[Game Update] - 599141

[Yuuko]

3 hours ago, Dingle said:

This keeps coming up as an argument so I'll put in my thoughts, though I don't expect it to change anyone's mind.

Unfixed exploits can cause a certain level of lack of faith in the developers. Are all exploits/bugs just left in intentionally, as a temporary band-aid for design the developers consider bad? Should we bother reporting bugs or exploits? If Klei leaves in an exploit as a temporary solution for something they don't like, will they just rely on these band-aids to not fix the underlying issues for years? How many years did it take for them to change Ancient Guardian, because people could beat it using the pillars to get it stuck and just wail on it? Does leaving in Void Walking mean that they see something really wrong with the atrium/tentapillars/caves, but don't want to have to change it?

It also makes the developer intent very arbitrary. Every exploit is intentional. Until they fix it, then the fix is the developer intent. Though if they revert that fix due to outcry, it's also the developer's intent.

Example: Bee queen and boats. Intentional until it wasn't. But having her not path onto the water was also intentional. Now having her fly over the water is the intent, as a fix for getting her stuck on boats, and this can be really irritating.

Sure - lets lay some things out.  Lets go over bugs vs unintended interactions, when they are bad for the game ie should actively be targeted and removed by devs, and when they are actually good for the game and their removal would actually be a mistake.

Bugs: A bug is code that is not working as written.  Bugs are bad for the game on a fundamental level, because code not working as written / documented is a development hurdle for maintenance and new content.  Bugs should always be fixed.  However bugs need to be prioritized.  IF a bug does not cause server instability or unfairness between players it can be considered low priority and may never be addressed.  Also if a bug is being exploited for value, the value of the exploit should be noted and considered by the devs.  Still fix the bug, but note that this behavior is a manifestation of player desire - there is something players want, and you should probably look at how to build that into the game.

Unintended Interaction: Here Lock and Key design stands in contrast to Emergent gameplay.  When we want an open ended game where players can explore in their own direction, and solve things with their own wits then we want Emergent Gameplay to be the goal.  The lureplant blocking a mob is an exemplary example of emergent gameplay.  The qualities of the lureplant are that it obstructs mobs, and has wildfire priority.  Both of these can be exploited by the player to great effect IF the player wants.  No situation requires it, it is just an option available.  Ironically removing something like the lureplant interactions and replacing it with a lock&key "this item blocks pathing" thing destroys the credibility of the game.

An important thing for developers of emergent games to remember is that they aren't trying to force the players into specific interaction loops.  Unfortunately this is the change DST has undertaken in the latest arc... much to my displeasure.  I am 100% here for the emergent gameplay and only see my joy leaking away as more restricted, forced interactions are added.  Klei's hand is too heavy on the wheel with a lot of the new stuff.  Taking away the fun, creative, unintuitive but "it works" things about the game that aren't actually bugs absolutely ruins the game.

 

There is a consideration of balance, but I think people misconstrue this a lot.  What matters is fairness between players.  If the player has the access to AFW, and could beat it, does it matter if they did it with a bunch of items they gathered or with a lureplant?  would you even know if you arrived at the arena later?  This kinda reminds me of the time when some players were complaining about ruins rushing.  They would go on about how this strategy is bad because by the time they get to the ruins its been stripped clean...  Well, fairness between players here has nothing to do with cheese and everything to do with limited supply.  The problem is that another player can't get a bone armor, regardless of how AFW was defeated.  The lureplant isn't why, they could have defeated it another way and you'd still be lacking another bone armor.

 

8 hours ago, kroban said:

And hey, I use this cheese all the time,

The fight itself is a huge pain, most players (myself included) end up "locked with the immortal FW"

So yes, I can understand this cheese being a "necessary evil" for most players right now. But thats because the fight itself is horrible.

There are typically 2 positions that people really hold when they make the anti-cheese argument.  One is from the perspective of the elitist who has accomplished the task being cheesed and feels their own skill and effort is diminished because another can do it in a different way without needing so much skill and practice.  The other is from the perspective of someone who feels the cheese is necessary, and that they need to use it as a crutch - but don't like that they feel they need to use it.

