On the recent DVG's video with mobs and weapons...

[Frosty_Mentos]

In the back of my mind I thought of it a lot where we could give mobs weapons and tools to do work and fight better would bring a whole new world of using the resources we have to beat either bosses or do some sorts of tasks.

I've pitched my ideas before on mobs like bunnies and pigs getting trained or learning these things to use - I think this is what we need in order to have minion mechanics a lot more engaging.

It was odd to see in a Klei's WX refresh short that pigs would run with spears to raid a player's base, but the idea of them weaponing up kinda makes sense once the world begins to crumble and they need to defend themselves and their homes.

Look. I love bunnymen, okay? I love having them as goofy minions that could eviscerate anything in their paths. I'd like that diversity of giving them armor and them not getting shredded too fast to defeat bosses. In my proposal we should have armor shredding reduced on mobs cause of boss damage being done. They could also buff and tweak bosses to have new mechanics where the player HAS to step in with magic items or apply their own damage as a support to your minions, kinda like how Maxwell has to create cages and fend off nightmares while casting spells to make minions do most of the work.

I think this video serves as a proof of concept that we could have a lot of fun with these mechanics if they existed and still giving enough choice for player to consider minions or consider to do solo anyway. It's either we fight together or we struggle alone.

[chirsg]

Pigs with inventory and equips.

 

Sufficing to say, I'm for it. 

[goatt]

This sounds like a good idea, but a good idea may not be the best combo with another good idea or game.

Is op's good idea a good match with DST?

 

My opinion is that video game is about designing constraints/obstacles for players to find solution or develop skills to solve.

The fun part is not finding solution, it's the right amount of struggle in the journey of finding a solution, and the manufactured feeling of "I made a good decision" or "I have a good skills" or "I'm getting better at the game".

That's why every item has unique downsides along with advantages. In designing, creativity doesn't come from complete freedom, it comes from constraints. Think about it, do you like playing in God mode and Creative mode as main game.

I think the feature of equiping various items were implemented but kept away from players is because it poses proper amount of constraints. In this case, mobs can still equip head gears which makes mobs a lot more usable in serious fights. To be specific, a pig can have about effective 495 hp with football helmet alone, but can have 740 hp with both football helmet and log suits, or can have 1280 hp if it's football helmet + log suit, besides weapon slots.

Why are incredibly powerful mobs a bad idea? Again, it's all about constraints. The constraints placed on mobs is that mobs can only be so helpful. It's like, dark sword can only be as helpful as 68 damage. It's cool if you creatively give dark sword new unique effects such as critical damage, but the bottomline is, dark sword can only be as helpful as, say, 68 damage. That's the constraints good for DST for various reasons in design choices which I do not know anything specific about.

 

It's a cool idea that mobs can equip so many different things as a standalone idea. But when put together in the context of DST, I think there are good reasons mobs aren't more powerful than they currently are. Some design choice reasons I imagine is:

1. it create space for interesting character-specific perks. For example, Maxwell's puppets will be a lot less attractive if pigman can be more powerful than them. Also Webber, who's spiders have special effects will be less interesting, too.

2. it discourage players from heavily rely on them, as I imagine DST would want to encourage players to explore other aspects of the game as well. Armored mob army will be a huge resource sink, and players would likely focus on farming resources and be Wurt.

Honestly, I think point 1 and 2 are probably the same point. Because of the current mob stats, other aspects of the game are more interesting. But having 4 fully armored bunnyman is like playing multiplayer with another 2 friend, it can possibly become the one solution for everything, instead of encouraging players to explore the game to find different solutions for each scenario, including, farming, wave attack, boss, and early game.

[Captain_Rage]

Nice explanation. That confirms my personal observation since I have seen Frogs attacking and knocking Monster Meat off of Pigs on occasion before.