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What other resources should punish the player for abuse?


Sliver
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More things to find and do would be great. Right now the best thing about the game is building things, and it would be nice to have different projects to do and more ways to shape and adapt to the world around us. More things to build and find would be nice, as would things that would make bases more unique. For instance I have a firepit by the swamp, but there is no option for a fish drying rack, or some totem poles or whatever to scare off tentacles. Either of those would make a swamp camp unique and interesting to look at.

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Thanks for the feedback! This is a beta process, and you're seeing the game progress as it is being made. Sometimes things will be added that seem a bit out of place or unbalanced. We can't add everything at once, so things are bound to get out of whack from time to time as our attention and effort shifts.

We are building towards a cohesive end-goal, however. I think that sanity, winter, and portal progression will change the game radically from what it is now. With these factors, and three months of balancing and tweaking, you won't see most people sitting on top of massive farmed stockpiles at day 100+, because they will either have died or chosen to do something else by then.

You might still see long-term base builders in free-play mode, but they will have chosen to do so by adjusting their world gen parameters to give themselves a more relaxed game. There will be Some... other... tHings for them tO do with their time, that I don't really want to diVulge quitE yet. We have at Least 6 more months of development post-launch to refine this experience.

As a new player, about a week old, I already find it hard enough to gain a foothold in the world - I just start getting somewhere and the dogs attack me, or I haven't got food production up to speed yet and I starve, etc. You seem to be putting a lot of effort into discouraging certain activities by people who have large bases already setup and have nothing to do. This may not be an issue once the game is fully developed and there is plenty to do once food supplies etc are setup and make it especially hard for new people to get started.

If people want to farm, let them. If people want to hunt, let them. I really like sandbox games where I can relax from the real world and muck around in to my hearts content and where the game isn't actively fighting my every move.

It's one of the reasons I love Minecraft so much. I can basically do what I want within the framework of the world. The world isn't fighting me making structures. The world isn't fighting me making farms for food. There is plenty enough danger in exploring and the occasional mob that takes me unaware that I don't need a system where every 30th block I break spawns a monster or something like that.

Honestly I am beginning to wonder if in a couple of patches time it will be too hard for a new person to start playing!

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As a new player, about a week old, I already find it hard enough to gain a foothold in the world - I just start getting somewhere and the dogs attack me, or I haven't got food production up to speed yet and I starve, etc. You seem to be putting a lot of effort into discouraging certain activities by people who have large bases already setup and have nothing to do. This may not be an issue once the game is fully developed and there is plenty to do once food supplies etc are setup and make it especially hard for new people to get started.

If people want to farm, let them. If people want to hunt, let them. I really like sandbox games where I can relax from the real world and muck around in to my hearts content and where the game isn't actively fighting my every move.

It's one of the reasons I love Minecraft so much. I can basically do what I want within the framework of the world. The world isn't fighting me making structures. The world isn't fighting me making farms for food. There is plenty enough danger in exploring and the occasional mob that takes me unaware that I don't need a system where every 30th block I break spawns a monster or something like that.

Honestly I am beginning to wonder if in a couple of patches time it will be too hard for a new person to start playing!

aaand this is the problem we run into with making the game even harder than it currently is.

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I do think that while veteran players need to be kept on their toes for the game to stay fun and interesting, the devs need to be careful and make sure that new players aren't going to be overwhelmed by these threats that are mostly meant to challenge those who have already established themselves.

It's a delicate balance, though. I think the current research system is a big part of the problem because of how long it can take a new player to research important items. Hopefully the upcoming revamped research system will help fix that.

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Also I really wanted to be able to experience the game by discovering things like how I think the devs want it to be.

I found survival so hard really that I HAD to read the wiki, the forums and watch some youtube videos to even get some idea how to last more than a few days.

OK I get eaten by dogs. How do I stop that?

OK I keep running out of food. Everything I planted doesn't seem to be growing. Why?

In the end I gave up and read through the wiki for answers.

It's OK for the veterans cause they have been here a while and knew how the world worked before something else was added in. Then they only had to concentrate on that one addition so work it out.

For someone new its ALL overwhelming.

(Not trying to have a whinge cause I can see HUGE potential in this game, but when I see comments from the community like if you want to farm go play something else I have to start to wonder. I LIKE farming. I LIKE landscaping. I LIKE exploring)

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Thanks for the reminder about new players. It's easy for us devs to develop tunnel vision, because we are experienced players ourselves, and we mostly talk to other experienced players on the forum / IRL.

