Game too hard for casual players

[Dzudzabajac]

TL;DR - So that you can skip over my "baaaw" rant below - I'm not complaining about any single thing or game mechanic. I just think that now thare are too many of them in play at the same time, coming down on you too hard, and if you are not lucky, there is 1% chance every day that no matter what you do you will die in a way that will end that particular world, and me as a player am too stressed out by a game like that, and it's gone from something enjoyable to something that gets me stressed and anxious

 

 

 

The Rant:

 

I've read many other posts on this topic. One of them said something like "I've been playing this game for a long time but still haven't seen most of the content"

That seems true for me as well.

I've been playing since early beta. Game was fun. Really really fun.

 

I do tend to be one of the ocd-ish pleyers that are focused on building nice bases all over the map.

And I understand that game rewards experience, so the better you know how the environment works the better you can use it to your advantage.

But every time I encounter something new, especially in RoG, when I'm just learning how summer and spring work, I die.

And I have to start from scratch. Again.

 

And I've gotten quite good at pitting enemies one at the other, and I tend to explore most of the world early, and I do have a lot of gameplay under my belt. I've seen the game evolve.

But mostly the devs have been listening to the cries of the people that demanded more challenge. More danger.

That does not equal more fun. Not for everyone.

More content does not have to mean "Now each season there will be a giant dead set on ruining everything you love, and they WILL kill you if you have been doing anything elase than preparing specifically to combat them, and even then propably, lol!"

 

I used to love this game. I still think it's brilliant.

But I find my heart beating out of my chest while I'm spending more than 5 mins in game. I know that after day 180 hounds WILL kill me, it's just a question of when. 99% of the time I'm dead before day 180.

Touchstones don't help in most of the cases as I will either freeze or die from heat or the mob that killed me is still camping my base and will kill me again.

These days I play the game, die and then months pass before I try it again.

 

This may just be a rant, in vain, probably is, but I had to say it.

 

I will continue to play the game, I guess. When the anger passes over my last failure. It's always stupid things that kill me.

Yay, I've beaten the spiders! Now let's go back to my base for mushrooms! Oh, it's a frog rain now my whole base is out of reach.

Yay I now have beehives. Oh, now thay spawn red bees too? What do I have to destroy it now? Never mind, red bee killed the red hound, now my whole base is burnt to the ground.

Oh, I've done EVERYTHING well but I ran out of twigs without noticing it, and now it's dark and I need a torch...

And so on, and so on, and so on...

 

I just feel that this game is making me more anxious than it's enjoyable. Every tactic that I had to keep myself alive for some time has been subverted by devs in the meantime.

And for the litteraly hundereds of hours I've put into this game, I still haven't seen more than like 5 mins ov caves before I get slaughtered by depth worms, never seen ruins or bunnymen, or whatever else the people are talking about...

I could have finished like 20 other games...

 

Point is, game can still kill you nicely enough when you go exploring, even when I had "sustainable" bases and didn;t have to worry too much about food or making health items AFTER I've gone trough imennse trouble of preparing everything to even get to that point. Now with all that there is in game your base is the bloodily UNSAFEST place to be!

Penty of things kill me anyway, how can I goe eploring the depths or adventure mode or whatever when I can't even get enough food to last me a while?

 

I loved this game. I bought 6 copies of it for my friends and family. I recommended it to everyone who would listen. And now I don't think it's a game fro me anymore.

 

Good luck you crazy kids who find this enjoyable

[Abenlen]

I've died more times that I can count.  If something in the game can kill you, it has killed me, probably multiple times (except for actually starving.  Never have dies to that, though I have come close).

 

    For me part of the fun is learning how to  deal with each problem that occurs.  Hounds were a huge problem, for example.  I eventually learned that I could take down the first few waves by using log suit/spear/football helmet, then building a firepit with tooth traps around for latter waves.  After red hounds burned down my entire base, I learned to move that pit about a screen away from all my flammables.  Now hounds are no problem for me at all.

