scrapbook is in Klei’s Own Words, what they intend that feature to do.

Look at the Description for Deadly Brightshades, it tells you they’re a mob intentionally designed to spawn on & prevent the player from accessing resources.

[Spino43]

2 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Maybe some people would enjoy more combat related content that challenges them as they explore the game world

Sir, this is a dst, not dark souls.

And also, I like that 2 out of the 3 games you mention aren't even a survival sandbox game. Also, best seller games don't mean they are difficult lmao. They sell good because of marketing, brand, trending,... (like fortnite appeared during the batte royale craze), not just because they are difficult.

And if you want to counter with the many different playstyle arguments. Then, I can play purely as a bow user in dark souls, I can play dark souls 3 without walking (don't do this tbh), I can beat castlevania aria of sorrow with only my fist, and I can certainly choose how I want to play dst, either using only this item, what boss I want to drop dead first,... My point is, instead of setting your own rules and find new ways/challenges to get new experiences for dst, you come here and complain endlessly.

 

[_zwb]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

Speaking of Pierogi there’s something strange I noticed in the Scrapbook notes under Birdcage, it says if you feed a bird meats it “May” Drop an Egg.. not that it was GUARANTEED to do it every single time. It makes me wonder if Klei plans to nerf the Birdcage in a future patch, or if the bird always giving eggs is an unintended glitch they just haven’t got around to fixing yet?

This is probably just over interpretation, lunar birds give rotten eggs instead of regular egg, it could be refering to this

[Guille6785]

The whole "the game is easier if you know things" is a remnant from the original design philosophy of DS, which was built around the premise that death was a necessary part of the game but each death would teach you something new about how the game world works (this is why in DS you unlock characters by dying); while some people believe that this is what made don't starve don't starve, I beg to differ as if you go search for reviews of DS from 2013-2014 it's not uncommon to see game reviewers not be big fans of the seemingly unavoidable deaths on top of losing your world on death. IMO it's something that always felt kinda "tacked onto" DS, I loved the original game but this particular aspect isn't what made the game unique to me, it was the freedom I had as a player to approach the same dangers in different ways and the progressively scaling power I had over the world as I learned and discovered new things; the whole aspect of "conquering" the world as you grow as a player is what made Don't Starve unique to me compared to other games that tie your control over the world over an arbitrary levelling system or a questline, or that lean far too heavily into the sandbox side more than the survival to the point where nothing can kill you even if you go afk

In a way I do think killing the player because they didn't know something is fake difficulty, so it's really easy to see why not many people loved that aspect of the original DS; that said, I do believe that DST is just the right difficulty even if you already know everything about how to survive, the game still gives you plenty of challenges that can be approached in tons of different ways and the game actually does a pretty decent job of rewarding the player for learning more difficult strategies since these are generally more resource efficient (even if the developers didn't explicitly intend it that way). And if you do like the idea of learning from every death as the gameplay loop, DST in 2023 still makes that pretty easy by simply not reading any guides; many people wrongly believe you can't play the game like this anymore, but I see new players all the time that still struggle with DST just like all of us did the first time we played. IMO the difficulty's in a good spot, and if anything I'm all for less fake dificulty 

[Mike23Ua]

18 minutes ago, Spino43 said:

Sir, this is a dst, not dark souls.

And also, I like that 2 out of the 3 games you mention aren't even a survival sandbox game. Also, best seller games don't mean they are difficult lmao. They sell good because of marketing, brand, trending,... (like fortnite appeared during the batte royale craze), not just because they are difficult.

And if you want to counter with the many different playstyle arguments. Then, I can play purely as a bow user in dark souls, I can play dark souls 3 without walking (don't do this tbh), I can beat castlevania aria of sorrow with only my fist, and I can certainly choose how I want to play dst, either using only this item, what boss I want to drop dead first,... My point is, instead of setting your own rules and find new ways/challenges to get new experiences for dst, you come here and complain endlessly.

 

It’s not about not using X weapon or Y tactic, it’s about being able to play Fortnite as a Shooter battle Royale, OR loading up a map that’s purely Dirt Bike Racing that can put to shame even 60$ video games built entirely on racing. 

It’s playing Gears of War Base defense Horde Mode, or Capture the Flag..

It’s playing Ark in PVE, PvP or Survival of the Fittest.

It’s playing DST as Wanda and having to deal with your character having permanent poison damage over time.