I try to keep the first 10 in-game days or so constant, because we lucked into a good balance in that area a while back. It was tuned such that you would die a lot, but you would get a little farther each time, and learn just a little more about the game. In the new patch I actually pushed the first dog encounter out a bit because they were showing up a bit too early and disrupting that flow.

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Yeah, the dogs arrive slightly too early for non-veterans, I've personally seen them as Soon as day 6, and that's rough if you have just started the game and have zero research (that means no spear and no log suit) and haven't lucked out into a beefalo herd or a pig village. Not to mention that the easiest (read: non grindy) way to get research, grave-digging, is not obvious at all: you have to notice that each grave has two parts, the tombstone and the grave itself, and the second one is quite subtle to notice. Even after I read in the forums that you could do it, it still took me a while to figure out how... Hopefully that will change with the new research system, but for the time being, it's not noob-friendly.

On the other hand, I'm okay with the amount of food you find before you found a base, there's plenty of it just laying around (berries, carrots, seeds, etc.); you mainly die because you are busy saying "What the hell is that?" and poking it, but you grasp the basics of survival by your third or fourth life, which is perfectly reasonable.

Edited by pacovf
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I feel this to be a core game design issue, and one that only the devs themselves can really address.

While many are concerned (perhaps rightfully) over the experience being overwhelming for new players, I personally cherish the way the game more or less hurls you in at the deep end and leaves you to figure things out with a few clues and pointers.

A fine example of this at the moment is the coming of nightfall. Your character remarks on the importance of building a fire, and so the wise will do so. Sooner or later, you'll get caught short, or curiosity will lead you into the darkness. The swiftly-following (perhaps fatal) savaging sets the message firmly in your mind: dark bad. Fire good. And so we learn.

This is the primary danger of the game as it stands - that which you do not know, or do not understand. And I feel that this is in fact something to be cherished and one of the core tenets of the roguelike experience that the game's design bears the hallmarks of. We encounter, we suffer, we REMEMBER. We consider, we adapt, we conquer.

While there are indeed things to be said in favour of tutorials and hand-holding and overt explanation, there are also arguments for the deliberate exclusion of these things, so that the player may take their lumps, and in doing do learn their lessons and develop their own playstyle.

It is extremely difficult (and likely impossible) to fully satisfy both the "new player care" and "learning through experimentation" groups. It will be a test of Klei's talent, and a statement of their gaming philosophy to see which camp they lean more towards.

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Last time I checked, Don't Starve was a game centered around survival. Minecraft isn't. So why are so many people comparing both of them, and even asking for certain elements of the latter to be put into the former ?

You're supposed to die in the first playthroughs. That's normal. I completely understand people who want relaxing games where the concept of losing is nonexistent (hell, I like some of those games myself), but you shouldn't seek those things in a survival title.

I died 3 times when I started to play, and on my 4th playthrough I made it to day 100 (I'm on day 250+ now). And THEN I decided to check out the forums and wikis. Honestly, I would have liked to die many more times than that. And not because of suicide operations like taking 5 spider nests at once, I can do that anytime ; but because of standard in-game difficulties. A survival game without hardships gets boring rather fast.

To make it short, I just want to point out to the devs that some people find the game too easy as it currently is. And not just the late game ; the early days too. After surviving for 50 days, I don't want to think that everything's going fine. I want to be happy about it.

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As a new player, about a week old, I already find it hard enough to gain a foothold in the world - I just start getting somewhere and the dogs attack me, or I haven't got food production up to speed yet and I starve, etc. You seem to be putting a lot of effort into discouraging certain activities by people who have large bases already setup and have nothing to do. This may not be an issue once the game is fully developed and there is plenty to do once food supplies etc are setup and make it especially hard for new people to get started.

If people want to farm, let them. If people want to hunt, let them. I really like sandbox games where I can relax from the real world and muck around in to my hearts content and where the game isn't actively fighting my every move.

It's one of the reasons I love Minecraft so much. I can basically do what I want within the framework of the world. The world isn't fighting me making structures. The world isn't fighting me making farms for food. There is plenty enough danger in exploring and the occasional mob that takes me unaware that I don't need a system where every 30th block I break spawns a monster or something like that.

Honestly I am beginning to wonder if in a couple of patches time it will be too hard for a new person to start playing!

I've been playing for several weeks now but I don't consider myself experienced as I still have plenty of things to try and discover.

One thing I like is the fact that you have to watch your back constantly and that there's no safe place in this hostile world.

And I sure like the concept of being somehow punished for abusing one resource or another, or simply for trying to survive in a world where you weren't supposed to be in the first place.

I'd hate seeing the early days of a game becoming easier.

