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My huge issue with the giants. NERF the old bell!


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I've just reached day 100 with Wickerbottom and I've now killed all the new giants in the DLC. Very nice in design however I didn't really have the time to appreciate them mechanically...

 

As soon as they showed up I simply put them to sleep with whatever and then activated the old bell right on top of them. Do this twice and the giants become a joke dying before they even think about raiding my drying racks...

 

The old bell is simply over-powered! Every full moon you can get one with little or no effort and it has three uses.....Full moon is every 18 days, which means every 12 days I can kill a giant with ease. And giants definitely don't attack every 12 days.

 

My solution:

Make the old bell a one use item.

OR 

Make the resources to build it much more difficult to find. Maybe have it so an item to build it is a drop from any of the giants - like giant essence or something. At least then you are forced to fight them legit first time around.

 

 

--edit--

 

After a bit of debate (thanks Plague Mouse) I feel as if nerfing The Old Bell may require a bit more thought than simply reducing the uses or increasing the required supplies. A lot of people, including myself, clearly don't just use it for insta-killing giants. It is indeed a very unique and interesting item to play around with whether you use it for clearing trees, culling beefalos or even taking out angry burchnut trees. However I still feel as insta-killing one of supposed kings of the Don't Starve Universe can never be reasoned as a fair mechanic and quite frankly makes a mockery of what giants should represent. Arguing such a mechanic to simply be ignored and left to those who choose to ruin their experience is not a solution in my eyes. I quote myself here: 

 

"True, but the option shouldn't be there in the first place. An optional insta-win button is damaging to a game's experience because sooner or later when the pressures stacked up and someone's days of hard work is at risk of all being lost in an instant they aren't going to give two shits about accomplishment and they'll smash that button no question. 

 

Some people may be better than that however from the Devs point of view, even if one player uses the Old Bell to kill the giants then that player's experience is ruined and so is everyone else's pride knowing that their shiny new scale armour that they lost half a base for just got acquired with a click of a button."

 

 

Damage nerf? Perhaps. Giant immunity? Potentially. But definitely, definitely not ignored.

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I've just reached day 100 with Wickerbottom and I've now killed all the new giants in the DLC. Very nice in design however I didn't really have the time to appreciate them mechanically...

 

As soon as they showed up I simply put them to sleep with whatever and then activated the old bell right on top of them. Do this twice and the giants become a joke dying before they even think about raiding my drying racks...

 

The old bell is simply over-powered! Every full moon you can get one with little or no effort and it has three uses.....Full moon is every 18 days, which means every 12 days I can kill a giant with ease. And giants definitely don't attack every 12 days.

 

My solution:

Make the old bell a one use item.

OR 

Make the resources to build it much more difficult to find. Maybe have it so an item to build it is a drop from any of the giants - like giant essence or something. At least then you are forced to fight them legit first time around.

Just let it in your chest. You are not forced to use it. If you are, then you are not prepared to fight giants in a legit way...

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screw that. i like using the old bell for other things like chopping trees and killing a horde of spiders. and people complain about too much angry birch nut trees.... i old bell there angry butts. i don't want to be forced to kill a giant for it and I'm not always near the glommer statue during full moons so umm i like as is.

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A true DS player fights giants with a spear in one arm and a piece of meat in the other one and wearing nothing but a worn out football helmet.

true. you can play DS the way you want to. no one is forcing you to use old bell strictly on giants. some people need the help others don't just play it as you see fit. 

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This is like saying the Concrete Donkey in Worms made it too easy. Yeah it was there and using it was hilariously cheap (Low Gravity + 2x damage in WWP? Hilarious!) but it was a lot more satisfying to get the kills with a well aimed Bazooka or Grenade.

Same could be said for the Old Bell. Yeah it gets the job done but I imagine you'd feel a lot more triumphant taking that thing out with your FIST.

... which if anyone does that I demand a fraps recording. 

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This is like saying the Concrete Donkey in Worms made it too easy. Yeah it was there and using it was hilariously cheap (Low Gravity + 2x damage in WWP? Hilarious!) but it was a lot more satisfying to get the kills with a well aimed Bazooka or Grenade.

Same could be said for the Old Bell. Yeah it gets the job done but I imagine you'd feel a lot more triumphant taking that thing out with your FIST.

... which if anyone does that I demand a fraps recording. 

 

True, but the option shouldn't be there in the first place. An optional insta-win button is damaging to a game's experience because sooner or later when the pressures stacked up and someone's days of hard work is at risk of all being lost in an instant they aren't going to give two shits about accomplishment and they'll smash that button no question. 

 

Some people may be better than that however from the Devs point of view, even if one player uses the Old Bell to kill the giants then that player's experience is ruined and so is everyone else's pride knowing that their shiny new scale armour that they lost half a base for just got acquired with a click of a button.

