Suggestions to balance the game

[Pulpsock]

First off, i'd like to say that I absolutely love this game, make no mistake of that, and understand that it is still being developed. With that being said, there are a few things that can really gut at the core of this game, and with some retooling, can be very effective at making the player fear for survival.

1. It's way too easy to farm pig camps by hugging them away from their cluster. They should not move when you get close to them. This doesn't mean it's impossible to get pig meat, it simply means that you'll have to kill one at a time quickly (sometimes foregoing meat), and then build your own pig house, thus heavily limiting the game breaking pig camps (atleast early on). Seriously, it takes about 2 days to have the proper equipment to start farming them for 8 whole meat a day.

2. Grass tufts and saplings are too easy to collect at the very beginning, making a base in 2-3 days with replenishing supplies. Both of these should need to be fertilized with manure, like with berry bushes (exact same mechanics should apply, with 3 replenishes for each before needing to fertilize). This makes farming more difficult, and manure much more important (thus making competing needs with both berry bushes and veggie farms).

3. Pigs sure are a lot of fun to control, and taking down a tentacle or lv 3 spider den without them is pretty damn near impossible. They make getting the ultimate weapon and silk a bit too easy, though. It shouldn't be too often, but having them have a slight chance of not helping you will make it more challenging to effectively attain these two important resources. Also, on the same note, having pigs help you cut down trees saves you too much time too easily (which should be a scarce and precious resource). Having them need to be fed after every 4-5 trees will limit the ease of stacking such a key resource.

4. Oh those tricky toads. They may have a small hit box, but they're far to easy to farm for a fancy feast. There is the argument that the abundance of tentacles already make the resource tough, but there are plenty of ponds usually spawning along the road for easy meat grabs. Simple solution, have two toads at each pond, making it more difficult to kill a toad without talking a hit.

5.Random nighttime visitors sure aren't welcome. The hounds were an amazing addition that really made nighttime more eventful (hellhounds particularly were brilliant in burning down the super common tree forts(a great balancing idea that I truly loved and applauded (along with aggroing tallbirds, another good one), but protecting yourself with forts allow people to breathe easy (which I know you devs don't want). Easy solution, introduce a random ghost spawn that lasts the whole night (thus making people on edge and having them always keep a torch handy), which could also lead to the deliciously double-cruel death via spiders, random hound spawn, or loss of light. Now, this may seem to be too cruel for newer players, so the most balanced way to implement this would be to have them spawn after day 30, or randomly spawn after a grave has been dug up (thus making those grave loots a tough decision). This will also lead to mining hats being more necessary, since they're the only tool that can effectively let you fight and run away in the dark (they also last all night). This will make fireflies all the more necessary.

6. Gold tools are an golden gift. Golden tools should be much more difficult to get than they are, since they pretty much last for months. The patch having only some rocks with gold bits was good, but they're still too common considering the amount of rocks in any given map. The chances should be smaller. Also, with the above fixes to the pig farming, giving meat to the pig king will be a much more painful choice.

7. Resurrection insurrection. I love the meat effigies and the amulets, their implementation is awesome (since you've gotta wait as wilson to shave your beard for the resources, and having an amulet on means no chest-piece, making it a difficult decision as to putting it on), but making more than one effigy is just too over-powered. Having a run to grab all your fallen loot should be tense, not annoying. Your safety-net being taken away isn't to terrifying when there's another 3 safety nets. And amulets are way too common, bye the bye.

8. I sure do love berries, and those gobblers can be pesky. Once again, another awesome idea in an attempt to balance the game, but I believe Kevin stated himself that they just wind up as another food source. Simple solution, make them take more than one hit to kill, and have the random chance that a new mob appears which attacks the player.

And there you have it. I am all too aware that this is a monster of a post for a first post, but this is more for the developers than my fellow(very adventurous and intrepid) forumites. I don't demand of or expect anything, as I love the game going into my hundredth and some day of collecting maximum of all stackables and finishing the last hat for a complete collection, but I do hope the developers implement some of these ideas (since it seems they're very active within the community (which is very promising)), as I believe they will make a fuller experience closer to what i'm sure the devs have in mind.

And for any forum members able to read the wall of text without losing interest, i'd love to hear your ideas for making the move past 30 days into a true feat of skill.