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A bunch of misc. suggestions for the environment (Not by me)


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Except you can get stuff you need to survive already from your nine million berry bushes, your farms, and your Pig King that you built your shelter around. 

 

Also, "Trying to give too much purpose to a sandbox game"? I thought the purpose of any game was to have fun. I suppose you think the teleportato and Adventure Mode is giving too much purpose to a sandbox game, as well.

 

You can't get anything that's fun by staying in your base. And if you're staple is berries, at least make it 100 3-leaf berry bushes.

The point I'm making is that, as a sandbox game, everything is what you make of it. Minecraft doesn't make you build circuits or pixel art, but the creation and self-imposed challenges are why it's fun.

And yes, a purist would vehemently argue that Adventure Mode is an abomination. Klei added it and it's a nice addition, but how many people play Don't Starve for Adventure mode? I assume most people just beat it once with the most OP character, other's win with each, some barely touch it and a number just cheat in Maxwell and Wes. 

What the difference is, as I see it, is between rather sweeping changes to the core of the game, making add-ons to the game such as mods or Adventure Mode, and making tweaks to a singular object (such as making the Deerclops attack freeze you).

 

The only worth-while use for berries is a delicious turkey dinner. LONG LIVE THE HONEY HAM!

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You can't get anything that's fun by staying in your base. And if you're staple is berries, at least make it 100 3-leaf berry bushes.

The point I'm making is that, as a sandbox game, everything is what you make of it. Minecraft doesn't make you build circuits or pixel art, but the creation and self-imposed challenges are why it's fun.

And yes, a purist would vehemently argue that Adventure Mode is an abomination. Klei added it and it's a nice addition, but how many people play Don't Starve for Adventure mode? I assume most people just beat it once with the most OP character, other's win with each, some barely touch it and a number just cheat in Maxwell and Wes. 

What the difference is, as I see it, is between rather sweeping changes to the core of the game, making add-ons to the game such as mods or Adventure Mode, and making tweaks to a singular object (such as making the Deerclops attack freeze you).

 

The only worth-while use for berries is a delicious turkey dinner. LONG LIVE THE HONEY HAM!

You shouldn't have to do things in an uncompromising survival (not sandbox) game because the game won't be fun if you don't.

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My objection to most of this is it seems to try to give too much purpose to a sandbox game. Still I'll just give my thoughts on a couple things.

MINIONS

I don't really want things from pet followers, but they do things anyway and sometimes precisely what I don't want them to do. Sometimes I just want things around for a bit, but the game is cruel and takes everything away, but Chester always returns. I once wanted just a bunch of butterflies to have around at all times of the day and night, but they just flutter over walls and leave. I can enjoy them, but only in passing.

 

WHY BRAVE THE ENVOIRNMENT

There's STUFF out there. Like stuff stuff. You might need some stuff, you might want some stuff, and even if neither apply the stuff will still be there. The reward is stuff, the punishment is not stuff. If you need the game force you out of your base, then I'm confused. I'll let the hermits be hermits while I clear a swamp using only treeguards. I will control everything for anything that defies me will meet a tragic end under a very strong foot. My foot. Any specific turf consequences I'll wave my blood-stained hand at as I tear my way through each toward my next conquest. (Which actually is why I didn't notice much of summer turning everything to ash till I tried to set up a fully-stocked base. When you're constantly moving the backdraft extinguishes anything smoldering)

I do somewhat like the novelty of each biome having an additional impact apart from it just having things others don't, but to me it still feels like just a novelty.

 

 

You can't get anything that's fun by staying in your base. And if you're staple is berries, at least make it 100 3-leaf berry bushes.

The point I'm making is that, as a sandbox game, everything is what you make of it. Minecraft doesn't make you build circuits or pixel art, but the creation and self-imposed challenges are why it's fun.

And yes, a purist would vehemently argue that Adventure Mode is an abomination. Klei added it and it's a nice addition, but how many people play Don't Starve for Adventure mode? I assume most people just beat it once with the most OP character, other's win with each, some barely touch it and a number just cheat in Maxwell and Wes. 

What the difference is, as I see it, is between rather sweeping changes to the core of the game, making add-ons to the game such as mods or Adventure Mode, and making tweaks to a singular object (such as making the Deerclops attack freeze you).