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True, but the option shouldn't be there in the first place. An optional insta-win button is damaging to a game's experience because sooner or later when the pressures stacked up and someone's days of hard work is at risk of all being lost in an instant they aren't going to give two shits about accomplishment and they'll smash that button no question. 

 

Some people may be better than that however from the Devs point of view, even if one player uses the Old Bell to kill the giants then that player's experience is ruined and so is everyone else's pride knowing that their shiny new scale armour that they lost half a base for just got acquired with a click of a button.

 

This is not an MMO. It's a single player experience, if someone doesn't want to lose 200 days of progress building a base in two seconds and feel like using the old bell, then that's their choice, they decide which characters they play and how they play based on taste, on what they want to experience. Also, using the old bell on your base would have the same effect as a giant wrecking it, so you can't just smash a button without any strategy.

If you lost half your base kiting a giant then that's your mistake, not an accomplishment. You never should spawn a giant near your base anyway.

 

Edit: And what's the experience in fighting the giants, anyway? You said you didn't even try it because the Old Bell was just too good of an option, but go and do it. There's nothing in it, you kite them like you kite everything else in the game, with a minor twist like one of them freezing you, another setting you on fire and the other making you drop your weapons every time he hits you. That's all.

After the first fight they become hound attacks with more collateral damage, just another mundane thing to bother you every 20 days or so. The most experience they'll provide is frustration by destroying every single structure with a single unstoppable blow.

Not to dismiss Klei's work, but kiting is always kiting.

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This is not an MMO. It's a single player experience, if someone doesn't want to lose 200 days of progress building a base in two seconds and feel like using the old bell, then that's their choice, they decide which characters they play and how they play based on taste, on what they want to experience. Also, using the old bell on your base would have the same effect as a giant wrecking it, so you can't just smash a button without any strategy.

If you lost half your base kiting a giant then that's your mistake, not an accomplishment. You never should spawn a giant near your base anyway.

 

Edit: And what's the experience in fighting the giants, anyway? You said you didn't even try it because the Old Bell was just too good of an option, but go and do it. There's nothing in it, you kite them like you kite everything else in the game, with a minor twist like one of them freezing you, another setting you on fire and the other making you drop your weapons every time he hits you. That's all.

After the first fight they become hound attacks with more collateral damage, just another mundane thing to bother you every 20 days or so. The most experience they'll provide is frustration by destroying every single structure with a single unstoppable blow.

Not to dismiss Klei's work, but kiting is always kiting.

 

Okay, so let's say we ignore it. Use this mentality for everything else which is potentially game breaking. Why tweak anything anymore?

 

Ice-flingomatics use too much logs?

Don't use ice-flingomatics.

 

Storing live rabbits forever is OP?

Don't use rabbits.

 

Spiders still attack chester while playing as Webber?. 

Don't use chester.

 

Birchnut Tree Guard spawn too often?

Don't cut Birchnuts.

 

It's now impossible to starve in Don't Starve?

Don't worry, for the very game's name to make sense just stop and tune down the food supply before you start!

 

I don't understand why I'm being slated for suggesting the Old Bell needs tweaking down a bit? Ignoring anything OP in a game is reckless. Balance shouldn't be optional.

 

And in case anyone says one person's concept of "balance" is different to another's. Well no one needs an instant-kill bell on a regular, cost-free supply. Difficulty should not be determined by your own will-power to ignore a mechanic in a game, that would just be lazy programming. Yet you've seen Klei tweak down a bunch of frankly OP mechanics in Don't Starve like as I mentioned: "Storing live rabbits forever is OP", klei have tweaked this and they now die slowly if not fed.

 

So why is it so out-outrageous to tune down The Old Bell?

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Okay, so let's say we ignore it. Use this mentality for everything else which is potentially game breaking. Why tweak anything anymore?

 

Ice-flingomatics use too much logs?

Don't use ice-flingomatics.

 

Storing live rabbits forever is OP?

Don't use rabbits.

 

Spiders still attack chester while playing as Webber?. 

Don't use chester.

 

Birchnut Tree Guard spawn too often?

Don't cut Birchnuts.

 

It's now impossible to starve in Don't Starve?

Don't worry, for the very game's name to make sense just stop and tune down the food supply before you start!

 

I don't understand why I'm being slated for suggesting the Old Bell needs tweaking down a bit? Ignoring anything OP in a game is reckless. Balance shouldn't be optional.

 

And in case anyone says one person's concept of "balance" is different to another's. Well no one needs an instant-kill bell on a regular, cost-free supply. Difficulty should not be determined by your own will-power to ignore a mechanic in a game, that would just be lazy programming. Yet you've seen Klei tweak down a bunch of frankly OP mechanics in Don't Starve like as I mentioned: "Storing live rabbits forever is OP", klei have tweaked this and they now die slowly if not fed.

