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A Reconsideration of Don't Starve's Meta


Regarding the Meta-Gameplay of Don't Starve  

56 members have voted

  1. 1. Considering the current state of Hounds and Giants, in 'isolation', is their threat profound enough? Disregard other difficulty modifiers.

    • Too hard. I play with both on 'less' or 'none'.
      0
    • I usually play with Hounds on 'less' or 'none'.
      2
    • I usually play with Giants on 'less' or 'none'.
      4
    • It's fine... Go away! (Before someone actually listens to you...)
      24
    • Not sure, but I usually play with one or the other on 'more' or 'lots'.
      10
    • Too easy. They're novel, but I feel they need tweaking and don't present a challenge to me.
      13
    • Other (specify in comment)
      3
  2. 2. Would you like to see Krampus reworked? And, if so, how?

    • Krampus is fine, you antagonistic heretic!
      2
    • Krampus? Who's that?
      8
    • Krampus is effective - well, when actually summoned...
      10
    • I'd like to see Krampus reworked to a more persistent role of devilish-doings.
      31
    • GOD NO! PLEASE, NO!!! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?!!...
      1
    • Other (specify in comment)
      4
  3. 3. How do you feel about Combat Item Tiering (disregarding Blow Darts, Bee Mines and Tooth Traps)?

    • The pace in teching is fine and the higher-tier combat weapons are balanced.
      20
    • The pace in teching is a bit slow but the higher-tier combat weapons are balanced.
      8
    • The pace in teching is fine but the higher-tier combat weapons aren't very strong.
      6
    • All upper-tier items cannot compare to the power of my Spear! Also, what was the point in teching again? Oh yeah, hats!
      7
    • Upper-tier weapons are over-powered and I'd appreciate it if you didn't get them buffed.
      3
    • But aren't Blow Darts and Tooth Traps all that matter anyway?
      6
    • Other (specify in the comments)
      6


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 Well in my opinion kiting is just an strategy, many people are good at(or just like doing so) it, and some people are bad(or just dislike doing so) at it and choose to tank everything, which can be a good strategy with Wolfgang, for his huge amount of health(when in mighty stage) that goes down according to your hunger, I'd like to see more of a reason to change the strategy for most others tho. 

 Regarding the Krampus, I really want to see a rework on him, he's not a threat at all, summoning him requires a lot of points and you're  very unlikely to summon him accidently, and even when you do summon him, he's not likely to stay around enough to do something bad as his health is quite small and his attack is weak. As an example, once when i was in adventure mode as Wilson I mudered a lot of friendly creatures to survive, Krampus came and I killed him using just a spear, no armor required, Wilson's health was more than enough to tank him using just a spear. Due to his weakness it doesn't seems like some kind of punishment, so I would really like if klei reworked that creature. I've even made a suggestion thread regarding this.

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Great post!  I have been thinking about how the design of game elements influences styles of play, so this is very interesting to me.

 

My impression from playing RoG's beta a few weeks is that the giants constrain play too much to require players to fight.  Fighting in this game mostly consists of maxing out weapon/armor tiers and spamming them - so I see bosses measured in terms of numbers of log suits and ham bats.  I personally do not care for the fight mechanics in this game; I will fight small things and occasionally take out a pig or merm.  But for me, the fight mechanics are not interesting enough to make me want to practice them to get better (I have experience with ARPG, RPG, and some RTS).

 

One of the greatest feelings I got was discovering that a herd of beefalo would take out a hound wave for me.  This entailed my settling hear a herd and having a planned path of movement to get to the beefalo by the time the hounds hit, a potential challenge given weather/night elements.  This was fun.

 

Likewise, when I discovered how effective it is to take out a Spider Queen with a horde of killer bees (either from Killer Bee Hives or from captured ones), I found that to be fun and sandbox-creative.

 

Even Deerclops can be led away to a different area if you start running away from camp as soon as you hear him, and I've been able to avoid him successfully that way.