 

If I had trouble with any element, I googled it and learned from other peoples strategies.  Frog rain?  Run to an area where I have a bunch of traps.  Giants?  Keep  a bug out bag, and run out into the woods away from my base.  Keep getting killed by Charlie?  (And I have.  So. Many. Times.) Make a rule that I always have two torches on me at all times.  If I run out of twigs, I have one full torch at least that I can equip to have the time to get more.

 

This game is uncompromising, to be sure.  But it is fair in the sense that there are mechanics in place to deal with all of the problems. 

 

If the game is no longer fun for you then I understand why you wan to quit, and wish the best for you in whatever you decide to play next.  But if you are quitting simply out of frustration, then I would advise that you try asking here in forums on how to beat any particular problem you keep encountering.  You'll get a few troll answers, of course, but you'll also get some real answers that might be game changers.

[Dzudzabajac]

No, that's the deal. I already know how to handle everything that I encountered. And yeah, I usually have to die first to realize what I was doing wrong so I can fix it the next time. But also I get killed waaay to often simply by too many things hapening to me at once, or in a row...

There's just too many things to keep account of

 

You have to build the base. But also be ready not to be in the base. No matter how far in the game you are, maybe you have marble armor and a bat-bat and a ton of dragonpies, you still have to manage how many twigs and flint you have...

 

I'm just trying to say that there's now waaay too many things that prevent turtle-ing. And that was good in the beginning, but it has went all the way to the other side.

Planting bunch of grass and twigs next to your base was already time consuming task, so that in future you can save at least some time on collecting resources. And withering made it pay off less, so you have to have source of manure nearby to make it work, which is yet another run-and-fetch task. And now everything goes to hell cause this strategy is actually a huge fire hazard.

 

I've stopped replanting berry bushes even before RoG. And now all of the food spoils even on drying racks, so making a reserve of food very demanding, it's easiest to always ave just enough to keep you going, but thet also means frequent trips back to the base when exploring.

 

And my suggestion to make cobblestones in this game even remotely usefull never got much consideration it seems. I can bet no one ever built that item.

 

So basically you have to spend more time in RoG doing the most boring part of the game - collecting resources.

It makes survival harder, but for me that shifts focus from exploration and crafting new things to menial tasks and yeah, grinding.

 

And for all the things that make you not turtle, constant hound attacks after day 100 actually make you wanna turtle as wandering away far from your base or certain parts of the map where there are mobs that can kill them becomes ever more unwise.

[Flopjack]

I would agree with OP if a few things were not true:

 

 - You can fine tune your experience and difficulty

 - The game is advertised properly, as an "uncompromising survival game"

 - It is one of the few games that refuses to hold your hand unless you specify

 

It's not like you're buying something like a story driven game where you want to relax and enjoy the experience. This is the kind of game where, if you choose default settings or harder, you're saying: "I want challenge." How you to react to that challenge is up to you. This is one of the few games I know of where you can't win and it's about... well, dying... and the experiences you have getting to that point.

 

The bottom line is, OP, if you're not enjoying yourself because the game is too hard just lower some settings. No one (except for me) will judge you!

[Dzudzabajac]

after writing this post I wrote this one:

 

http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/48873-descriptions-for-game-settings-and-presets/

 

I think many of the issues would be settled just by having easy to find preset

Short summer, less chance of fires, less chance of giants, and more spaced hound attacks after day 100 (and maybe even separate slider for depth worms), less chance of rain of frogs... That would keep all the chalenges in the game, and it would still be quite hard, but would tone down chances of all that stuff hapenning all at once to you.

And then an even easier preset for newbies.

 

Having the ability to set everything by yourself is awesome, but many newcomers to the game will find it too confusing I think.

 

But don't you think that the game on default setting requires too much grinding to get yourself going?

 

At the start of every game rushing to get the needed materials, craft the same things... Many times you die before day 40, and basicaly like 70% of the time you are doing the same things over and over and over agian.

[applebottom]

I agree and feel the same as OP.

 

I also find this game very difficult and challenging (and frustrating). I've been playing for more than a year and still feel like a noob.

 

I lurk in forums and blogs and see "everyone" building awesome bases and braving caves and ruins (what's a thulecite?) They talk about getting Deerclops eyes like it's some kind of berry you just pluck from a tree. (A tree with high insanity aura who will ruin your camp and murder everything you love. Oh, and it's now upgraded with freezing AoE attacks. Sweet!)

