Wilderness winter is no fun at all

[Isosurface]

I like Wilderness mode becuase (1) there is no ghost, and (2) the punishment for dying is fair (I lose recipes but not maximum health. Also, other players don't have to bleed to save me).

 

However, I don't like joining a game in the middle of winter, and nobody likes entering my world and finding themselves hopelessly freezing to death because of the random spawn system in Wilderness mode. If people insist on playing, half of the world will burn to the ground before they reach a base. Furthermore, people don't tend to stay on a largely charred island. They will move on and torch more winter worlds until they find a server that is currently in summer. IMO the current winter mechanism is not working well in a multiplayer Wilderness game. Winter is driving players away and making hosts' life more miserable if players stay.

 

An obvious solution is creating a summer only world, but that instantly takes away 50% of all challegnes. When RoG is released, I might have to switch off both summer and winter, and probably spring too, so people don't just drop dead on arrival but still manage to take 25% of all sapplings with them to the graves. And there goes 75% of game features.

 

Devs have said that they are not going to give anyone any freebies because they join a world at the wrong time, but consider that player-made welcome package won't work in Wilderness mode, Wilderness winter is essentially a death sentence to everyone who joins.

 

A while ago, rezecib suggested a temperature scaling system based on sanity for Willow

(http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/43758-rebalances-for-willow-and-wolfgang/?hl=willow). With some tweaks, this may not only save all Willows across the DST universe from prejudice and the wide-spread discrimination, but also make winter much more playable. That is

(1) Grant all characters cold resistence or cold damage immunity when sanity is very high.

(2) Make all characters more vulnerable to cold when sanity is very low.

(3) Willow stops making random fire.

 

The result is that:

(1) Every player who joins a server with maximum sanity doesn't have to worry about the cold effect for a while. Therefore there is no need for starting an immediate fire.

(2) Willow, having lower maximum sanity, is more susceptible to cold. Starting a fire is however, voluntary, not random.

 

I'm not a modding expert, so I don't know how difficult it is to make these changes. Is this implementable by any means?

[XirmiX]

I have made kind of a flowchart showing how the free items would need to be programmed andnit doesn't look like there would be too much programming required. It's just giving some starting items to people depending on the situation they are in.

I am ough to work with other mods, but if someone like rezecib is willing to help out on this then this won't take long to mod, probably.

[Pyromailmann]

Of course it's not, it's Wilderness! When you die you lose your character file and replace it with a new one!

[rezecib]

Hmm... While I definitely agree the problem exists, this doesn't strike me as a good solution. If sanity essentially gives you insulation, then winter becomes trivial.

[Tumalu]

Sanity being linked to temperature doesn't make sense nor is it a good game mechanic- new players not having to worry about temp for a little bit is nice (they're still probably doomed since it's real hard to find flint in an ongoing server and you'll need it by the end of one day no matter what in winter!), but it's a giant "no" for anyone who hasn't just entered the server, which defeats the point of designing it that way. And, I agree that Willow is a dangerous character whose upsides are too small, but that's a different matter. At least she's still pretty fine until RoG is out and your entire base will be burned down if you have a Willow. RIP

 

The bottom line is someone joining a server for the first time in Winter, with Wilderness' random spawn area, you pretty much NEED to be given some kind of freebie- it's almost impossible to start in Winter even in normal conditions where everything isn't harvested, and in Wilderness mode you cannot expect the other players to cover the issue like they can with the portal spawn point normally.

 

You don't want it to be farmable (like, having new people join and then taking their freebie items because it's easy) but just some little things. Start next to a campfire and have a little grass/twigs/flint and rabbit earmuffs. This is still going to be a brutal start if you don't find other players immediately, and the starting items are trivial to anyone who's been there already.

 

Alternatively the server select screen can say what season it is and they could just not join in winter, I guess, but.

[Pyromailmann]

@Tumalu, what about like how when you connect at night there's the light that helps you see only where you spawned but instead, it's more around a "warmth protection". 

[YesterdaysMindr]

@Tumalu, what about like how when you connect at night there's the light that helps you see only where you spawned but instead, it's more around a "warmth protection". 

Yeah, the only problem is that's a star from the star caller's staff, so you'd need to copy it and make the one that spawns from the connection a different entity that creates heat.

[cptCalavera]

@engiSonic, Isnt his how it works now? Upon spawning there is a star callers light at your spawn, wich provides heat and light. 

[Isosurface]

Dying in Wilderness winter in late game pretty much means you'll remain dead for the entire winter, unless there is a miracle.

 

I thought about server winter lockdown too, so no ones can join or respawn in winter. But do you really want a multiplayer game like that, no body can join or retry? (You're dead. Respawn in 7680 seconds.) (1 winter = 7680 real life seconds)

[YesterdaysMindr]

@engiSonic, Isnt his how it works now? Upon spawning there is a star callers light at your spawn, wich provides heat and light. 

Wait, since when did the star give off heat?

[cptCalavera]

Wait, since when did the star give off heat?

 

No idea since when. I was afk during most of RoG development. But the wiki says:

 

"The Star Caller’s Staff is a magical item created using two Yellow Gems. When activated, it summons a small ball of light where the cursor is, which provides Warmth, Light, Sanity, and a place to Cook."

[Tumalu]

The star's given off heat since it's original RoG implementation as far as I know. However, you're still practically guaranteed to die in Wilderness Winter when you join with no items. The DST-prevalent issue of all the flint lying around being taken already tends to prevent you from ever getting past "burning everything with a torch to explore without dying" phase- and it's rather unlikely to get past that phase even in ideal situations where all the grass, twigs flint, berries, carrots, etc are still lying around.

 

Survival/Endless have fixed the issue upon the portal becoming the fixed and marked spawn point, but in wilderness a server in winter basically cannot be joined unless you manage to find another player to help you out immediately, which is luck based- even if you use global chat to talk you likely won't know enough map to get them to your position, if they're even willing/able to take the time to trek over and have that part unveiled to know about.

[Petzi]

I think the best solution would be to give players a special starting item if they spawn during the winter. The item would keep you warm for a full day (maybe a bit longer) and then degrade into inexistence, basically like a thermal stone but with a short lifetime.

[XopherPM]

I think all these ideas about extra items are great solutions for mods to do, but as far as any official solution I think being able to see what day and season the world is when selecting a server is all that is required. It's not impossible to survive a start in winter, it's just extra difficult, which is a good thing for some people.