 

But the new giants - I've only encountered Bearger so far - break this balance.  The AOE attacks will take out every neutral/friendly creature you try to bring to the fight too quickly, making it necessary for you to use the kite & fight mechanic to defeat it.  Running away is no good since Bearger teleports.  Even dying doesn't let you avoid him. 

 

What this does it is constrains the player too much for a sandbox game, IMO.  There should be multiple ways to deal with challenges that go beyond different choices of gear to use.  Maybe Bearger really doesn't like one particular type of food - maybe dragonfruit pie (as a reasonable penalty for the player) - and so will run away from the area if you feed that to him.  Or maybe you can craft some type of repellant that will slow him down enough so that you can fight him with your furry and scaly friends.

 

The penalty for not engaging with the giant is that your whole camp gets destroyed.  I'm not a big camp builder; I prefer to "live with the land" and so have, at most:  a crockpot (only one since food spoils in the crock now), 4 drying racks, fire pit, alchemy engine, 2-4 chests, a bird cage, and some farms (I have not played summer yet).  Also, I plant trees nearby. That's a pretty light camp that is just the bare essentials.  I can understand the balance factor where a Giant will counter someone who builds a small city for themselves, and wrecking a section of one's 10 x 10 farm grid would be annoying, but not difficulty raising per se.  That serves as an incentive for a player who put in that time and effort to defend their compound.  But for someone with a small camp like mine, there is no redundancy, and having to rebuild that when finding rare resources in addition to fending off an Angry Giant is not fair. 

 

One other perspective I have is that since the game is divided into Overworld, Caves, and Ruins, challenges in the Overworld should be defeatable using only Overworld-sourced things.  I see many strategies involving Rock Lobsters or items craftable from resources in the ruins; that's not sufficient.  If the caves are to be option, they need to stay optional. 

Well, firstly, the game is defined by Klei as "An Uncompromising Wilderness Survival Game". The notion of not having to fight - i.e. Pacifism - seems beyond the intentions of the developers, sort of. The game is designed so that all means that you can find of besting whatever challenge proposes itself are legitimate--so, finding pacifistic ways of pervading hostilities is a legitimate strategy, but only in so far as its simply an existing strategy and not necessarily an intended pacifistic pathway for players.

 

Back on topic: I do feel for players that wish to avoid all killing/combat should have alternatives (my partner is a vegetarian and, so, she never harms anything just as a moral she carries into her playstyle), but to accommodate such alternatives as a core style of play would really contradict the premise of the game ("Uncompromising", "Wilderness", "Survival"). 

 

Whilst I'd urge Klei to maintain alternative methods for players to loop the system if they wish to dodge fighting (which is currently implemented in the aggro-swapping mechanics and Befriendment mechanics), I'd also urge players such as yourself to keep in mind the integrity of the core gameplay. 

 

Giants are an interesting addition at this moment in that they act as the only Aggressive Creature threat (continuous basis) that has little to do with the player's playstyle or choices. I like what they do minus the inability to deter all of them (in theory), but I don't really think they do anything but give a buzz to anyone hoping to live quietly. Even the whole base-smashing property of the Giants is null when you consider how much warning a player gets to vacate their premise. 

 

But yes, overall, I agree that the motivation to engage in combat isn't terribly strong (except for Boomerangs. Boomerangs are way fun) granted it's boring and arduous as all hell. Perhaps if combat was a little more than swinging a blade? There are examples where combat does involve some strategical implementation - particularly if you're finding yourself overrun/swarmed - but, besides what I called 'Exploitation' and kiting/hazard-controlling incoming damage to a minimum through positioning, there isn't anything to fights. 

 

Thanks for the response and for reading!

 

Mostly in agreement. I personally think food is a bit too easy right now (maybe we need more spider-queen counterparts for Beefalo/Catcoons/Moles/Birds, etc), but otherwise I'd agree that the biggest problem right now is that "fighting" really means kiting, and as Giants have entered the game fighting is now being emphasized much more heavily, but hasn't really received any mechanical attention. Instead all the design changes have gone into weather, leaving the Giants in this weird limbo space where the Giants themselves are new but how we deal with them is nearly identical to how you fight anything else in the game.