Both sides provide unconvincing arguments.

From the pro players - No one disrespects the craft of a well executed fight.  Just look at some of the amazing plays some top tier players have put in for AFW fight, dodging bone cage, timing the stun to do the entire fight at low sanity, meticulously kiting AFW to stall the woven phase without using weather pains, even using characters like Wendy and Wes to extend the fight *longer* to really illustrate their consistency in their tactics.  I marvel at these plays, and seeing them fills my mind with anticipation to enter the fight trying these tactics for myself.  They are very difficult maneuvers to execute, but when it comes together just the sheer fulfillment of achieving this difficult fight in such a way is overwhelming.  More joy than I get from most other fights in the game.  No, the cheese existing and other players using it does not diminish the impressive skill employed in these fights.

From the crutch players - You really can do the fight.  Its not bad to use the cheese to obtain the rewards first if it helps, you can always come back to the fight again.  Use the world to adjust your difficulty to ease you into it.  For AFW you can start with adding catapults around the arena, stocking up on healing, utilizing marble suits to tank and trade during his vulnerable times, and even picking a character with perks that help like Wolfgangs higher damage to speed the fight up, or Wortox to teleport out of bone cages.  Do whatever you need to do to move from lureplants to the next step.  Many of these things are also considered cheese, but don't let that bother you the point is your own personal improvement as a player.  Once you accomplish that next step, look at how you can further improve your skill as a player.  Maybe drop the catapults, or change characters etc.  Work your way through until you have learned the fight well enough to feel satisfied with your accomplishment.  The cheese does not stop you.  You can do it!

3 hours ago, Szczuku said:

The entire variety talk is just a facade, right? Like, you can't tell me that killing AF for the 34th time by going afk for 5 minutes is making your gameplay exciting beyond belief; or that you start a brand new world with each character just so that you can kill AF with lureplant cheese instead of the normal way. Y'all are defending the lureplant cheese because it allows you to effortlessly take the difficult boss down.

I always fight AFW manually the first time I go at it.  Always.  After that it depends - if I'm just needing another bone armor / helm / ruins reset then I'll lureplant cheese him to do it quickly.  If I want to actually fight him then I'll set up whatever tactics I want to use for that fight and go to it.  I've done the fight in a lot of different ways, and enjoyed them all.  My favorite is Wanda, who can utilize her range to cheese AFW during the vulnerable times to out range him, use backstep to escape bone cages, kiting AFW around instead of weather pains to deal with wovens, using nm amulet to trigger insanity to clear hands and bee queen crown to maintain sanity.  I'm also enjoying beta Willow's lunar flame enhancement to clear wovens, and I use lazy explorers to escape cages, Bernie to help position / control AFW and stay insane the whole fight.

I don't think changing from ham bat to glass cutter is variety...  Just changing weapon?  Nah.  I want the fight to actually FEEL different.  Also cheese like lureplant is great when we don't actually want to do the fight, just farm it.  Like setting up catapults for Bee Queen.  I don't get why boat cheese was removed, imo it was a bad change.  It added nothing to the game and removed one option that *some* people used, not even a lot of people because it also involved still dealing with minions and tanking BQueen.  Its easier to do other methods like bunny men, oven, or pan flute than it was for boat cheese.

Edited March 20 by Yuuko

[Pep61]

It's funny how a lureplant opened pandora's box. LOL

Let's look at it this way:

- It's more likely that if the patch is done to pre rift bosses, they will also take a look on the fight mechanics, and (probably) do a bit of an overhaul.

 

- Take AG for example , for years we took for granted that the pillar cheesing was our only way of dealing with that oversized rook skin. But now after the patch the fight got more interesting , new pahse , new loot , new mechanics. Way more fun to fight overall.

- Klei is not of those that will just take something away, they will also give us something in return as well. So i'm mostly certain that if they patch pre rift lureplant bosses they'll revisit and prob even rework some of those boss mechanics.  (talking specifically about fw and toad/misery rn).