 

So why is it so out-outrageous to tune down The Old Bell?

 

Because it isn't game breaking.

Why would it be game breaking? I kill giants using 9 gunpowder, which is quite easy to make and this recipe is around forever.

The giants are and always were threats to your structures, not to you.

 

I wouldn't bother if it was made weaker, as long as it still has the same efficiency when destroying wood, but one use? Nop. That would mean waiting for a full moon every time you need lumber.

Damage to monsters being nerfed wouldn't affect me, I would still use gunpowder and kill them just as quickly. Unless gunpowder is also broken...

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Because it isn't game breaking.

Why would it be game breaking? I kill giants using 9 gunpowder, which is quite easy to make and this recipe is around forever.

The giants are and always were threats to your structures, not to you.

 

I wouldn't bother if it was made weaker, as long as it still has the same efficiency when destroying wood, but one use? Nop. That would mean waiting for a full moon every time you need lumber.

Damage to monsters being nerfed wouldn't affect me, I would still use gunpowder and kill them just as quickly. Unless gunpowder is also broken...

9 Gunpowder at least takes some supplies, and besides game breaking or no, Klei have nerfed loads of smaller mechanics in don't starve before. e.g. Old WolfGang, storing animals, treeguard spawns, bird cages, bee boxes, killing rabbits with ease by running between them and their burrows.... Why so anti-tweak? 

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I agree with the fact that this thing does way too much damage while being relatively easy to acquire. I am collecting old bells in a chest and I don't know what to do with them anymore. I'm pretty much using it to thin my beefalo herd every now and then. It's not rare to kill like 6-7 beefalos in a single hit (if not more) when I use it at dusk or during the night when they are all clumped up. I also find it a bit overkill to call upon a giant feet to lumber a couple of trees, but that's fine, it is a good use for it.

 

I think there should be a bigger downside to using the old bell. Right now, there are none beside the rather long time it takes for it to actually hit where you wanted, plus the fact that it hits three times in total (1 time before and 1 time after the target location), which can destroy unwanted stuff. But those are not really significant. I don't know what's the best solution to balance out the old bell, but here are some ideas:

 

1) Add a third ingredient to the crafting recipe of the old bell, something that is rare or hard to acquired. It could be anything from a new item to 20 Glommer's goop. The idea is to limit the number of bells we can craft to less than 1 per full moon. Leave the damage as it is, so that it still remains a viable option to fight monsters or giants, but each time you want to use it, it becomes a tough decision because you don't have 30 more in a chest ready to be used.

 

2) Lower the damage it does to monsters/animals/etc (but not characters) and/or the number of uses per bell.

 

3) Add a chance of misfire, where the foot would not land where intended, but on the character that called it instead. It can be dodged, but if you are not paying attention or if you don't move fast enough, you could get crushed and that could put you in some terrible position. Could also lower your sanity (or not) if it hits you !

 

4) A combination of the previous ideas

 

5) Anything else, or no changes at all !

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9 Gunpowder at least takes some supplies, and besides game breaking or no, Klei have nerfed loads of smaller mechanics in don't starve before. e.g. Old WolfGang, storing animals, treeguard spawns, bird cages, bee boxes, killing rabbits with ease by running between them and their burrows.... Why so anti-tweak? 

 

I'm not, I'm just over the fence about every nerfing argument that pops in here, it's a way to filter the constant spam of nerfing requests and separating the good arguments to the same old stuff we've seen on forums since forever.

It may be TOO cheap, but I tread carefully not to make it absolutely useless. The Old Bell has more uses than just killing giants, and making it extremely hard to get or with less uses would screw people with different playstyles.

If, and only if, the damage is unrelated to the destroying radius, then I'd be fine with nerfs.

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I agree with the fact that this thing does way too much damage while being relatively easy to acquire. I am collecting old bells in a chest and I don't know what to do with them anymore. I'm pretty much using it to thin my beefalo herd every now and then. It's not rare to kill like 6-7 beefalos in a single hit (if not more) when I use it at dusk or during the night when they are all clumped up. I also find it a bit overkill to call upon a giant feet to lumber a couple of trees, but that's fine, it is a good use for it.

 

I think there should be a bigger downside to using the old bell. Right now, there are none beside the rather long time it takes for it to actually hit where you wanted, plus the fact that it hits three times in total (1 time before and 1 time after the target location), which can destroy unwanted stuff. But those are not really significant. I don't know what's the best solution to balance out the old bell, but here are some ideas:

 

1) Add a third ingredient to the crafting recipe of the old bell, something that is rare or hard to acquired. It could be anything from a new item to 20 Glommer's goop. The idea is to limit the number of bells we can craft to less than 1 per full moon. Leave the damage as it is, so that it still remains a viable option to fight monsters or giants, but each time you want to use it, it becomes a tough decision because you don't have 30 more in a chest ready to be used.