You mention Queen-Spiders as being a form of Passive Creature that poses a danger, but I must ask in what way have you witnessed the AI to present such a hazard? I often find Queens roaming around aimlessly before sitting themselves back down post accomplishing nothing. Just a thought there, though I like where you were going with that thought and I concur. 

 

These discussions have centred around 'kiting' being a boring element of Don't Starve when, really, it isn't. The issue is that kiting is one of the few options players have in combat amidst very little alternatives - thus why it's "boring"; it's just monotonous and not dynamic. 

 

And onto the the point of Giants in limbo: I don't know if Klei will pay any intention to combat nor if they (ever) intend(ed) to. I wouldn't have made this thread/disambiguation if I felt Klei intended to patch up the holes in the gameplay. Giants aren't quite in a limbo though as there is weaponry that'll deal with them, but it's more that, at the end of the day, it's a really convoluted system in which you only prepare such weapons for Giants and that's it - and, as I've mentioned, there are far easier ways of dealing with them.  

 

The Gmoose actually won't come to you at all unless you have three structures within 30 range of you (more or less on-screen). So that's what happened there.

Ahh, gotcha. Thanks for that. It is a little weird that the Gmoose and Deerclops have the same entry groan. If someone hadn't have told me, I would have thought I was copping a Deerclops during Spring. 

 

But for a Giant to be provoked only by being within 30 range of structures post 6-10 seconds of groaning is really... underwhelming. A whole season where a promised Giant pretty much won't show up if you're using sound or paying attention to character-prompts. 

 

Just when I think of other game bosses, the actual "hit n kite" is pretty rare. Most of the time it's, dogde and combine/do something to make the boss vulnerable to your attacks. This is not the case in dont starve, but would make boss battles more thrilling...

It probably would make boss battles more thrilling, but we are talking about a significant rework here (even if I do agree).

I do think the answer would simply be making weapons/armour more interesting, but this is beyond the point of the thread since it is meant to be about the pacing of the meta currently and not discrete elements any more than indirectly.  

 

I think the game is fine the way it is. My opinion, is that you should really play another game xD You're overthinking everything wayyyyy too much.

Well, we all have a right to an opinion. Perhaps you are right? Though it is detailed as an Uncompro... Read above. 

 

 Well in my opinion kiting is just an strategy, many people are good at(or just like doing so) it, and some people are bad(or just dislike doing so) at it and choose to tank everything, which can be a good strategy with Wolfgang, for his huge amount of health(when in mighty stage) that goes down according to your hunger, I'd like to see more of a reason to change the strategy for most others tho. 

 Regarding the Krampus, I really want to see a rework on him, he's not a threat at all, summoning him requires a lot of points and you're  very unlikely to summon him accidently, and even when you do summon him, he's not likely to stay around enough to do something bad as his health is quite small and his attack is weak. As an example, once when i was in adventure mode as Wilson I mudered a lot of friendly creatures to survive, Krampus came and I killed him using just a spear, no armor required, Wilson's health was more than enough to tank him using just a spear. Due to his weakness it doesn't seems like some kind of punishment, so I would really like if klei reworked that creature. I've even made a suggestion thread regarding this.

There certainly is a strong pull towards Krampus getting a rework - which is pleasing in my opinion. Krampus just doesn't do anything right now.  

 

I will assert once again that this thread isn't about whether Aggro-Swapping, Befriending, Tanking, or Kiting should be a part of the game but more the balance between the strengths of each element and possibilities in rebalancing the trend. 

 

I've disambiguated every element - including Kiting - to the effect that every element has a place in certain situations and that the only reason some strategies are finding more use is due to an imbalance in the hostility of both the environment and the world. 

 

Right now there is a lack of hostility from the world (Aggressive Creatures - including Giants which, depending on who you ask, are either immensely effective in tormenting the player or completely ineffective in being anything but an audible sound occasionally) which is incurring a skew in effectiveness towards kiting and aggro-swapping, and a lack of hostility from the biomes/environment giving players more time to deal with obstacles without having to worry about the ongoing upkeeps of food and the weather.  