 

The only worth-while use for berries is a delicious turkey dinner. LONG LIVE THE HONEY HAM!

Ark, I sound like a ****, but here it is.

 

Two things:

 

First, "Braving the Environment" is, ughhh....  unchallenging. It doesn't particularly help me survive, and unless I try to get myself into trouble, I'm unlikely to die - at all--which is boring since playing till Day 1k under the premise of Don't Starve'ing is not rewarding in the slightest. Sure, one can argue that if you pick enough fights with the world, you can find yourself some kind of challenge--but for what purpose? 'Unrewarding' is the word that comes to mind.  

 

Second, whilst it's a supposed Sand Box game, it holds a premise of Survival Adventure ("Don't Starve", I.E. try to not die through overcoming the wilderness with self-resourcefulness). I'm not seeing the survival, and the Adventure is as novel as a local council meeting. 

I appreciate that a lot of players enjoy Don't Starve for its Sandbox qualities and I wouldn't want that part of the community to be let down, but surely a Sandbox Adventure Mode is something we can all agree on?

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You know, I just thought of something. Pigs are horribly afraid of the dark, aren't they? That's obviously because of Charlie. How about, when pigs or other creatures end up awake in the pitch black, (because apparently sleeping protects you from death) you can hear a slashing sound, and the next morning you find the remains of a dead pig.

I originally enjoyed this idea, but something tells me that people would find a way to farm pigs with the Grue.

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I am already experiencing so much hard suffering because I had dun goofed in winter and especially in summer. How hard will it be with the new giants around? I spent 3 days running from deerclops and running to tentacles and merms to do all the job for me. In my opinion out of four giants the deerclops is going to be 3rd strongest and the weakest will probably the autumn bear giant. Spring giant is probably going to be stronger than deerclops but the environment druring spring is less deadly with rain hat and rain coat, so I'm wondering how hard will the Summer be after less than 2 weeks now? I'm kind of scared actually...

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I am already experiencing so much hard suffering because I had dun goofed in winter and especially in summer. How hard will it be with the new giants around? I spent 3 days running from deerclops and running to tentacles and merms to do all the job for me. In my opinion out of four giants the deerclops is going to be 3rd strongest and the weakest will probably the autumn bear giant. Spring giant is probably going to be stronger than deerclops but the environment druring spring is less deadly with rain hat and rain coat, so I'm wondering how hard will the Summer be after less than 2 weeks now? I'm kind of scared actually...

What does this have to do with anything?

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Ye, probably true, but you can farm them to hell anyways.

The point is being able to use the Grue as a tool to help you makes it much less scary.

 

Really, farming shouldn't be possible at all. It doesn't make any sense for the pigs to be perfectly okay with you slaughtering them.

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Two things:

I both agree and disagree, and I'm going to try and figure how to explain it.

Surviving for a veteran is systematic because in DS when you're prepared and knowledgeable the difficulties are intended to be survivable unless the player makes a mistake with their tactic. Most of the elements right now have some give and take. If you stay in your base while it's raining frogs, there are going to be 20+ frogs to dodge around till you feel you have the time to make the rest of the world take care of them for you. But then, with everything, after that you're all set up and dealing with them is as systematic as taking on the deerclops.

I think that since the line between difficulty levels in DS is very thin, both with individual challenges and when challenges start coinciding. At first wetness was catastrophic even with some preparations. Now, I recently fought two treeguards in the spring rain and didn't go crazy. But since this is changeable in the settings, I imagine at some point I'll venture away from default and buff up the rain.

The feeling I get is when the world gets a leg-up on you you have to start compromising and actually surviving. Adding more and more challenges for that feeling of trying to figure it out sounds good, but then when the world catches you off-guard you're as garunteed dead. Even touchstones or effigies won't save you. So if you never let that happen because you've conquered even these new challenges then you're back to where you started, simply going through the motions that keep you alive and not struggling. But if it was more more of a constant struggle, I feel even a simple deerclops would just ruin everything.

 

So I'd say it's not that you're not seeing the survival, but you're not feeling it enough of the time. I'm running through a lot of ideas right now, but I think I may have caught one.

For a change in difficulty, I think the answer might be in a new mode/game settings that utilizes more RNG and possibly the teleportato. I've got some crude examples. What if you had nothing to indicate how long a day was, and all the phases were either completely or mostly arbitrary? What if the season were erratic or the world only has some of the season but doesn't tell you which or both?