- I love cheesing fw for the sake of quick and cheap ruins resetting, (since the loot quickly piles up and it's not like we could turn them into fossils (Come on klei... tweak that up lol)) The fight is fun , but tedious and punishing to any timing mistake (like Ck) if they can come up with a good balance of patching and reworking I welcome this changes.

 Misery on the other hand .... may god have mercy on us if klei doesn't reworks it lol. 


TL;DR We are still on beta , take the changes with a pinch of salt and keep the feedback coming, the more the merrier, as long as it is constructive . And embrace the changes we have yet to come.

PD. There will always be new ways to cheese bosses. One door closes but a window opens LMFAO

PD2. Pls rework ck lol. 

Edited March 20 by Pep61

[00petar00]

4 hours ago, Szczuku said:

Let's use Bee Queen as an example. When Klei fixed the boat bug there were some forumites who were crying that their exploit got taken away.

This is the same thing that is happening right now with Fuelweaver.

You are all acting like you are now forced to fight him legitimately. But there's still planty of variety and even exploits. Klei took away the Bee Queen Boat exploit but you can still cheese her with Bunnymen. The only difference is that the Bunnymen strategy actually requires player effort and the easy bossfight is an earned reward for farming up the 480 logs, 120 bunny puffts and 300 carrots, whereas the boat exploit only required you to craft a boat.

I was one of the people that was against boat bee queen fix and it is a very disingenuous to say that boat bee queen method was easy or took no effort, all it did was stop bee queen from moving but you still had to tank and kill her grumble bees.

4 hours ago, Szczuku said:

The entire variety talk is just a facade, right? Like, you can't tell me that killing AF for the 34th time by going afk for 5 minutes is making your gameplay exciting beyond belief; or that you start a brand new world with each character just so that you can kill AF with lureplant cheese instead of the normal way. Y'all are defending the lureplant cheese because it allows you to effortlessly take the difficult boss down.

Its not exciting but at the same time I don't have to fight a boss "legit" by your standards for the 34th time as I won't be having fun doing that either.

 

Edited March 20 by 00petar00

[Copyafriend]

34 minutes ago, Yuuko said:

 

An important thing for developers of emergent games to remember is that they aren't trying to force the players into specific interaction loops.  Unfortunately this is the change DST has undertaken in the latest arc... much to my displeasure.  I am 100% here for the emergent gameplay and only see my joy leaking away as more restricted, forced interactions are added.  Klei's hand is too heavy on the wheel with a lot of the new stuff.  Taking away the fun, creative, unintuitive but "it works" things about the game that aren't actually bugs absolutely ruins the game.

 

There is a consideration of balance, but I think people misconstrue this a lot.  What matters is fairness between players.  If the player has the access to AFW, and could beat it, does it matter if they did it with a bunch of items they gathered or with a lureplant?  would you even know if you arrived at the arena later?  This kinda reminds me of the time when some players were complaining about ruins rushing.  They would go on about how this strategy is bad because by the time they get to the ruins its been stripped clean...  Well, fairness between players here has nothing to do with cheese and everything to do with limited supply.  The problem is that another player can't get a bone armor, regardless of how AFW was defeated.  The lureplant isn't why, they could have defeated it another way and you'd still be lacking another bone armor.

 

There are typically 2 positions that people really hold when they make the anti-cheese argument.  One is from the perspective of the elitist who has accomplished the task being cheesed and feels their own skill and effort is diminished because another can do it in a different way without needing so much skill and practice.  The other is from the perspective of someone who feels the cheese is necessary, and that they need to use it as a crutch - but don't like that they feel they need to use it.

 

i am gonna try to argue this from a game design point of view. Note, i primarily mean that i’m arguing from the point of view of someone who is developing a game, but not necessarily klei themselves.
 

 

I think a lot of the problem i have with the way some people form their argument is that a lot of then assume that more options is inherently better. something that i fundamentally disagree with. Another opinion shared is that if its fun it should be kept in, something else i also disagree with, but to a lesser degree.