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I think the game is in a pretty good state right now, when one considers that some people come to this game knowing nothing and have to learn it bottom up.   "uncompromising wilderness survival" is in fact what it is.  it's in the widlerness, it's about survival, and it's rogue-like, so uncompromising.  I do not believe that Klei, by saying "uncompromising" intended "you can't survive more than 1 day without reading the wiki and strategy guides right from the get-go.   I believe the game is intended for a total newb to learn as they go, by dying a lot, but not so much that they can't make more progress based on what they learned last time. 

 

I know a lot of people feel like the game is too easy or boring in the later stages, and in a beta that becomes an echo box because most of us in the beta are experienced players.   But believe or not, Klei DOES still want to get totally new players and not have them entirely turned off by a vicious game that deals out constant and apparently capricious death at every turn.  Putting out sequels that only appeal to your existing (and always dwindling) player base is NOT a winning business strategy.  One may argue that the number of people that get the game and don't immediately turn to the wiki is very small, and that's probably true, but I believe Klei's *vision* is for total newbs to not read about every facet of the game, but to instead experience it organically.  The game is very pg, and I think there are a fair number of very young people that play the game, and they don't need ridiculous combat gimmicks I think.  The options for dealing with giants and other mobs are fairly straightforward, and I think this probably benefits the appeal of the game to people who don't necessarily have the best twitch-gaming skills.

 

So, within the context of what I've just stated, I believe that the game does not necessarily need reworks of it's existing mechanics.  If we want the game to have increased challenge while still being newb accessible, I think what the game needs is a scaling of threats beyond day 100.  And I don't just mean adding hp and damage to mobs.  That's boring.  And I don't mean bigger hounds waves.  That'll just make people turtle by their tooth trap fields more. 

I've suggested many times previously, and still believe, that there needs to be more systems where the environment itself attacks the players' food sources.  They did a good job in RoG of making food a little more difficult in the spoiling of animals, jerky, and crock pots.  But all that really did was shift the focus to planning rather than stockpiling. 

I think there needs to be random threats to the food, that increase over time.  Things that make it progressively more dangerous/difficult to gather food.  Vultures seek out your jerky racks and pluck off the jerky (the more racks in one spot the faster and more vultures find them).  You open your rabbit trap to find a snake underneath, which attacks you.  sabre tooth cats attack your beefalo herd (they have an insta-kill pounce for beefalo so they don't aggro them) - deal with them or watch your beefalo be slaughtered.  Or even weirder, there's a 'wolf in beefalo clothing' mob.  Like the Zibashiri (the hunters that wear the boar skins) in Princess Mononoke.  How creepy would that be?   Your gardens progressively produce more and more monstrous plants (reduced chance if you use type farmed seeds).  Your berry bushes get infested by monstrous plants.  Bee boxes turn killer.  It could scale to day 1000.

 

Beyond food threats, there could be colonizing efforts by enemies.  Spreading McTusk-like enemies who get stronger the longer you put off dealing with them.  There would have to be new functions that make them appear, possibly at far off areas of the map, without you having to go there and get the longupdate going.  They make a minor structure.  You don't find it for 20 days, they make another, you don't find that one they make a third, you don't do anything, now they make an armory that produces better units.  Couple more camps,  They make a stable which makes faster units.  Etc.  Then some day you wander into that part of the map and you have this huge settlement that is suddenly a very real threat.  That would encourage patrolling the world.  They could be clockwork enemies, or techno-otters.  They replace the existing biome with the new Tesla Biome.    Conveniently this gives you material for Mad Science, the new 3rd tier science tech level.   Which gives you new tools to fight this threat. 

 

So in summary, I think the answer is not to tinker a bunch with the existing mechanics, but add new ones for later game.  Keep the newb friendly appeal, add later-game difficulty.

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Yes, the game absolutely can and should fall into a position where new players can learn as they go without being frightened away whilst experienced players can return to a challenge without feeling like they need to make mods to compensate for the direction of the game.