 

I also feel that Klei's mission-vision is to make awesome games that kill people. (I mean, hello RoG??? You give us 3 new giants, burning to death, slippery weapons and what? A giant friendly bee with pink poop?)

 

Yet for some reason I still love this evil game so much. So much that I also bought copies for 5 friends via GOG. And when I read a forum post saying Klei wouldn't release DST for GOG ever, I ran to Steam and bought 2 megapacks so I can at least play with 3 others.

 

Of the 7 people I gave copies to, only 1 person still plays. And only DST at that.

 

I guess I came here to say that I understand how OP feels. And would like to let him/her know that there are lots of players out there dying bravely but stupidly to frogs and spiders on Day 172 because they forgot to equip a tentacle spike and log suit in their inventory.

 

There are players out there who want to play the game as is because they're too "principled" to tweak world settings. (I set frog rain to less once and felt so bad, I closed it after Day 10 and restarted with default settings.)

 

To OP: if you ever feel sad about another ruined camp, play DST for a while. Go jump on random worlds. Laugh at the hundreds of Willow lighters paving the brick road on Klei's dedicated servers. Switch to a new one and watch people running around panicking when the hounds start to bark on Day 6. Then take your sweetass time chopping down trees to build a log suit. (Not too cocky though, that's one thing you should've learned in this game by now.)

 

Then marvel at the fact that there are people who still play this game. I mean, how CRAZY are we they to keep playing this?

[Michi01]

Don't play with RoG if it's too difficult for you.

[AzuredreamsXT]

Agreed, RoG is for those of us who want more challenge. Klei please do not make RoG any easier, leave the base game for more casual players.

[Dzudzabajac]

Hm. Did you even read what I wrote?

And when did you exactly get to claim "This is for US who want more challenge?"

I know at least 7 people who bought RoG for MORE CONTENT

They are just not hardcore enough to write on forums and demand more challenge or rather easier to tweak challenge. All of them are pretty frustrated by the game.

Tell me why your voice counts more than mine?

 

And when I say that I'm casual - I still have invested more time in this game than in whole Mass Effect trilogy, or  2 times more than in Far Cry, or 10 Masks of the Ninjas, or 20 Tranistors, or 60 Broken Swords, etc, etc... You get the idea.

Again - I played tis game since early beta days.

 

I did not ever asked devs to nerf the game. Just to make easily visible and acessible globaly balanced setting. No fuss.

 

Also, I remember from early beta days that devs have changed the way science machine worked and introduced prototypes because they disliked grinding and meaningless tasks.

That's why I complain about kinda grinding that you now have to do over many, many lives. In order to reach the new content.

 

@applebottom - Thanks a lot for your comment! It means a lot to me

[Abenlen]

Not every game is for everybody.  I like the game as it is.  You don't.  I tweak the worldgen options to make the world as I like.  You apparently don't.  I like the fact that all hell can break loose with little warning.  You don't.  So tell me, why should the game be balanced around your preferences rather than mine?  There was post on these forums not so long ago from a guy that thought that farming trees and other resources  made the game too easy, and that element should be removed or drastically nerfed.  Should the game be balanced around his vision of what is fun?

 

Klei seems to listen to their playerbase.  It seems to me that they've managed to tweak the game towards what the majority of their customers want.  There will always be outliers who want a game that is easier or harder.  This game can be altered in worldgen setting and through mods to accommodate  people with different gameplay needs.  You refuse to do so, either through simply not learning how or for some other reason?  That's one you.

[Starved123]

Build a meat effigy camp a couple screens from your base camp. Put a chest with seaonal clothing there. Put a chest with meat effigy supplies there (except the meat of course). When you die, acknowledge that all the food/perishables you were carrying is gone... rebuild the meat effigy before retrieving dropped loot. If you run into trouble while your meat effigy is down... run away. Once you get the meat effigy loop down you'll be unbreakable... unless... things... happen...

 

 

[WillPwn4Food]

I know this topic has died, but if you're still looking for suggestions, I might be of help because I know exactly how you feel. I too am ocd with my worlds (gotta love Geometric Placement), and I too got tired of losing my worlds due to unexpected deaths. Now I'd love to learn the game all on my own, but I really don't have the patience or the time.