Its the Gorge & Forge..

Its campaign mode, PvP or Zombie co-op in Call of Duty.

I have every single right to complain about a game, as you have to praise it.

But know this much- if I didn’t give a rats backside about the game or the franchise, I wouldn’t even be on its forums.. 

Thats literally why game forums exist, talk about, discuss, complain about, enjoy, consume the particular product.

If you don’t like the things I post: that’s probably why there’s a pretty little block button so you don’t have to see what I post?  

 

[DegenerateFurry]

It's still a hard game, yeah. It's a very hard game to get into since you need a good amount of game knowledge to survive the seasons, let alone kill bosses. Once you've learned that, it does get easier.

However, it doesn't become trivial just because you make sure you always have a light source and/or the means to make one, the ingredients for tools, some food, some armor, and a weapon on you, nor because you've learned some basic crock pot recipes/where to get fungi for healing and sanity. I still see experienced players die to bosses because they screw up the kiting pattern, don't prepare properly, or get caught in a bad situation. Ancient Guardian might be a pretty easy fight and a good intro to fighting actual bosses in this game in general, but you can die quick if you get surprised by shadow tentacles and don't react fast (especially as squishier characters like Maxwell). 

The fact of a survival game is that once you know how to survive and you get good at getting what you need to do it, survival does become pretty easy. You figure out that you just need a thermal stone and a torch and you can survive winter and you're very unlikely to ever freeze to death again unless you're somewhere with no trees like the ruins, and if you're going somewhere like that in winter, you'd know to bring a star caller staff or logs for campfires. The combat, however, does still remain challenging once you know how the game works, and there's definitely a lot to master with kiting patterns and everything else. 

[Jakepeng99]

53 minutes ago, Guille6785 said:

The whole "the game is easier if you know things" is a remnant from the original design philosophy of DS, which was built around the premise that death was a necessary part of the game but each death would teach you something new about how the game world works (this is why in DS you unlock characters by dying); while some people believe that this is what made don't starve don't starve, I beg to differ as if you go search for reviews of DS from 2013-2014 it's not uncommon to see game reviewers not be big fans of the seemingly unavoidable deaths on top of losing your world on death. IMO it's something that always felt kinda "tacked onto" DS, I loved the original game but this particular aspect isn't what made the game unique to me, it was the freedom I had as a player to approach the same dangers in different ways and the progressively scaling power I had over the world as I learned and discovered new things; the whole aspect of "conquering" the world as you grow as a player is what made Don't Starve unique to me compared to other games that tie your control over the world over an arbitrary levelling system or a questline, or that lean far too heavily into the sandbox side more than the survival to the point where nothing can kill you even if you go afk

In a way I do think killing the player because they didn't know something is fake difficulty, so it's really easy to see why not many people loved that aspect of the original DS; that said, I do believe that DST is just the right difficulty even if you already know everything about how to survive, the game still gives you plenty of challenges that can be approached in tons of different ways and the game actually does a pretty decent job of rewarding the player for learning more difficult strategies since these are generally more resource efficient (even if the developers didn't explicitly intend it that way). And if you do like the idea of learning from every death as the gameplay loop, DST in 2023 still makes that pretty easy by simply not reading any guides; many people wrongly believe you can't play the game like this anymore, but I see new players all the time that still struggle with DST just like all of us did the first time we played. IMO the difficulty's in a good spot, and if anything I'm all for less fake dificulty 

They could add diseases which would kill you if you were afk. They can add rats which give you the plague which you can spread to other players.

[Well-met]

cheese/exploits/oversights makes it a joke

[grm9]

2 hours ago, Guille6785 said:

nothing can kill you even if you go afk

Idk if this is known but you can achieve this in DST too, just need to wear bone helm/BQ crown nearby a rabbit as webber and provoke 2 tamed nurse spiders to attack 2 untamed nurse spiders so they keep healing you while on a boat nearby a scaled furnace under a fig tree/nearby an ice crystalizer. Hounds, deerclops and antlion can't attack because you're on a boat, nightmares won't attack because you're wearing bone helm/your sanity starts regenerating because of the rabbit nearby gaining an insanity aura on 40% sanity which gets reversed to +20 sanity/min by BQ crown if it's close enough which is enough to compensate being at 100 wetness at night and freezing, overheating and hunger are outhealed by nurse spiders.

1 hour ago, Jakepeng99 said:

They could add diseases which would kill you if you were afk. They can add rats which give you the plague which you can spread to other players.