 

Regarding this discussion about newbie vs experienced:

[i know you clarify that this doesn't have to be a barrier, but I'd rather people get used to the idea that this game can be accommodating for both new and experienced players rather than this war over direction that leads to no constructive discussion more often than not. A bit of a digression by me though, so I apologise] 

 

I do keep hearing this debate between everyone about 'New Players' vs 'Experienced' as if it's a Black/White spectrum. Thing is: the game already has a sliding scale the longer you survive - no one need worry that Klei will deviate from this template. Whether the sliding scale starts easier than it is now and progressively becomes harder than it is now isn't an issue for experienced players like us since we do spend a bit of time setting up 'novelty' in our games anyway, and I don't think anyone minds the game being easy to begin with if we know the game won't stay that way - many games that are designed as Single Player puzzle/challenger games are designed this way (Touhou and other side-scrollers, for instance, is a series notorious for its extreme motor movement/reaction speed difficulty, and yet both experienced and newbie players continue to return to the series due to its sliding difficulty). 

 

Moving on: your ideas are all A+. I love them, I really do. However, this whole thread has traversed from a premise of negotiating existing factors in the game - i.e. rebalance the current focuses of the elements to be more evenly dispersed - into a thread about recreating the gameplay. Whilst I'm supporting ideas being presented irrespective of how integrity-breaking they are to Don't Starve at this point, I'd urge everyone to try consider some small changes that'd reshuffle the balances, first and foremost. If we can't, then we move slightly further out and so on. 

 

Some of your ideas are really good and aren't a major shift from the game - like the changes to food storage. Food Storage could be tackled without any extraneous variables, and your ideas certainly hit the nail on the head. The simple ones, that is (reworking Vultures to have a more persistent role, events to baffle farming, etc). 

 

However, consider a Krampus rework as another way of dealing with anything base-orientated. It's an already-existing feature that's under-utilised. Would a change in Krampus' AI and a consistent periodic presence compensate for the imbalance in Food?

 

The other ideas though involving Rabbit traps, Beefallo and whatnot, do involve entirely new content. They are great ideas (and I like them), but new content is often the hardest to get a pass - particularly when it's more than 1 element, and especially when all the elements are required to complete the effect. 

 

Recolonisation is something I'd love, but look at Spider Queens at the moment. They are meant to embody this very mechanic and yet they don't really accomplish what they're meant to - like Krampus. How could Spider Queens be reshuffled to bring more to the universe? Or do they accomplish exactly what they need to?

 

I think it's a good idea to consider some of the existing features that don't get around to doing much and fixing them first--and I think we'll find that some of the other elements of the game fall into line the more we do so. 

 

So, based on what has been said and what I've covered in the opening post, anyone got any ideas?

 

[Damn, wish that stuff was a mod or something that'd actually happen. Don't mind me though.]

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I think that most enemies need to have less predictable attack patterns. Tallbirds currently hold the world record for most intimidating enemy turned into least intimidating enemy in the fastest time. Seriously, once you figure out kiting, the only way to actually get hit by one of those things is if you get distracted by a big rat running into your room or something. Tentacles and Depths Worms are the perfect example of how enemies should be: Manageable, but very costly to get rid of.

 

So my point is, kiting is fixable if you just make the enemies harder to kite.

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I think that most enemies need to have less predictable attack patterns. Tallbirds currently hold the world record for most intimidating enemy turned into least intimidating enemy in the fastest time. Seriously, once you figure out kiting, the only way to actually get hit by one of those things is if you get distracted by a big rat running into your room or something. Tentacles and Depths Worms are the perfect example of how enemies should be: Manageable, but very costly to get rid of.

 

So my point is, kiting is fixable if you just make the enemies harder to kite.

I'm honestly in full support of AI buffs to creatures. I'm not talking about completely reworking AI, but if you added a few extra lines to the behaviours that gave 2-3 options for them to randomise between, that could make things more interesting - in some cases.