And I'd probably loose interest if it became a real sandbox game, because it's not supposed to be one. Well, I don't see this game as one. That's really an adventure game, about surviving.

You shouldn't be allowed to sit and farm all day long :twisted:

It should be challenging, no matter how far you're in, should it be day 1 or day 100.

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Last time I checked, Don't Starve was a game centered around survival. Minecraft isn't. So why are so many people comparing both of them, and even asking for certain elements of the latter to be put into the former ?

You're supposed to die in the first playthroughs. That's normal. I completely understand people who want relaxing games where the concept of losing is nonexistent (hell, I like some of those games myself), but you shouldn't seek those things in a survival title.

I died 3 times when I started to play, and on my 4th playthrough I made it to day 100 (I'm on day 250+ now). And THEN I decided to check out the forums and wikis. Honestly, I would have liked to die many more times than that. And not because of suicide operations like taking 5 spider nests at once, I can do that anytime ; but because of standard in-game difficulties. A survival game without hardships gets boring rather fast.

To make it short, I just want to point out to the devs that some people find the game too easy as it currently is. And not just the late game ; the early days too. After surviving for 50 days, I don't want to think that everything's going fine. I want to be happy about it.

Exactly! Lets not forget that this is presented as a survival rougeish game ( keyword here is rouge ) is that they are normally hard ( read harder ) than a pure casual game and follows a strict philosophy: learning by doing, trial and error.

I liked dying, everytime I restarted I was surviving a bit longer, and I was filled with a sense of accomplishment, now It's important to know that not EVERYONE will like a hard game, ( Fable II & III damaged gamers for example ).

Make it friendly for beginners BUT ramp it up, and do so quickly, day 10 sounds fine, but I'd rather have it at day 7.

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[ATTACH=CONFIG]954[/ATTACH]

Woops :D

xD Now THAT'S just way too many pumpkins.....I was thinking maybe some sort of vegetable eating mob that comes in similar form to Krampus that will come in and raid your chests and things for everything that you farmed (so excluding meat). Maybe be able to summon them similar to Krampus as well; if you harvest too many crops too frequently he'll "catch wind" of some tasty vegetables in your stockpile and make an appearance. Thus giving a balancing act to both farming and hunting, but at the same time 0 points for originality :(. Just a thought lol.

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Last time I checked, Don't Starve was a game centered around survival. Minecraft isn't. So why are so many people comparing both of them, and even asking for certain elements of the latter to be put into the former ?

You're supposed to die in the first playthroughs. That's normal. I completely understand people who want relaxing games where the concept of losing is nonexistent (hell, I like some of those games myself), but you shouldn't seek those things in a survival title.

I died 3 times when I started to play, and on my 4th playthrough I made it to day 100 (I'm on day 250+ now). And THEN I decided to check out the forums and wikis. Honestly, I would have liked to die many more times than that. And not because of suicide operations like taking 5 spider nests at once, I can do that anytime ; but because of standard in-game difficulties. A survival game without hardships gets boring rather fast.

To make it short, I just want to point out to the devs that some people find the game too easy as it currently is. And not just the late game ; the early days too. After surviving for 50 days, I don't want to think that everything's going fine. I want to be happy about it.

This. If anything this game should be compared to ones such as the binding of Isaac. In that game you start out with no knowledge, tactics, know how. You die lots to start with but improvement is the drug of happiness and you keep playing to get better and finish a playthrough... and then again, and again because you are addicted by then, like my good friend Whimsy... xD

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It would be cool as "pests" that eat his crops, you would have to do something to scare them, or be protecting them.

- - - Updated - - -

It would be cool as "pests" that eat his crops, you would have to do something to scare them, or be protecting them.