Pretty sure it was meant that other games allow you to not die even if you afk early in the game, while DST requires you to kill two bosses before you can safely afk for an infinite amount of time.

[Uedo]

3 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

'GTA Online, Fortnite, Or Minecraft'..... 'Fortnite'...  'Silent Hill or Resident Evil game'

Sir, this is DST.
 

 

2 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Speaking of Pierogi there’s something strange I noticed in the Scrapbook notes under Birdcage, it says if you feed a bird meats it “May” Drop an Egg.. not that it was GUARANTEED to do it every single time. It makes me wonder if Klei plans to nerf the Birdcage in a future patch, or if the bird always giving eggs is an unintended glitch they just haven’t got around to fixing yet?

Eitherway- I’m carefully paying very close attention to the scrapbook, AND how descriptions within it describe things, because we as Players can only “guess” what Klei’s intentions for the game are- But this Scrapbook is in Klei’s Own Words, what they intend that feature to do.

Look at the Description for Deadly Brightshades, it tells you they’re a mob intentionally designed to spawn on & prevent the player from accessing resources.

Please keep on topic.

 

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

'Fortnite as a Shooter battle Royale, OR loading up a map that’s purely Dirt Bike Racing' ... 

'Gears of War Base defense Horde Mode, or Capture the Flag' ...

'Ark in PVE, PvP or Survival of the Fittest.'...

'Call of Duty.' ...

'If you don’t like the things I post: that’s probably why there’s a pretty little block button so you don’t have to see what I post?  ' ...

 

SIR, THIS IS DST. Also, I guess people don't block you because they're decent people who'd rather you learn how other people have different perspectives and perhaps, PERHAPS, accept a fraction of what they're saying as sincere as opposed to write you off completely, as you do to others. Mobility of thought is very important Mike, it'll stop you having so much friction on the forums.

My take though is yeah I find the game difficult i guess, it's true what others say though - knowledge truly does help so much in this game, things aren't difficult for the same reason anymore for me. Nothing is immediately challenging but I can get overconfident for bosses and not really bring all I need to bring. Multiple times I go into bosses with the attitude of 'Well, I can do it with what i have - if I don't mess up' ... at some point i'm gonna mess up and be underprepared to recover mid-fight. 

Sometimes i'm just also not where i want to be, I didn't really pay attention to the fact clops spawned the other week - I was decorating, didn't notice (was listening to a podcast) and she smashed a bunch of stuff. Back when i started playing i'd consider it to just be one of them things that happen and i'd be grateful i'd survive the exchange, now it's more a case of my own ignorance or mistakes are gonna bite me in the butt - feels more irritating when you can only blame yourself

[GetNerfedOn]

To add onto the "Knowledge makes the game easier" observation i must also note that most observations I have of newer players and my own experiences boil do to the shared experience of having an immense amount of information you have to filter through at the start to survive even your first few days

Sure as an experienced player you can sinply say "oh you just make meatballs and a thermal stone and armor and a spear and set up shop near spiders and filler and youll be set!" but its frankly difficult and stressful to manage all these and keep all these in mind first time around and one frequently forgets what they have to do to survive, as opposed to an experienced player immediately doing what they need to do in the span of mere moments. 

Once you've learned all these new things and its become second nature to you to the point that you have reached the games limits and pushed past the, sure, the game may become monotonous and easy, 

[Cheggf]

I can play Super Smash Brothers Ultimate (2018) on my left monitor while idling in Don't Starve Together (2016) on my right without dying, so clearly this is an easy baby game and Klei forgot to make it uncompromising and are ruining it!!!

[CuteC]

10 hours ago, chirsg said:

Would you do anything to make it a little less forgiving, or should difficulty be backloaded?

I think the game is fine as is with the implementation of skill trees and the scrapbook, well maybe not like perfect but they are nice steps in a good direction, the scrapbook allows people to know what things do and how good they are, skill trees give a feel of progression even if you die and your world is reset, which is likely to keep a new player going even if they are being absolutely destroyed.

[maradyne]

4 hours ago, GetNerfedOn said:

immense amount of information you have to filter through at the start to survive even your first few days

This is mostly what I've seen of new people trying the game, especially in the last few years.

I worry that the grid inventory and the scrapbook, while well-intentioned, have made the information overload a lot harsher. That much harder to sift through and focus on what's important.