I think that cheese is fine and good generally speaking. A little bit of a semi cheaty way to do things thats clever is often good for the health of the game. People feel clever, the solution works, its overall a good time. There is nothing wrong with a classic “fun bug” thats left in as an easter egg either. At the end of the day games ARE meant for fun.

but that doesn’t mean that cheese should always be allowed either. Everything in moderation, every “piece of cheese” considered in a vacuum if possible. Just because its useful or interesting or even fun does not necessarily imply that it should remain. Sometimes it’s more important that a character is shown in a certain light, than it is that maximum options be maintained. Additionally, a cheese can be so effective as to kill the fun of the act itself. 
 

one phrase i’ve seen in game design, is that a player will optimize the fun out of the game if you let them.

you can see this with players in skyrim casting “soul trap” on a dead body for hours on end to level conjuration, or standing at the throat of the world to grind healing. These are not inherently fun things to do, but they ARE effective at achieving what the players want to do.

so then the question becomes, what do the players want to do. 
 

well, to be honest, i have not once seen someone say in so many words: that they WANT to farm AFW 100+ times. The farm is a product of what they want. 
 

which i assume is bone armor/bone helm and a ruins reset. 
 

well, they CAN farm it, and it DOES solve those problems to a certain extent. However (at least for me) this presents a problem. The ancient fuel weaver is meant to be one of two intimidating final bosses of the first half of the game. It’s effectively the wall of flesh from terraria. 

But it can be killed with zero effort. 
 

this hurts the intended tone for those “in the know” so to speak. While the ancient fuelweaver is meant to be an intimidating “lord of shadow” (my term) he is instead an easily cheesable roadblock unless you choose to fight him on even footing.

his lunar counterpart has no such easily obtained cheese, and must be farmed traditionally.

therefore we are met with THE problem: the players are accustomed to easily obtaining repeat copies of the end game boss gear, but that boss is meant to be intimidating and tough to beat.

well if the goal is the secondary materials, what we can and could do is simply provide the player with alternatives.

instead of cheesing the boss, make the helmet refuelable. Its primarily used for farming an obsolete resource (as of this bossfight) and inducing insanity (which we already have an item for this) anyway.

As for the armor, it’s indestructible and refuelable already, they shouldn’t need many copies to be satisfied.

the ruins reset is a bit tricky, but i think it could be handled outside of the fuelweaver fight. Simply make an expensive “ruins resetting” machine that pulses the ruins back into a undestroyed state. Likely using lots of pure horror and dreadstone. Give it a cooldown and you have a solid (if overly simple) alternative to fuelweaver.

 

 

now i present this as a compromise to any pro cheese players. Not as an argument for why to patch it, but as a solution that klei might in theory enact. Would you be mad about this change? Do you think that the cheese is inherently important to the argument, or do you think its more about the secondary benefits of the cheese.

[Szczuku]

4 hours ago, grm9 said:

you might not want to fight the boss for some reason e.g. not wanting to do the preparation or not liking it or not wanting to fight it now

56 minutes ago, Yuuko said:

Also cheese like lureplant is great when we don't actually want to do the fight, just farm it.

Then you don't fight the boss and you don't get the benefits that come from fighting the boss. When you feel like fighting the boss, you fight the boss. Simple as.

Not to mention that the last year of updates has made it so that defeating AF and CC after fighting them once is easier

There is no discussion to be had here if your point literally boils down to "I want boss rewards without having to fight the boss"

4 hours ago, cropo said:

So is the argument now that exploits are okay, as long as they come with a bunch of grinding?

Yes, being rewarded for putting in the effort is usually how video games go

23 minutes ago, 00petar00 said:

it is a very disingenuous to say that boat bee queen method was easy or took no effort, all it did was stop bee queen from moving but you still had to tank and kill her grumble bees.

Oh sure, it only got rid of Bee Queen's honey trail and kiting mechanics which totally don't matter when fighting her

[grm9]

35 minutes ago, Szczuku said:

Then you don't fight the boss and you don't get the benefits that come from fighting the boss. When you feel like fighting the boss, you fight the boss. Simple as.