 

Enter the wiki. Yes, I know it spoils a lot of the discovery of the game, but since i wouldn't discover many aspects of the game anyway, I find it greatly enhances my experience. Furthermore, mods are great. I mostly stick to convenience but I have enabled one or two to make the game a bit easier, chief of which preserves my save slot in case of dying with no resurrection. It's a last resort and I try to keep touchtones or meat effigies active at all times. However, if I were to die and lose everything, I'd be like you and not come back for a while. I highly recommend you do something to preserve your worlds. I find the game much more enjoyable and less anxiety-inducing that way.

 

Last note, if ever I am caught off guard by (whether it be giant's appearance in my base before I have grabbed my stuff to fight it, or fire hound wave in the forest, smoldering pig house that burns down a lot of valuable structures), I close the window immediately. This prevents the game from saving my destroyed world. When I re-open, it just goes back to my most recent save point. If you read this, I hope it is encouraging. DS can still be a ton of fun even when not played as intended.

[Mobbstar]

Last note, if ever I am caught off guard by (whether it be giant's appearance in my base before I have grabbed my stuff to fight it, or fire hound wave in the forest, smoldering pig house that burns down a lot of valuable structures), I close the window immediately. This prevents the game from saving my destroyed world. When I re-open, it just goes back to my most recent save point.

 

But that is not casual any more...

 

I know you got this told numerous times, but death is part of the fun. If you want eternal base-building, play games like minecraft, and if you seek adventure fun, there's an abundance of such games. Don't Starve is about the trying, winning, and failing, but mostly about the trying.

 

And mods, yes. Yes mods are quite neat for DS. In my opinion, the REAL game is making mods (I'm modder)

[SoupyDelicious]

Game's uncompromising, mate.  The thing people don't understand these days is that it's okay if you don't have the time in your day to allow for such a stressful hardcore game.  What makes the game what it is is the challenge, and everything you need to take into account and prepare for.  I understand you're asking for a simple option to casualify it a bit, which wouldn't harm anyone who did not want it, but I think that even that should not occur.  When a developer opens their ears and their 'barriers' to easy-ifying their game, it starts to seep into all their other decisions for the game.  Look at what games have become today because everyone is so damn busy and made impatient by it; what I'm saying isn't far out, it's right infront of us clear-as-day.

[emerphish]

all you have to do is, as you say you like to explore, find the automatons and eat some gears. Then you will rule the world. My best world was day 50 or so then I still have a world on my old computer that is past day 350. One day I just sort of got gud, played it safe, and set three dozen more tooth traps then I needed. It works wonders. and how on earth are hounds an issue? Open combat with them works fine indefinitely far into the game. Advice:

 

Deerclops-->Kill it with toothtraps

Hounds-->Kill it with toothtraps

Beefalo herd-->Kill it with toothtraps

 

I haven't encountered a RoG boss since my revival but my guess would be toothtraps.

[Mobbstar]

Advice:

 

Deerclops-->Kill it with toothtraps

Hounds-->Kill it with toothtraps

Beefalo herd-->Kill it with toothtraps

 

I haven't encountered a RoG boss since my revival but my guess would be toothtraps.

To extend your list of advice in the same manner:

 

Pigmen as Webber-->Kill it with toothtraps

Spiderdens as everyone else-->Kill it with rabbit traps

Frograin event-->Kill it with rabbit traps

Bearger-->Kill it with toothtraps

GMoose-->let it lay an egg, then Kill it with toothtraps

Dragonfly-->Au Revoir

Winter-->Thermal Stone

Summer-->Thermal Stone

 

As you can see, all you need is traps for that play-style. And food, but let's be honest, it's falling from the skies by the time you run out of wild crops.

[emerphish]

To further my case for WX-78 I was recently playing as Webber and I heard my first RoG deerclops. We reached my base at the same time and four spider dens, a queen, fire, boomarangs, nothing worked. I was utterly detstroyed. I didn't have tooth traps because of my spiders, and webber really isn't a fighted. soooo back to eating gears for me.