I'll have to think on it more and also comb the mods to see if it already exists, but I think there might be something there. It certainly wouldn't be dull if one night was two day's long and you didn't know. I'd never go to sleep without a torch or without fireflies being nearby. Being woken up by Charlie is a sharp awakening

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Yeahno.

I'd prefer to know exactly why you object to the idea rather than just saying no. I can't change what I think without knowing what is wrong with the idea mechanically, or if you just think the ideas you like are better.

 

What does RNG even mean?

Random Number Generation. I was imagining emphasizing survival by limiting knowledge, and RNG would be a good way to do that. 

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I'd prefer to know exactly why you object to the idea rather than just saying no. I can't change what I think without knowing what is wrong with the idea mechanically, or if you just think the ideas you like are better.

 

Random Number Generation. I was imagining emphasizing survival by limiting knowledge, and RNG would be a good way to do that. 

In a game where not clicking the torch quick enough = permadeath, I don't think suddenly thrusting night upon a player is a good idea. And having seasons not be there seems like it would just be leading up to huge disappointment when you realize your favorite season isn't there. I like the idea of seasons being completely random a lot, but there need to be a few things:

 

* Everything should be in World Settings under a "Random Seasons" setting or whatever.

 

* If you start outside of Autumn, you should get some equipment spawned with you to help you out, in the same fashion as the KoW setpiece.

 * You cannot start in Summer.

 * In Winter, you would get some material for campfires (Not as much as in the KoW setpiece, but still a lot), as well as an axe.

 * In Spring, you would get more material for a Campfire and blueprints for the Pretty Parasol.

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Random Number Generation. I was imagining emphasizing survival by limiting knowledge, and RNG would be a good way to do that. 

Interesting thoughts, but I'm not sure RNG is going to enhance the experience.  It would make it harder, but I think we'd start to feel like the lab animals that just get random shocks in experiments.  They end up just freezing up and doing nothing.  Or in DS, running around with a chester full of all conceivable gear.  Which would be cumbersome.

 

Part of the problem is there's kind of two types of players.  Those that want a challenge and an endgame.  And those that mainly want to build a nice stable world and a really awesome base!   The spontaneous combustion mechanic is already going to kind of tick off the latter I think.

 

I think to truly bring an escalating challenge to the game, the world has to be on a long-term trajectory of destruction.  There need to be *simple* mobs (i.e. not giants) that attack all food strategies.  And the longer the game goes on the  more numerous they become.  Say for instance, you open your rabbit trap and underneath is a snake that instantly attacks you!  This becomes more common as the game goes on.    Savanna lions pounce and kill the beefalo - it's a catcoon-like insta-kill, so they don't aggro the herd.   A hostile vine monster infests your berry bush!  That's one non-renewable bush down.  Right now, especially with beefalo, the world tends to plenty.  The hounds and increased treeguard etc spawns cap out around day 100. There kind of needs to be further scaling if you want to REALLY get challenging.   It needs to be MUCH longer, like 500 or 1000.  But not everyone would be into that.   So you'd kind of need a toggle I think.  Regular Sandbox or extreme sandbox.

 

It might be interesting if the player could in effect 'freeze' the escalation by beating adventure mode - perhaps a different adventure mode than Maxwell's - and fight one of 'them' or something, which would stop the threats where they are.    It would bring a little time urgency to the game, where there isn't really much now.   This would give the player an incentive to beat this adventure mode for every world: if they do not, then the challenges will continue to escalate until they are overwhelmed.

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Thinking about it, there really should be an entire DLC dedicated to increasing challenge and endgame. People have made suggestions for disaster scenarios before, many different ways to slowly grind down your world and increase the challenge. Personally, I'm not for constantly increasing numbers of hounds or similar things, that would be pretty lame. The ideas Brummbar listed are also nice.

I've always liked the idea of a 100-day freezing period in which the temperatures go down in the cellar, birchnut trees and berry bushes would die of the cold, and you'd have to hibernate in the caves to have a decent chance of not freezing. During that freeze, pigs would be toggeled to constantly turn into a werepig-like form, acting more like wild hogs and attacking anything to get food. Even the pig king would transform and be a bit boss mob you could fight. By the end of the freeze, most of the decidous trees and berry bushes would be dead, and pig culture would be smashed, those once proud creatures turned back to their raw, wild form.