Not to mention that the last year of updates has made it so that defeating AF and CC after fighting them once is easier

There is no discussion to be had here if your point literally boils down to "I want boss rewards without having to fight the boss"

why not though? you still didn't name any reasons about why people should play the way you think is right

35 minutes ago, Szczuku said:

Oh sure, it only got rid of Bee Queen's honey trail and kiting mechanics which totally don't matter when fighting her

they don't except BQ flying away wasting a bit of time since you'd usually tank it anyway

35 minutes ago, Szczuku said:

There is no discussion to be had here

35 minutes ago, Szczuku said:

Oh sure, it only

35 minutes ago, Szczuku said:

totally don't matter

learn how to talk to people without causing disgust, all of those were written only to annoy and provoke

Edited March 20 by grm9

[Mysterious box]

9 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

The fight is good but the annoying part is managing the inventory and not everyone can do it. The boss doesn't need to be reworked at all, there are much more important ones like Bee Queen and Dragonfly (minions) that are terrible for solo players without using a method to remove them from the fight.

This is a contradiction if the boss is being cheesed because the heavy requirements for some players is too much then it should be reworked for the causal player if nothing else keeping it as is only helps veteran players or players in the know.

9 hours ago, grm9 said:

hope they won't turn FW into another "do the boss' gimmick and hold F on it until it wakes up" fight that only requires you to have a weapon and do something extremely intuitive and easy, AG is also boring and got stale fast because there's practically no risk because shadow tentacles are very easy to see and the boss can't deal damage to you if you hide behind a pillar, if FW would get turned into that i'd definitely do cheese just so i spend less time doing boring stuff

As much as us veteran players might not like this direction if the goal is to make the game more accessible this kind of needs to happen as most people prefer bosses having obvious tells or weakened states.

 

9 hours ago, Faintly Macabre said:

It's absolutely not a "totally separate discussion"; the end result is pretty much the same. And watching people cackle with glee as other people lose things they enjoy, I don't feel particularly bad for not being super nice about it.

I mean as much as people like to pretend it doesn't their existence does infact effect the experience of other players unless your playing solo.

Personally I do agree with the decision to hold back on removing the exploits unless the bosses are reworked and I think what we should do is offer suggestions for alternative paths boss fights can take for example make water balloons more effective against dragonfly.

[Sapientis]

23 hours ago, V2C said:

Fixed Dragonfly Furnace being able to destroy the Eternal Fruitcake. Not even this heat can destroy this present.

I'm sorry, but is there any chance that Dragonfly Furnace's heat could cook stacks of items? I'm even up for a reflex minigame to take food out before animation finishes so the food isn't fully destroyed but only cooked.

p l e a s e

[Yuuko]

2 hours ago, Copyafriend said:

one phrase i’ve seen in game design, is that a player will optimize the fun out of the game if you let them.

you can see this with players in skyrim casting “soul trap” on a dead body for hours on end to level conjuration, or standing at the throat of the world to grind healing. These are not inherently fun things to do, but they ARE effective at achieving what the players want to do.

so then the question becomes, what do the players want to do. 

Generally a good post, and I agree with a lot of the sentiment.  I think the last line is very important - what do players *want* to do.

In game design it is essential to consider the motivations of the players, and to carefully weigh where things become tedious or stretched out as these can become point where players feel the need to optimize / exploit / out right cheat.  In your example of Skyrim the character has skills they need to max out to accomplish certain tasks they *want* to do, but there are few tasks they *want* to do which accomplish maxing out these skills.  So they find ways to optimize for the skill growth since there is no more-fun alternative.  Similarly in Monster Hunter Rise the talismans and armor augments are randomly generated.  In order to get a good one for your build you need to repeatedly farm the materials and roll these RNG tables over and over again.

IF in Skyrim the player was able to perform certain quests that gave significant gains in their skills that allowed them to chart out a path to maxing a skill through purposeful play they would.  IF MHRise gave the players a way to combine specific materials to determine the skills on their talismans and armor augments instead of rolling RNG tables they would.  The game doesn't give them this though - and why?  idk about Skyrim, but I know for MH its because they wanted to design a grindy end-game and the best way to do that is to give the players a massive resource sink so that the player NEEDS to keep playing and can never fully optimize.  The downside of this is player burnout, many players just stop caring and quit, or they resort to cheat engines to just give them their desired stats.  Certainly in Skyrim you probably have the same thing, people who drop the game because fully maxing specific skills is too tedious or they install cheat engines to just set the character stats as desired.