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This. If anything this game should be compared to ones such as the binding of Isaac. In that game you start out with no knowledge, tactics, know how. You die lots to start with but improvement is the drug of happiness and you keep playing to get better and finish a playthrough... and then again, and again because you are addicted by then, like my good friend Whimsy... xD
Oh shush you.But, you do raise a good point.For this, I shall use The Binding of Isaac as an example.I have been playing this game for just under two weeks now. However, I have completed the entire story, unlocked most of the items, and am currently playing it purely to get Platinum God. Why? Because it's enjoyable.The reason why it's enjoyable is because it makes you feel good that you did something.Let us also look at another game, also by Edmund McMillen. Super Meat Boy. An extremely tough platformer where you die a craptonne and a half times. It is the very definition of hardcore, and yet it's achieved such great scores. This is because, after slaving away at that single dark level for a good quarter of an hour or so, you finally finish it within an A+ time, and you feel magnificent.I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't make the game easier. Make it harder. A game of survival is just that - surviving. Surviving and living a luxury life are two very different things, and many players can easily get to the latter after a few tries. But by making the game harder - not at the very start, but keeping it at an exponential increase - people will be proud of their efforts to survive. The dark will make their heart race, and the morning will bring a silly grin onto the player's face. Sure, it may mean that people will die a LOT more at the start, but that's okay. As an avid player of Super Meat Boy and the Binding of Isaac, I can say with confidence that I have died a heck of a lot more than I have in any other games combined. But I learned, and so my achievements as I slowly got better made me like the game more and more.So, in conclusion, and for those who think 'TL;DR', Make the game harder, not easier, because by doing so, people will feel that they achieved something, and that will make them feel good.
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I think somewhere a major point has been missed. It isn't that the game is too hard. The game starts out just right. It's that the game is too short. You should be able to learn to how to survive and then only die if you make a mistake. That gives you a feeling of progress.

The problem is that once your surviving you get bored over time. Things don't change enough around you. Then you complain and the developers think the game is to easy. It's not that. We simply need a more dynamic world. Old plants and animals should go through life cycles that make them into new challenges.

New animals and plants should unlock and appear in the world over time as you play on a map. Some should be seasonal and appear because you've reached day 30, day 60, day 90, or whatever. Other things should appear as unlocks. Here are some examples of what I mean:

1) You kill lots of rabbits and leave the corpses laying around. Eventually at corpse 1000 or something scavengers start appearing and they have an AI that has them seek out the dead bodies of rabbits, pigs, beefolo, etc . . . if you stop killing animals they stop showing up so much as they spawn from corpses left laying off screen out of sight of the player.

2) Over time dogs keep appearing on the map, around day 30 an actual hound den appears on the map near a concentration of rabbits if that exists on the map, around day 50 prides of lions begin to appear on the plains near the beefolo.

3) I'm farming constantly with turbo farms and getting lots of fruit. Suddenly wild versions of my crops, dropped as seeds by birds, start showing up all over the map, and along with them a new fruit eating bird begins to fly around seeking out and eating those crops, the flocks concentrate on the biggest concentration of plants like hostile gobblers. Later carnivorous weeds start to appear in your farm plots, and they too begin to spread over time changing the surrounding vegetation.

4) As spiders and other big insects spread over the map giant Venus flytraps, dragonflies, and other things appear that eat/fight them and prevent them from simply taking over the map since I alone am not keeping the population down.

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How about a "Biome Punishment"? Just trying to think out of the box.

So you make your base camp, and now you are just turtle for... say... 100 days straight (I honestly think no one has such patience, but I'll be surprise...). And you stayed in the same grassland biome for the entire time...

Well, I dunno what punishment would make sense, but that's an idea to brainstorm, perhaps?

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@winddbourne

I see your point and agree with some parts of it, but in my opinion it's not just that.

- I died only 3 times before making it to day 100 (which, in difficulty, wouldn't be any different than day 1000). Without reading any infos beforehand. And I've seen many players on these forums have similar experiences.

- During the day, all the biomes are completely safe to explore in their entirety, save for the swamps.

- Every enemy can be defeated without taking any damage using a basic hit and run tactic (except Krampus that was hit by the nerf bat so hard that one basically never encounters him naturally anymore). Before today's update and its adorable jumping spiders, that is :D.

- And, most of all, you never actually feel in danger of starving, despite being stranded alone on some weird island. That's especially true on the starting island, where you find carrots and berries everywhere, even if you aren't looking for any food.

It's not the "game being too short" that brings me unsatisfaction. In fact, it doesn't, at all. That's inherent to a beta after all, and there are still 3 more months left.

What worries me is the current lack of difficulty in all stages of the game (early, mid and late). And while it can certainly be fixed in time for the complete release, it's very far off from the feeling of survival that the game title advertises.

Edited by Zind
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Last time I checked, Don't Starve was a game centered around survival. Minecraft isn't. So why are so many people comparing both of them, and even asking for certain elements of the latter to be put into the former ?

You're supposed to die in the first playthroughs. That's normal. I completely understand people who want relaxing games where the concept of losing is nonexistent (hell, I like some of those games myself), but you shouldn't seek those things in a survival title.

I died 3 times when I started to play, and on my 4th playthrough I made it to day 100 (I'm on day 250+ now). And THEN I decided to check out the forums and wikis. Honestly, I would have liked to die many more times than that. And not because of suicide operations like taking 5 spider nests at once, I can do that anytime ; but because of standard in-game difficulties. A survival game without hardships gets boring rather fast.