Scenarios similar to that could just slowly ruin your world. One could also think of expanding tentacle reign, raging oceans, the uprise of the forest, creatures landing on your island that you wish you'd never seen... And I'd go as far as to say that the world should start to literally fall apart at a huge number of days, until only the teleportato platform is left, giving you a last chance to escape. Of course, number of days required and settings like that could be determined at the launch of the world.

Of course, there also should be more things to acquire and to do to go along with the increased challenge. Lava and icy caves, venturing to the source of the tentacles, more epic weapons and tools to create, making you feel like you conquered everything the world throws at you.

The reason why I say that this should best be its own DLC is that then all those in to create beautiful bases and sandbox gameplay can turn all of those things off with a single click.

Well, this post has been going on for way longer than I thought it would. I'll leave it as that.

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In a game where not clicking the torch quick enough = permadeath, I don't think suddenly thrusting night upon a player is a good idea. And having seasons not be there seems like it would just be leading up to huge disappointment when you realize your favorite season isn't there. I like the idea of seasons being completely random a lot, but there need to be a few things:

 

* Everything should be in World Settings under a "Random Seasons" setting or whatever.

 

* If you start outside of Autumn, you should get some equipment spawned with you to help you out, in the same fashion as the KoW setpiece.

 * You cannot start in Summer.

 * In Winter, you would get some material for campfires (Not as much as in the KoW setpiece, but still a lot), as well as an axe.

 * In Spring, you would get more material for a Campfire and blueprints for the Pretty Parasol.

Except right now not clicking the torch quick enough functions exactly the same. If you get side-tracked you get bitten. Charlie isn't an insta-kill.

Since the purpose was to make harder gameplay without adding any objects that don't exist, I personally was thinking the start settings would just be the same as sandbox mode. The only season I haven't survived starting in with nothing is summer, but I haven't tried it yet. Still toying with default.

It should be noted you don't need to research the Pretty Parasol.

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Except right now not clicking the torch quick enough functions exactly the same. If you get side-tracked you get bitten. Charlie isn't an insta-kill.

Since the purpose was to make harder gameplay without adding any objects that don't exist, I personally was thinking the start settings would just be the same as sandbox mode. The only season I haven't survived starting in with nothing is summer, but I haven't tried it yet. Still toying with default.

It should be noted you don't need to research the Pretty Parasol.

Yes, but the thing is, you can anticipate when night`s going to fall and hunker down in that time. 

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Interesting thoughts, but I'm not sure RNG is going to enhance the experience. 

 

I think the reason RNG would enhance the experience is only through the survival aspect. Beyond that, it offers no additional discovery element to the game, which is something that I think everyone enjoys, but I formed my idea specifically using only things that already exist in the game. I get worried about too many new things.

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Yes, but the thing is, you can anticipate when night`s going to fall and hunker down in that time. 

Exactly! You will always have to live in fear of the night. I've only ever ever died to the night once. It makes a well kept torch quite valuable, particularly if the transition from day->dusk->night are only 1 tick length long. You'll never know how much you can do in a day or how long the night may last, so you may feel forced to make very dangerous decisions.

Balancing would have to be done for the first few days, it'd be terrible if your first night lasted too long and rain destroyed your supply of twigs, grass, and logs. A very unfair way to die. But after that it could be a fair challenge, given some limiters on how long each time of day can be.

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It seems like it would just lead to unfair deaths. I mean, how are you supposed to know when to do anything?

 

Exactly! You will always have to live in fear of the night. I've only ever ever died to the night once. It makes a well kept torch quite valuable, particularly if the transition from day->dusk->night are only 1 tick length long. You'll never know how much you can do in a day or how long the night may last, so you may feel forced to make very dangerous decisions.

Balancing would have to be done for the first few days, it'd be terrible if your first night lasted too long and rain destroyed your supply of twigs, grass, and logs. A very unfair way to die. But after that it could be a fair challenge, given some limiters on how long each time of day can be.

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It might be interesting if the player could in effect 'freeze' the escalation by beating adventure mode 

This gives me an idea. 

 

When you go into Maxwell's Door, another Maxwell's Door appears in every level you spawn in, that you can use to get out.