IMO those are great examples of game design gone wrong.  They let the players optimize the fun out of the game because the game did not provide a fun way to play optimally.

2 hours ago, Copyafriend said:

well, to be honest, i have not once seen someone say in so many words: that they WANT to farm AFW 100+ times. The farm is a product of what they want. 
 

which i assume is bone armor/bone helm and a ruins reset. 

I would say there are 2 reasons to cheese AFW.  You can't defeat it but want to experience the next tier of content, or you've done it but don't want to go through the lengthy fight involved.

If you can't defeat it, and the cheese helps then congrats.  Hopefully this can be a stepping stone towards actually challenging the boss - as I detailed in another post.  DST is a difficult game, with a lot to learn.  Cheese can work like difficulty sliders to help a player skill up on a boss.  I don't need every player to pass the fight in the hardest way possible to enjoy something they could give themselves with a console command anyway.  If they start with a lureplant and become acquainted with the path to AFW (shadow pieces, ruins, AG, atrium,) that is enough imo.  After getting familiar with that they can go overboard with cheese like catapults, healing foods, etc and have fun playing the fight without the stress of "needing" to beat it.  As they improve they can enjoy taking away cheese until they complete it in a way that satisfies them.

If you can defeat it, then as you say you're just repeating it.  Repeating AFW is NOTHING like its lunar counter part.  Sans cheese, not only is the AFW fight significantly more difficult, tedious, and demanding compared to CC but the whole path to the boss needs to be repeated as well.  When I'm playing with 4 ppl on a server and we finish AFW only one person has bone armor.  Since it has been done, we might not all be clamoring to repeat it right away - it might be just 1 more person who wants bone armor and needs to get a set for themselves running back and doing it all alone.  Why NOT let them cheese it?

 

imo the AFW fight is plenty fun, its also plenty tough!  This is a fight I like to do, but I don't like to do every single time I want to reset the ruins.  But what is the alternative?  Magic ruins reset machine?  bah, lock & key is not the way DST needs to go.  There is nothing wrong with repeating AFW to reset the ruins, provide AFW doesn't force you to play only the hardest difficulty version.  Cheese lets you change the fight to make it easier to run back, let it go.

[Cruvimaster]

On 3/19/2024 at 9:02 PM, V2C said:

Changes

• The Nightmare/Scrappy Werepig will no longer spawn in both the Forest and Cave at the same time. Some beta worlds may still have both active until they are defeated.

 

Having to wait 20 days (I think that's the counter) to defeat the one in the caves to access the one on the surface is very slow. It could be reduced to 10 days.

[Mike23Ua]

1 hour ago, Sapientis said:

I'm sorry, but is there any chance that Dragonfly Furnace's heat could cook stacks of items? I'm even up for a reflex minigame to take food out before animation finishes so the food isn't fully destroyed but only cooked.

p l e a s e

This is the best idea I’ve seen in this entire topic. I Applause your creativity Sir or Madam. 

[Evelo]

I leave for a day and this is what happens? Holy Carp.

[somethin]

Other sandbox game players when the dev decided to remove cheese: Damn, better find new ways to cheese

DST players when the dev decided to remove cheese:

[zhangsheng]

27 minutes ago, somethin said:

Other sandbox game players when the dev decided to remove cheese: Damn, better find new ways to cheese

DST players when the dev decided to remove cheese:

It can only be said that if all bosses could be as excellent as Ancient Guardian, then the player's first reaction would definitely not be like this. With bosses like Toadstool, people will have to use other methods.

[Faintly Macabre]

3 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

I mean as much as people like to pretend it doesn't their existence does infact effect the experience of other players unless your playing solo.

A very telling detail of the argument being had here is that most of the people arguing against the exploit are not, in fact, saying that the exploits' existence is affecting them or others, and the ones that are are speaking almost entirely in hypotheticals. I counted one person in the entire topic with an anecdote saying that they had a negative experience with it. And I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of these people actually are playing alone, and most of the rest playing only with friends or other small, vetted groups.