 

2) Lower the damage it does to monsters/animals/etc (but not characters) and/or the number of uses per bell.

 

3) Add a chance of misfire, where the foot would not land where intended, but on the character that called it instead. It can be dodged, but if you are not paying attention or if you don't move fast enough, you could get crushed and that could put you in some terrible position. Could also lower your sanity (or not) if it hits you !

 

4) A combination of the previous ideas

 

5) Anything else, or no changes at all !

 

I'm not, I'm just over the fence about every nerfing argument that pops in here, it's a way to filter the constant spam of nerfing requests and separating the good arguments to the same old stuff we've seen on forums since forever.

It may be TOO cheap, but I tread carefully not to make it absolutely useless. The Old Bell has more uses than just killing giants, and making it extremely hard to get or with less uses would screw people with different playstyles.

If, and only if, the damage is unrelated to the destroying radius, then I'd be fine with nerfs.

I can definitely agree it's an interesting item with a bunch of uses, not just killing giants. I only dislike it as a giant killer, so with that in mind making it more expensive is maybe not a great solution, at least not to some ridiculous extent. 

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I can definitely agree it's an interesting item with a bunch of uses, not just killing giants. I only dislike it as a giant killer, so with that in mind making it more expensive is maybe not a great solution, at least not to some ridiculous extent. 

What if some giants were immune to sleep?  The firefly for instance.  Maybe bearger.  Or at least immune to sleep darts.  Actually maybe the M'Moose should be immune to all darts.  Just to give it SOME advantage.    It's much harder to hit a moving creature with the old bell.  Although the bearger is pretty stationary sometimes regardless of it's being asleep or not.

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I'm not, I'm just over the fence about every nerfing argument that pops in here, it's a way to filter the constant spam of nerfing requests and separating the good arguments to the same old stuff we've seen on forums since forever.

It may be TOO cheap, but I tread carefully not to make it absolutely useless. The Old Bell has more uses than just killing giants, and making it extremely hard to get or with less uses would screw people with different playstyles.

If, and only if, the damage is unrelated to the destroying radius, then I'd be fine with nerfs.

I've edited the thread a bit, maybe a bit more rational :)

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What if some giants were immune to sleep?  The firefly for instance.  Maybe bearger.  Or at least immune to sleep darts.  Actually maybe the M'Moose should be immune to all darts.  Just to give it SOME advantage.    It's much harder to hit a moving creature with the old bell.  Although the bearger is pretty stationary sometimes regardless of it's being asleep or not.

I usually put them to sleep with wickerbottom's book to be fair, but they've put a lot of effort into making a sleep animation for the bosses so I really can't see them scraping that unfortunately :(.

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What if some giants were immune to sleep?  The firefly for instance.  Maybe bearger.  Or at least immune to sleep darts.  Actually maybe the M'Moose should be immune to all darts.  Just to give it SOME advantage.    It's much harder to hit a moving creature with the old bell.  Although the bearger is pretty stationary sometimes regardless of it's being asleep or not.

 

Nah, there's a bunch of people that only uses darts as means of offensive. That'd be insulting to them, like forcing them to kite or tank as if it was the only way to play the game.

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look this game lastssssssss forever!!! if you stay alive. as soon as i feel I'm unstoppable i get killed by some unforeseen catastrophe! its not about the old bell being op or the giants being to weak. one day they will catch you off guard and unprepared! 

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I don't understand old bell. Useless item that makes the game easy. Giants are already easy to kill via exploits, don't need instant gib item too. Only hard thing in game is caves level 2 - and only if you're playing non imba character (hurdur WX78).

look this game lastssssssss forever!!! if you stay alive. as soon as i feel I'm unstoppable i get killed by some unforeseen catastrophe! its not about the old bell being op or the giants being to weak. one day they will catch you off guard and unprepared!

Yeah, when I'm old and bored.
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Yah know, I have three old bells (almost every time hound attacks they kill my glommer) and I've only used it once to see what it does. To kill giant, I don't know if it is a legit way, but I lead them in the forest far from my base and spam tentacle book. I have plenty of woods, tentacle drops, and the giant stuff. Legit, not legit? Who knows? Maybe one day, if I'm bored, i'll just use my bell to call Bob and cya giant.

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You know, old bell could just have a sanity drain per use, like Wickerbottom's books. -50 sanity per use should be enough.

That doesn't really balance an insta-kill mechanism that functions to do away with the distanced periodic attacks. It's like, you could reduce sanity/health/hunger to 1 as a result of using Old Bell and it still wouldn't balance out the fact that the only seasonal giant attack you'll get in normal settings is about to be negated with a single item. 

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