 

And then time would still keep going in the other world.

 

Adventure Mode's difficulty would be severly bumped up, so that players would have to make trips back to their base to get more supplies.

 

However, as you reach milestones in Adventure Mode, monsters come out of Maxwell's Door in your orig. world. Like, special kinds of monsters. Like the Deerclops, they exist even when far away from the player. But unlike the Deerclops which just wanders around randomly, these monsters actually know where you are and try to come at you. They come regularly. Other hazards could possibly appear as time goes on. The idea being that trying to stop the escalating hazards could actually be more dangerous than just letting them run free.

 

 

 

 

Perhaps the monsters could be demon-ish? Then you would make Maxwell's Door look like an Oblivion Gate and have the screen get a red tint when you are getting near it.

 

Oh, and the DLC for the ''dying world'' thing should be called Anarchy Approaches.

 

EDIT: Maybe a different type of door, as you said before, could be added. It could change forms depending on the character, "Wilson's Door", "Wendy's Door", etc. These all would have a few defining qualities: Each level would have a theme like the character, and also be about conquering the character's worst fear, such as Woodie being trapped in a world filled with treeguards everywhere (If this got added this would also be giving each character more characterization), and each character would have a positive perk removed or nerfed. For example, Wendy wouldn't get Abigail's Flower, Willow would be extra vulnerable to fire, etc.

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Holy ****, this topic sure took off! (*Yaaaaaaaaay*)

 

So, first thing's first: no Total RNG please. RNG doesn't make for novelty as it does challenge. Whilst I have no problem with a mode dedicated to Total RNG, the mechanic screws with the novelty of the game inherently, I.E. removing a methodological day-cycle, breaking the seasons from a reality of associations that we understand and appreciate in different ways, etc. 

 

RNG could be implemented in some ways (it already exists in the form of Events, such as Raining, Earthquakes, etc).It just can't be implemented on the core structural elements that form the game, else, as I said, it becomes less a novelty and more a haphazard 'Challenge' mode (which I haven't a problem with if that's what some people want to experience). 

 

Tl;dr I am in support of RNG, but not in structural fundaments like the day cycle and the seasons. I think each should have its own difficulty in itself anyway and that we're approaching a problem with an indirect solution. I do, however, like the idea of not having the cycles visually represented and that the player would have to consciously make estimations like they would in real life about the time, the day and the season. That's a cool mechanic that I'd go for as a custom toggle.

 

This would actually give purpose to having a sundial. I love it. <3 

 

 

Moving on to Maxwell's Door: I hate it. I really hate that Adventure Mode has to be accessed through Sandbox mode and isn't just loadable through the menu. I also hate that such an ominous construct is redundant in mechanics that affect the game. It'd be great if Adventure Mode was moved to the main menu and that the Maxwell Door get a rework into some central point around destruction.

 

 

So, where we at... Ahh, General Gameplay. I like the idea of a mode where the world is on a trajectory of destruction. I could really go for that. There's heaps of ways to go about it, like implementing a virus for flora that passes slowly across the map forcing the player to move camp when affected. There's heaps of ways to implement 'Destruction' that force certain actions from the player - or, rather, forcing 'an' action by the player. 

 

 

Don't really know where to go with this anymore. Some people have stated very firmly that they do not want Don't Starve to be anything more than a Sandbox game whilst others have suggested that they want more novelisation. I think some custom modes would be the answer, but I don't see it happening. Mods, yes. Official movement, no. 

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I really hate that Adventure Mode has to be accessed through Sandbox mode 

I think some custom modes would be the answer, but I don't see it happening. Mods, yes. Official movement, no. 

Agreed agreed agreed, although I'd argue more that RNG reduces stagnation (which is what seems to be what suggestions or complaints surround) than ruins novelty. The giant flaw with it is that you might as well play as if you were in an always night world, even if it is less stagnant than simply that as well. It's a nice idea, but I don't think I'd call it a good idea.

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Well, I had said the original Adventure Mode would be seperate from the one I mentioned. So it would be okay to have the original Adventure Mode be unlocked from the menu and the other "(character name)'s Door"s be unlocked from in-game.

 

But to help you find it, there should be cues of some kind. Like, say, after Day 10, you can see a demon walk around just the edge of your view, and if you go near it it runs away. But you can follow it and it'd lead you to the Doors.

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