Of the 10.7k-ish servers currently announcing, and the 7.3k-ish of those running the current version of the game, ~2/3 are password-protected. Of those that aren't, ~1.3k have any players in them at all. And while I can't (as best I can tell) use any filters or sorting to determine how many days the average server out of these has been up, scanning through about a hundred or so revealed worlds that mostly were running for less than 50 days, and a lot not even making it through Autumn. Who's joining fully open servers that don't even last an entire year and exploiting AFW against everyone's will?

Where are all these people being adversely affected by this exploit hiding? Why aren't virtually any of them here? Go search the forum for mentions of lureplant, lure plant, meatbulb, etc. before this week, going back a year. A scan doesn't see anybody talking about it actually affecting them, just tangentially griping in random topics about how much they hate that it's a thing people can do.

Y'all wanna act like the people who don't want to see this go don't have a better reason than that they're lazy and want free loot, and you can't even bring back anything as substantial as that for why it should go. Just value judgments and disingenuous arguments. "I want it" doesn't seem any less legitimate a reason than what all these arguments are boiling down or stripping away in to: "I don't want you to have it."

Edited March 21 by Faintly Macabre

[Pet Rock]

1 hour ago, Faintly Macabre said:

A very telling detail of the argument being had here is that most of the people arguing against the exploit are not, in fact, saying that the exploits' existence is affecting them or others, and the ones that are are speaking almost entirely in hypotheticals.

How exactly would it be affecting you if they replaced the exploit with something that would actually makes sense in the world of don't starve? Personally I find it very immersion-breaking that a plant can stop an ancient shadow creature.

A good sandbox gives players the tools, and allows them to combine them in interesting and creative ways. A magical plant is not the kind of thing that should be able to completely immobilize the final boss of the game. This exploit is barely going to be found by the average player unless they look at a tutorial, and blindly following a tutorial is not rewarding, nor creative.

From a game design perspective, keeping the exploit in the game only harms it. I'm all for an an alternative that actually follows the logic of dst.

[KIBeGostoso1207]

Hey I'm new here and I first wanted to say a big   to the devs for finally adding a trash can to the game. Thanks Klei! Those Halloween sweets and toys were already taking up too much space in the sea! and I would also like to ask if you have plans to change the craft of the extensive chest and why it is such an expensive and late game item?

Edited March 21 by KIBeGostoso1207

[Faintly Macabre]

41 minutes ago, Pet Rock said:

Personally I find it very immersion-breaking that a plant can stop an ancient shadow creature.

This is not what immersion is or how it works. There's all kinds of completely ridiculous things that can be done in the game that betray the mechanical nature of the game every bit as well as blocking AFW from reaching the gate, things that you are actually likely to discover yourself. As you note here:

41 minutes ago, Pet Rock said:

This exploit is barely going to be found by the average player unless they look at a tutorial

What you see in a Youtube video or on Twitch and the effect it has on you has nothing to do with immersion. If this was immersion and it was this fragile, we'd be hard-pressed to enjoy much of anything, because as speedrunners love to prove, games are full to the brim with ways to bend or break the rules. And abusing overly simplified behavior is like, one of the sandbox genre's finest traditions; you're probably doing it yourself and just don't see it for what it is. or have decided it's fine because it doesn't offend an arbitrary boundary you've created. What's being offended here is not your immersion, it's just your sense of the way things should be.

41 minutes ago, Pet Rock said:

How exactly would it be affecting you if they replaced the exploit with something that would actually makes sense in the world of don't starve?

This isn't about me. As I noted a couple times in the topic, I'd actually like to see the fight adjusted into something more reasonable for more players (especially ones playing with controllers, for which this fight is kind of awful and is why I generally cheese it when on my own). If it were though, the self-evident answer to this question would be: uh, it would keep me from doing the thing that I wanted to do?