 

However, considering Tall Birds as something you've mentioned, how would an AI buff even help them? They are Melee and have a slow attack speed that even Chester blocks can't mess you up. I don't think you could do much besides increasing the attack speed or the cooldown on the attack. You could randomise Cooldowns on attacks a bit more, but that'd only lead to players not taking chances in patterns and simply doing single hit/run tactics. 

 

Yeah, not sure you can redeem Tall Birds. They frighten you away from Mining and I think that's all they need to do. As I recommended, what if Tall Birds had a larger 'check' range with the intention of defending rocks in their territory more readily? They don't need to hurt the player, they just need to stop them from Mining. No?

 

Of all examples though... 

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Well, firstly, the game is defined by Klei as "An Uncompromising Wilderness Survival Game". The notion of not having to fight - i.e. Pacifism - seems beyond the intentions of the developers, sort of. The game is designed so that all means that you can find of besting whatever challenge proposes itself are legitimate--so, finding pacifistic ways of pervading hostilities is a legitimate strategy, but only in so far as its simply an existing strategy and not necessarily an intended pacifistic pathway for players.

I will point out that nowhere in that title is "fight."  It is a cultural assumption that survival = fighting (as opposed to occasional violence or killing).  I would also argue that if one were to be dropped into a wilderness, the idea of fighting something 10 times your size to the death makes absolutely no sense; it's suicidal and completely counter to the idea of surviving.  If survival always meant fighting back to the death, then the bunnies should fight back instead of flee. Instead, they use their advantages to get away. 

 

I think it would be interesting if there were a mechanic on some large creatures where they'd run away if you whacked them enough; that includes a realistic amount of fighting while also recognizing that not every problem has to be solved with killing. 

 

Addition:

 

Also, relying on the phrase "uncompromising wilderness survival" means that thirst and dysentery should really be implemented because the first priority in wilderness survival is almost always to find safe, drinkable water.  I guarantee we'd have a lot of deaths at Day 3 (dehydration - would be funny to watch characters mummify) and Day 6 (just explode in a mess of blood and manure). 

 

The point is that games are usually finding a balance between realism (or some consistent in-game physics/reality) and fun.  I really enjoy DS because Klei makes fun (sometimes twisted, perverse fun) a priority with features they implement (such as the finite birchnut problem).  Similarly, I find that the games that bring me back are the ones that offer many ways to deal with challenges - the ability of people to play as vegetarians is awesome (which is why I support a small change in preservation, like drying, because it encourages more fun and creativity). 

 

Back to the main point of contention - I do not yet know the details on all of the giants.  But if there is a combination giant or other boss who 1) seeks you out, 2) follows you / teleports to your location, 3) has strong AOE, and 4) can only be defeated by killing it (which entails fite & kite), then it overly constrains play so that you're required to use the simple fight mechanics.  I would rather see more development of other options (or rebalancing to let some overworld creature in reasonable numbers to survive against it at least a few ticks) than to rework or add more to the fight mechanics.  DS is a survival game, which sometimes includes fighting, but it is not a combat game.

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I think that most enemies need to have less predictable attack patterns. Tallbirds currently hold the world record for most intimidating enemy turned into least intimidating enemy in the fastest time. Seriously, once you figure out kiting, the only way to actually get hit by one of those things is if you get distracted by a big rat running into your room or something. Tentacles and Depths Worms are the perfect example of how enemies should be: Manageable, but very costly to get rid of.

 

So my point is, kiting is fixable if you just make the enemies harder to kite.

 

Fixable? Kiting is not a problem, is the only game mechanic of combat. You remove pattern on enemies and you make the game unplayable.

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You can remove the stones in the world creation and never use meat effigies if that's what you want.

 

No, you can pretty much fix anything with the world creation, but people don't want that because it's cheating even if it makes harder, they want a legit way provided by the developers, so they should just make the Default Plus option without any respawn. Maybe then people would stop demanding everything to be moar hardkor, because they got too comfortable with their effigies and got bored.

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 they want a legit way provided by the developers,

Yeah the world creation.

