What is the balance of DST?

[WilsonHiggs]

1 hour ago, Steorra said:

Woodie: leave me alone

Isnt free. It has the cost of crafting the idol, being trapped in that form, cant wear any item except for backpacks so you cant use his armor with other armors unlike wigfrids damage resistance, not being able to use items or food and cant perform other actions other than fighting and charging.

Do you know why? Balance. Costs vs benefits

You are welcome 

[Dr. Safety]

When I talk about balance, I mainly try to look at characters with respect to one another, and whether or not there is a solid reason to play that character outside of just picking them because you like the design/lore. I have problems with characters who

• are objectively better to not actually play as them, as not playing as them still offers their upside (pick and swap).
• are "jack-of-all-trades" characters that do better in a certain area than characters who are supposed to specialize in that area (aka Woodie should not have a higher damage multiplier of Wolfgang) unless the jack-of-all-trades character has notable downsides

I tend to type multiple paragraphs that I'm sure nobody actually wants to read so I'll leave it at that for now. If you want me to elaborate I can, but that covers my point pretty well

[YouKnowWho142]

I think the fact that the game is multiplayer breaks a lot of balance, to the point that past 2-3 people balance is hardly worth considering. A character like Maxwell is fine by himself, he is obviously super powerful and overtuned but he is a fun character and that’s usually fine when he’s by himself. When he’s one person in a team of 6 though, he is definitely way too strong in comparison to others and amplifies what already makes multiplayer significantly easier. It’s been a really common trend with the design philosophy around all the skill trees and recent refreshes, they seem more balanced around singleplayer than multiplayer. Then again though, the game has never been difficult with multiplayer, I’m pretty sure the original vision for don’t starve didn’t want multiplayer specifically because they knew the game would become easy as a result, and when I’m playing with friends most bosses go down in well under 2 minutes and we get to a point where the base is fully established and we will never run out of food within 15 days or so

It’s tough though since I think a lot of forumites forget about how rough the new player experience can be, the game in its current state is kind of awful at giving information to new players without making them have to search for it online on their own (which is inherently player-unfriendly) so the power increase of characters makes the game significantly more approachable, to new players most of the recent character changes aren’t really overpowered or arguably even that strong but to veterans they’re extremely strong

[IAmAFurrz]

10 hours ago, DVGMedia said:

LIke for real. This is something that constantly gets brought up.
What is the balance of dst?
in a group setting most things are not a challenge so balance only really matters in solo play. yet this is supposed to be a multiplayer game.
How can we really take things into account for balance when just having 3 or more players makes makes everything trivial.
So really there is no such thing as balance
The concept of balance is only ever used when trying to build an argument against something.
Talking balance has removed some things that were really dumb to begin with however those were already plain to see.
Balance only really works on what exists currently. And thats why its a problem.  Because really the game is going to go on forever. so long as we keep playing.

And the fact that there is talks about redoing skill trees after everyone is done just shows that none of the actions now really matter.

But it should be noted. that currently the perks that exist are only to combat what is now. They may be worse later once new things come by.
So if there is something you don't like currently don't give up hope.
 

most things are balanced with a good ratio of effort/skill -> reward, while sometimes things can be designed to bypass a character's downside is not, and especially things designed to trivialize what is currently mostly worked on which are bosses with a bad aforementioned ratio.
(or at least that's what i see it as, since weather/environmental challenges nowadays are left in the dust with how many tools there are to basically remove them all and they all have to have an answer to em as soon as they are introduced, and definitely has to be permanent as seen with the boulders from cave rifts)

slightly tangential to the topic, i wonder why klei removes exploits like spamming the last piece of trash on pearl's island, as it isn't really 'unbalanced' its just removing the annoying shell collection problem (i know they added the trade for shells, just wish they kept that + added the trade), and i just find exploits like those cool cuz it shows how much someone knows of a game (besides, only benefit to shells are for basing and such)

[WilsonHiggs]

11 hours ago, DVGMedia said:

What is the balance of dst?
in a group setting most things are not a challenge so balance only really matters in solo play. yet this is supposed to be a multiplayer game.
How can we really take things into account for balance when just having 3 or more players makes makes everything trivial.