To make it short, I just want to point out to the devs that some people find the game too easy as it currently is. And not just the late game ; the early days too. After surviving for 50 days, I don't want to think that everything's going fine. I want to be happy about it.

I don't want another Minecraft clone but I was using Minecraft as an example that a game doesn't have to be hard to be successful - just give people things to do and be creative with. Minecraft is not a pure survival game no but it does have survival elements to it (monsters, health, hunger, experience gain).

Edited by Zordah
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You shouldn't be allowed to sit and farm all day long :twisted:

It should be challenging, no matter how far you're in, should it be day 1 or day 100.

From the about the game page "Gather resources to craft items and structures that match your survival style. Play your way as you unravel the mysteries of this strange land."

I see this statement getting lost. Maybe my way to survive is to farm but the devs and others seem to want to stop people using that style. Other people's style is a hunter and that seems to get targeted as well.

I didn't buy this game just to be presented with a puzzle style game where you have to find out how to survive in a certain manner but I wanted a survival themed sandbox game. Sure the word sandbox wasn't used but that's how I read the sentence from the about the game page...

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From the about the game page "Gather resources to craft items and structures that match your survival style. Play your way as you unravel the mysteries of this strange land."

I see this statement getting lost. Maybe my way to survive is to farm but the devs and others seem to want to stop people using that style. Other people's style is a hunter and that seems to get targeted as well.

I didn't buy this game just to be presented with a puzzle style game where you have to find out how to survive in a certain manner but I wanted a survival themed sandbox game. Sure the word sandbox wasn't used but that's how I read the sentence from the about the game page...

I think after they complete the game and give us Free Play Mode, we can set the world generation to to how we want to play. But I do agree with you, some love a challenge, but some like a more relaxed play style. I personally prefer not be to stressed out when I play this, but that's just my personal play style.

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From the about the game page "Gather resources to craft items and structures that match your survival style. Play your way as you unravel the mysteries of this strange land."

I see this statement getting lost. Maybe my way to survive is to farm but the devs and others seem to want to stop people using that style. Other people's style is a hunter and that seems to get targeted as well.

I didn't buy this game just to be presented with a puzzle style game where you have to find out how to survive in a certain manner but I wanted a survival themed sandbox game. Sure the word sandbox wasn't used but that's how I read the sentence from the about the game page...

There are multiple ways to survive, but sometimes things are just plain unbalanced. If you could make a farm plot and just stare at it day-in and day-out until the food came out and survive that way, people would be correct in calling the game broken.

Farming is a valid strategy, but it needs to be made *interesting* and *challenging*, or the game will feel repetitive. That's what we are working on for the next three months - finding ways to make the game scenario more dynamic and interesting, so that you will have to shift between different valid strategies at time progresses, and make interesting decisions.

There shouldn't be only one right answer to a given situation, but there also shouldn't be one answer that is right for every situation :)

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*facepalm* The more and more you guys keeps wanting to punish the player for doing anything, the more offtrack everyone will be with the main objective of survival. It stops becoming survival and more of player harassment.

What punish players for breathing too much over the course of day with waves of hounds?

There are multiple ways to survive, but sometimes things are just plain unbalanced. If you could make a farm plot and just stare at it day-in and day-out until the food came out and survive that way, people would be correct in calling the game broken.

Farming is a valid strategy, but it needs to be made *interesting* and *challenging*, or the game will feel repetitive. That's what we are working on for the next three months - finding ways to make the game scenario more dynamic and interesting, so that you will have to shift between different valid strategies at time progresses, and make interesting decisions.

There shouldn't be only one right answer to a given situation, but there also shouldn't be one answer that is right for every situation :)

There is a fine line between challenging yourself, and being forced to be 'challenged' by the game itself. See to produce content as a means to contradict a player's progress repetitively would only constrain the game's uniqueness and creativity. I understand balance is a issue, but to threaten the player every time something may be imbalance can break the game much more easily than a player boring themselves with grinding.

You want to make the player want to challenge themselves and reward them for it, not send random stuff their way and expect them to get on top of it like it's a tower defense game.

Make them want explore the game world as a challenge, make them want take on things as a challenge. But not force them to defend themselves for every little basic needs.

Actually at this point I see this from a psychological view... The developers seems to fear the player being imbalanced or overpowered.

Keep this up... And you guys are doing no different to runescape where they add in random events to piss off players who grind, for the excuse of that is to combat botting, which is possibly a psychological reaction to players 'exploiting the system'.

Edited by dra6o0n
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