They added the support for a reason.

No need to add needless world generation settings JUST to remove meat effigies and touchstones, when you can just turn off touchstones with a single click and just a bit of self control over the meat effigies (or some editing of the recipe to make it cost a impossible amount. 

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Fixable? Kiting is not a problem, is the only game mechanic of combat. You remove pattern on enemies and you make the game unplayable.

I never said to remove the patterns, I said to make them less predictable a la Depths Worms and Tentacles.

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Yeah the world creation.

They added the support for a reason.

No need to add needless world generation settings JUST to remove meat effigies and touchstones, when you can just turn off touchstones with a single click and just a bit of self control over the meat effigies (or some editing of the recipe to make it cost a impossible amount. 

 

You could also use nothing but walking cane to fight giants to make them harder, but I don't see anyone doing that.

You think that just because people have the option to do something they will?

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You could also use nothing but walking cane to fight giants to make them harder, but I don't see anyone doing that.

You think that just because people have the option to do something they will?

Yes they will, you don't HAVE to use chester or glommer, yet people use them all of the time.

If they don't want touchstones they will disable them.

 

And the first part is just illogical, it's nothing like disabling the touchstones, and doesn't even come close to the ability to ignore the respawn mechanics.

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So World Generation ISN'T a legit way provided by the developers? How so?

 

Both of you seem to fail to realize that the majority of people that asks for tougher giants, less food, no honeyboxes, nerfing weapons, more hounds and so on consider altering any of the default settings a kind of cheat.

My point wasn't even them wanting no respawns, but rather how they forgot this is a permadeath survival game and not a beat'em up.

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Both of you seem to fail to realize that the majority of people that asks for tougher giants, less food, no honeyboxes, nerfing weapons, more hounds and so on consider altering any of the default settings a kind of cheat.

My point wasn't even them wanting no respawns, but rather how they forgot this is a permadeath survival game and not a beat'em up.

I also feel like cheating when I'm changing the settings but that doesn't mean that my standards of difficulty have to be imposed to everybody, if I want a challenge I usually change things creatively like a world with only summer and winter, an eternal raining spring, etc. The prefabs like default plus and lights out aren't any different from this if you look at them objectively

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My point wasn't even them wanting no respawns, 

 

Klei should add a mode without touch stones and meat effigies

I replied to that comment, which then you replied to, where you talked about a completly different thing, about how world customizeation was not an option, which then Doomfan replied to.

Should've made it more clear you randomly changed the subject

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I also feel like cheating when I'm changing the settings but that doesn't mean that my standards of difficulty have to be imposed to everybody, if I want a challenge I usually change things creatively like a world with only summer and winter, an eternal raining spring, etc. The prefabs like default plus and lights out aren't any different from this if you look at them objectively

 

You're one in a hundred.

Most people think this is an MMO and the game should suit to their desires.

 

I'm all about creative ways to defeat smarter enemies, but I get tired of reading how the game is so easy all day long in every board.

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No, you can pretty much fix anything with the world creation, but people don't want that because it's cheating even if it makes harder, they want a legit way provided by the developers, so they should just make the Default Plus option without any respawn. Maybe then people would stop demanding everything to be moar hardkor, because they got too comfortable with their effigies and got bored.

Don't be ridiculous. I use world-gen as a solution regularly for when I'm bored - what other choices do I have?

 

Having said this: World Gen is bugged at the moment in that 'Most' doesn't work properly, and 'Lots' is an over-saturation. 

 

Anyway, if you're a player that loves this game and wants more of a challenge, I don't think you're going to let official releases stop you. 

 

I will point out that nowhere in that title is "fight."  It is a cultural assumption that survival = fighting (as opposed to occasional violence or killing).  I would also argue that if one were to be dropped into a wilderness, the idea of fighting something 10 times your size to the death makes absolutely no sense; it's suicidal and completely counter to the idea of surviving.  If survival always meant fighting back to the death, then the bunnies should fight back instead of flee. Instead, they use their advantages to get away. 