Edited March 21 by Faintly Macabre

[Reecitz]

3 minutes ago, Faintly Macabre said:

As I noted a couple times in the topic, I'd actually like to see the fight adjusted into something more reasonable for more players (especially ones playing with controllers, for which this fight is kind of awful and is why I generally cheese it when on my own). 

I mean, dude, the whole controller experience in general is just terrible and inferior (which is not really a surprise considering what software the game came from first, but it's still worth mentioning).

I doubt Klei will delve deeper into the issue this update (though I also hope we don't have to wait months from now to see results in the next update), but hopefully the experience can be improved in the future. It will either involve tweaking existing content so it's more comfortable with controllers (though I'm certain veterans will have a problem with that), or overhaul the controls and/or UI system for them, like introducing an item-wheel-like system or  more advanced button combinations such as holding one button while pressing another for example; it'll be different but hey, playing on a controller feels different already, so why not?

Maybe they wouldn't have to resort to something as drastic as that, but man do I just want the playstyle to be better. 

[Faintly Macabre]

It's pretty messy, yeah. It worked well enough in the early days, but as the game has become more complex, the original implementation has really shown its limits. I've done bug reporting and troubleshooting for controller play for the games and even a couple mods over the years. I understand that it's to be expected that there's some things it just can't be expected to do as well as a mouse and a keyboard, but it could definitely be improved.

[Reecitz]

They're probably buried by now, but for example, I have made posts on how the use of spells like Willow's could be improved in general, with controllers definitely benefitting (and just improving her potential here and there in a general sense); I feel like even a keyboard & mouse user might find the system a bit non-intuitive in its current state.

Don't even get me started on the process of collecting embers on a controller. 

Edited March 21 by Reecitz

[Mike23Ua]

55 minutes ago, Reecitz said:

They're probably buried by now, but for example, I have made posts on how the use of spells like Willow's could be improved in general, with controllers definitely benefitting (and just improving her potential here and there in a general sense); I feel like even a keyboard & mouse user might find the system a bit non-intuitive in its current state.

Don't even get me started on the process of collecting embers on a controller. 

Willows spells work well enough on a controller that anytime I interact with the ocean or boating content in general I Cry wishing they worked like casting Willows Fireball Spell.

This one simple change would allow me to place a boat exactly where I want to place the boat in the water instead of having to fight with walking back and forth at the edge of the land till the boat lights up green long enough to place the thing.

Hell a small change like that, might actually get me to try to fight Crab King the way Klei intended players to.

or the TL:DR- change the “Use” function of a Boat Kit to give players the same adjustable range and directional placement as you have with Willows Fireball spell.

[kroban]

6 hours ago, Cruvimaster said:

Having to wait 20 days (I think that's the counter) to defeat the one in the caves to access the one on the surface is very slow. It could be reduced to 10 days.

For most bosses you can change the spawn rate from 20 to 10 or even 5 days. Im not sure because this is on beta, but they will probably add the same for Werepig. Idk how it would work for the Werepig if he has 2 spawns tho

Edited March 21 by kroban

[arubaro]

Is funny to see people who defended non challenging mechanics that bring destruction now defending an hypothetical nerf to FW

But hey, people who dont want to rebuild decorative stuff are the ones wanting a easy experience 

[Reecitz]

2 hours ago, Reecitz said:

They're probably buried by now, but for example, I have made posts on how the use of spells like Willow's could be improved in general, with controllers definitely benefitting (and just improving her potential here and there in a general sense); I feel like even a keyboard & mouse user might find the system a bit non-intuitive in its current state.

Don't even get me started on the process of collecting embers on a controller. 

Oh, one more thing to mention:

They updated Shadow Fire targeting so that they follow the same rules as the auto-attack feature; I guess this is supposed to make it so they don't attack things you don't want to like butterflies and walls, while trying to attack mobs you're specifically aiming for, or something. Well, I might be doing something wrong, or there's something I don't understand, but whenever I use it, they still go for mobs I don't want, and some don't even hit the mob I want at all, even if it's hostile towards me. 

I don't know how it is for mouse & keyboard, but I can only guess that the spell is behaving this way because the targeting system on controller is... eh, not so accurate in comparison.