How do you think the game will be supported with updates?

[Sanitar]

I would like, first of all, for Klei to make the game balanced for both multiplayer and solo players. In DST, there is still content like the Lazy Deserter, which requires another player for it to be useful, rather than being a useless decoration that was supposed to have a purpose.

Edited April 26 by Sanitar

[Harrowick]

(prefacing this post to say what I'm about to say is all out of love!! the bold text is just to emphasize words and such!! )

 

I do hope this time around we get some sort of player scaling so that the game can be enjoyed at its fullest with however few or many you play with(or without).

 

Everything about Don't Starve Together's marketing on its Steam Page emphasizes cooperation, "explore together, fight together, farm together", etc. There is just about no mention of single-player play other than the tags and the secondary closer text "strike out on your own." 

"strike out", while probably being a fun silly way to say "you'll perish if you play alone!!" still implies it wasn't built with single-player in mind.

 

whereas Don't Starve Elsewhere's Steam Page, while still putting a highlight on Multiplayer being possible, has a seemingly more balanced outlook between single-player and multiplayer in the way the game is described. 

"Gather your friends or go it alone" is a key takeaway here, and the rest of the description for the game reads like it could be directed at both an individual player or a group.

 

Sorry if the post seems a little much! I'm very passionate (and excited!!) for Elsewhere's release, and saw mentions of solo players in the poll answers.

 

[mathem99]

3 hours ago, Harrowick said:

player scaling

Yes, please!!

[hhh2]

6 hours ago, mathem99 said:

Yes, please!!

But only for bosses.  It should be simple enough add.  The equation could be 

Boss health = Boss health x number of players^0.9

Super simple, and provides an incentive for having your friends join the boss fight. For bosses with higher HP, the incentive is bigger.

The only tough thing to determine is when to reevaluate the health.  Is it when another player has attacked the boss, or even as light as player proximity to the boss.  Do players who leave the boss fight ever become discounted?  I think it should be whenever a new player attacks the boss.  

[Harrowick]

1 hour ago, hhh2 said:

But only for bosses.  It should be simple enough add.  The equation could be 

Boss health = Boss health x number of players^0.9

Super simple, and provides an incentive for having your friends join the boss fight. For bosses with higher HP, the incentive is bigger.

The only tough thing to determine is when to reevaluate the health.  Is it when another player has attacked the boss, or even as light as player proximity to the boss.  Do players who leave the boss fight ever become discounted?  I think it should be whenever a new player attacks the boss.  

Yeah! I think limiting it to boss mobs is a good way to make the rest of the game feel consistent. I think it would be a little much to have the basic mobs scale too (it would make game sense feel harder to learn if the enemies' health is inconsistent.)

 

[hhh2]

Oh, but I just thought of a caveat.  Think about how annoying it would be if the boss's health got inflated secretly, I don't know, maybe your cat jumped on your lap for a moment and a fresh install Wilson stumbles into the boss chamber and covertly buffs the boss while you aren't looking.  The caveat is, without health bars, how can that increase in HP be communicated?  It would be so annoying if unexpectedly the boss had double or triple their health, and by the time you realize they do, you don't have the resources to beat the boss and you pout.  I guess that's the main drawback of scaling boss HP, it's hard to convey.  Don't let fresh install Wilsons into your boss chamber.

[Harrowick]

36 minutes ago, hhh2 said:

Oh, but I just thought of a caveat.  Think about how annoying it would be if the boss's health got inflated secretly, I don't know, maybe your cat jumped on your lap for a moment and a fresh install Wilson stumbles into the boss chamber and covertly buffs the boss while you aren't looking.  The caveat is, without health bars, how can that increase in HP be communicated?  It would be so annoying if unexpectedly the boss had double or triple their health, and by the time you realize they do, you don't have the resources to beat the boss and you pout.  I guess that's the main drawback of scaling boss HP, it's hard to convey.  Don't let fresh install Wilsons into your boss chamber.

Yeahh I was considering that too. Scaling probably shouldn't happen instantaneously as someone joins the server, and it probably shouldn't heal the boss when another player enters combat. I'm sure there's a creative solution to be found somewhere.

All I can think of as a compromise is to make the scaling match the player's survived time(with a capped limit of course) akin to how only the oldest players on a server can call specific votes in DST, something like that to make it so the game does not take into account a brand new player to the server (since they'd likely not have any supplies yet and would be far away from the fight anyway.)

To prevent any exploits with "leaving to weaken the boss" there could be a check in place where each fight checks how many players have entered battle with it, and that "check" scaling doesn't fade until the battle is fully reset.

 

(It's probably rather complicated to fit scaling in a game where anyone can join at any time, but I trust Klei would find a good solution to this if scaling is in the picture!)