 

I think it would be interesting if there were a mechanic on some large creatures where they'd run away if you whacked them enough; that includes a realistic amount of fighting while also recognizing that not every problem has to be solved with killing. 

 

Addition:

 

Also, relying on the phrase "uncompromising wilderness survival" means that thirst and dysentery should really be implemented because the first priority in wilderness survival is almost always to find safe, drinkable water.  I guarantee we'd have a lot of deaths at Day 3 (dehydration - would be funny to watch characters mummify) and Day 6 (just explode in a mess of blood and manure). 

 

The point is that games are usually finding a balance between realism (or some consistent in-game physics/reality) and fun.  I really enjoy DS because Klei makes fun (sometimes twisted, perverse fun) a priority with features they implement (such as the finite birchnut problem).  Similarly, I find that the games that bring me back are the ones that offer many ways to deal with challenges - the ability of people to play as vegetarians is awesome (which is why I support a small change in preservation, like drying, because it encourages more fun and creativity). 

 

Back to the main point of contention - I do not yet know the details on all of the giants.  But if there is a combination giant or other boss who 1) seeks you out, 2) follows you / teleports to your location, 3) has strong AOE, and 4) can only be defeated by killing it (which entails fite & kite), then it overly constrains play so that you're required to use the simple fight mechanics.  I would rather see more development of other options (or rebalancing to let some overworld creature in reasonable numbers to survive against it at least a few ticks) than to rework or add more to the fight mechanics.  DS is a survival game, which sometimes includes fighting, but it is not a combat game.

Jeez, touche, touche. Honestly, if I was to throw together a mod, I'd probably attempt to program a fleet reaction into creatures since it makes an enormous amount of sense AND sounds interesting/fun. However, such an implementation would be difficult since you'd need to program in their behaviours post having ran away, i.e. you can't much have them restalk the player or run back into combat upon next encounter. Bit tricky really.

 

Anyway, we might just have to accept that pacifistic alternatives won't always be available and aren't entirely intended as part of the delivered game experience. So, let's focus on what is there (in the game) and how to improve it so it all fits together nicer. 

 

Both of you seem to fail to realize that the majority of people that asks for tougher giants, less food, no honeyboxes, nerfing weapons, more hounds and so on consider altering any of the default settings a kind of cheat.

My point wasn't even them wanting no respawns, but rather how they forgot this is a permadeath survival game and not a beat'em up.

Do a survey before making broad generalisations. I use the settings, and it's evident that people here use the settings, and some people even go ahead and mod extra difficulty into their game for funzies. If your observation about experienced players considering default-modifications to be a cheat is true, I'd be curious as to why they still hold that naive perspective.

 

As far as I can tell, gamer-gamers will take to this game with an incentive to go for "high scores, etc" and will want to maintain the intended integrity of its difficulty and playstyle in order to keep the comparison to other players as valid as possible. However, once they do as much multiple times and find that getting to day 1000 is much the same as getting to day 150, they'll find that the game is more exciting when it's a personal challenge. That, or they'll quit.  

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Do a survey before making broad generalisations. I use the settings, and it's evident that people here use the settings, and some people even go ahead and mod extra difficulty into their game for funzies. If your observation about experienced players considering default-modifications to be a cheat is true, I'd be curious as to why they still hold that naive perspective.

 

As far as I can tell, gamer-gamers will take to this game with an incentive to go for "high scores, etc" and will want to maintain the intended integrity of its difficulty and playstyle in order to keep the comparison to other players as valid as possible. However, once they do as much multiple times and find that getting to day 1000 is much the same as getting to day 150, they'll find that the game is more exciting when it's a personal challenge. That, or they'll quit.  

 

Don't you read the forums or watch livestreams of the game?

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Don't you read the forums or watch livestreams of the game?

And how many would you guestimate go by this rule? You got something empirical that we can all see rather than a small sample that perhaps go by that rule and care about their image? 

 

It just doesn't make any sense. The intended gameplay as part of the Don't Starve package is somewhat a shambles anyway. 

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