Which means that the multiplayer experience needs changes. That doesn't justify any unbalance on single player

"Because is a bad designed game mulyiplayer doesnt matter to make thr game bad for solo players" kinf of non sense

I dont get these kind topics filled with non sense just because klei didnt wanted to buff wendy futher. If anything, thid showd why they should be careful when they develop characters and their skill trees

1 hour ago, DVGMedia said:

Thing is there are a lot of games that exist that way  DST Is a very social game and if you focus the content instead of  megabasing or rushing it would  take about 2 years for an experienced player to clear it Some who rush get through the games content in about a year. Why do you think ruins rushing is done? It's done cause it's an early challenge. I like to play the game as a resource gatherer so I play Wendy cause she is a nonstandard resource character focusing more on mob drops. I can enjoy the game by purely farming 20 spider nests with Abby every 8 minutes.

This is why the concept of balance is important to identify because for which crowd is the balance for?  Some have given some interesting points about the ease to do objectives.  

 

To some certain characters are stronger because they can do certain objectives faster. But that doesn't really make them fun characters for the majority of players. And I think balance should be focused on fun which is also subjective. 

Especially with the fact that there are arbitrary guidelines that do manage the development of the game. 

I felt like this post was interesting however a lot of characters have stepped on each other  while others were not given this treatment. And it was justified in the act of balance. Which is why I wanted to bring up this  topic of balance 

Is a survival game first. Ruining the balance isnt justified because it has minigames and side activities.

They can develop more settings to allow a more casual experience because, for some reason, this survival game attracts players that doesn't enjoy the genre but is a non sense to change how the game is played in vanilla

[Walrusst]

2 hours ago, DVGMedia said:

I felt like this post was interesting however a lot of characters have stepped on each other  while others were not given this treatment. And it was justified in the act of balance. Which is why I wanted to bring up this  topic of balance 

I mean being second best at almost everything in some cases can make you stronger than a goalpost character overall, even if not being a milestone in itself is fine.
Wormwood offers a distinct experience just being able to do weed magic, he might not be tanky but stunning enemies when you mess up a kite can sure help you survive extremely well. Everything but eyeplant duping can be seen as obsolete the moment you find lunar, moonquay, or plant a bigger than average tree. His AOE options are the most annoying in the game, his plant magic takes a resource that requires you to be really smart in how you build your base in order to keep up with the healing needs of keeping your minions/glowbugs alive....

Woodie is a guest star in his own album as you can just have a frog farm to tame pigmen with any character and have a much faster collection rate than he does, so his key roles are mostly in day 0 ocean exploration where he is definitely a star of the show, but after day 0 its falls rapidly behind the others so while its sort of a goalpost, its not that big of one. Where then he largely is seen as centered around the moose and the wood carvings after the goose falls off.

Webber sort of looses out to wurts permanently loyal moon shard fishmen, as they kite, are stronger, and will deliberately avoid dying while following you with less hastle. They also don't get intimidated by epic screams. The big thing he has thats unique is how cheap his minions are (basically free,) how fine his minion control is (He almost has full pikmen controlls,) and that he can heal off his minions.

 

These are some of the most enjoyable characters in the game to me buy I can call them not meta defining but really fun.
Yes they don't have a way to consistently day 0 spawn nightmare pieces to kill fuelweaver day 4.
They don't need to, they are strong in a multitude of small ways and they do something interesting.

Now of course, Wilson mains can look forward to the day he finally actually learns how to read, because its really shame for being such a knowledge based character theme that he knows relatively little.

 

[Mike23Ua]

5 hours ago, Theukon-dos said:

Hardcore Mode doesn't prevent you from sleeping through the night. The only changes are that you're locked to hard difficulty, can't respawn, and can't toggle options that make things easier.

 

This is like, the third time I've seen you compare DST to other games while presenting you with explicitly false information about said games. And I'm really starting to wonder what version of said games you're playing.

It’s an additional toggle you switch on, that can not be switched back off if choosen.

[Well-met]

having more people doesnt make "everything trivial", it also increases the amount of ressources, food and healing required.

if you run into unbalances its because of bad developer design like making everyone ultra-powered from day one or letting gardens and some bushes grow in winter.

in other words these are preventable mistakes that klei keeps falling for, not because of a core game problematic.