About that kiting

[Moonkis]

This topic will presumably raise some concerns and heated arguments, but lets try to keep it civil shall we?

I'd like to raise a question against the current strategy of kiting and it's role in this game. Personally I can understand why kiting is a legitimate tactic, because it's using some dodging, timing, and dedication.

I however thing that kiting makes the game flat out easy, you can kite almost everything and avoid being in any real danger. The only time when monsters are actually challenging is when they attack in a large group thus making kiting a bit more chaotic and hectic, like say a large Hound attack.

Every monster is currently nullified by the kiting tactic thus they are no threat, so I'd like to see some changes in the current monsters attack pattern ( adding some random elements to attack ) or another solution that makes kiting less viable ( though not useless ), i.e as an effect of random attack patterns, kiters will have a harder time dodging, though not impossible.

Adding monsters that functions as anti-kiters like for example an ranged monster, that is relativly fast in it's attack animation ( not attack speed but the projectile ) making it necessary to close in fast and kill them rather than running around. This would need a bit of refining but I think my point is clear by this time. The Jumping Spiders is currently a good candidate for this, hopefully we will get a bit more of these.

Lastly I myself is an abusive kiter, it's easy, it yields large quantities of food for little to no cost ( except durability of weapons ) making kiting an extremely rewarding ( so rewarding it makes surviving to easy ).

So people, discuss! Do you think we need to do something about kiting? Is it fine the way it is? Ect ect...

[pdodd]

I agree 100%. I'm all about playing smart and skillfully, but when any specific technique exists that causes a large part of the game to become irrelevant (armor, monsters, etc), it's definitely not good.

[Sliver]

For the combat in any game to work well, especially when enemies can deal a lot of damage like in Don't Starve, there has to be some way that the player can avoid taking damage.

Let's look at Dark Souls as an example. It is truly a challenging game, but is fair because while enemies can **** you up, with enough skill you can avoid damage completely. By watching your stamina, blocking and rolling at the right time, and knowing your enemy's patterns, you can defeat every enemy and even every boss in that game without losing a single point of health.

Perhaps Don't Starve should have a better way of dealing with combat rather than kiting, but there still should be a way to get out of a fight unscathed with enough practice and skill. As the combat system stands right now, you simply have to know when the enemy will attack, and when to dodge that attack.

[Toaster Fu]

Unless I'm wrong, warrior spiders are anti-kite.

[Full Metal Kirby]

[...]

Perhaps Don't Starve should have a better way of dealing with combat rather than kiting, but there still should be a way to get out of a fight unscathed with enough practice and skill. As the combat system stands right now, you simply have to know when the enemy will attack, and when to dodge that attack.

Pretty much this.

Because as of current there are only 3-4 things you can do in a fight:

- Kiting / Luring monsters into fighting each other.

- Tanking everything with a log suit and football helmet

- Sleep/Fire Darts / Pan Flute

- Dying

[Moonkis]

Unless I'm wrong, warrior spiders are anti-kite.

*cough* Which is what I wrote Toaster Fu :*

[Moonkis]

For the combat in any game to work well, especially when enemies can deal a lot of damage like in Don't Starve, there has to be some way that the player can avoid taking damage.

Let's look at Dark Souls as an example. It is truly a challenging game, but is fair because while enemies can **** you up, with enough skill you can avoid damage completely. By watching your stamina, blocking and rolling at the right time, and knowing your enemy's patterns, you can defeat every enemy and even every boss in that game without losing a single point of health.

Perhaps Don't Starve should have a better way of dealing with combat rather than kiting, but there still should be a way to get out of a fight unscathed with enough practice and skill. As the combat system stands right now, you simply have to know when the enemy will attack, and when to dodge that attack.

Which is what I wrote, the game needs a way to avoid damage, implementing random attack patterns makes for harder kiting but it's still very viable.

[Toaster Fu]

*cough* Which is what I wrote Toaster Fu :*

Ah, jumping spiders, haha ha haha ya…

[Moonkis]

Ah, jumping spiders, haha ha haha ya…

Ugh, sorry my mistake, I didn't use the "official" name, it's a thread here on the forums that calls them Jumping Spiders, so I naturally used that term.

[Toaster Fu]

Ugh, sorry my mistake, I didn't use the "official" name, it's a thread here on the forums that calls them Jumping Spiders, so I naturally used that term.

I'm guiltily of the same. Red hounds not flame hounds.

[Captain Potato]

I think they are doing ways by adding monsters that you cannot kite against like jumping spiders which are the right way to go about it imo. Although i can wager there are many of us who are good at kiting..many others do not know how to kite. So i think they should keep the current monster algo but add tougher monsters that are harder to kite

[NippleKing]

I kite because of the armor does not mitigating all the damage and so if i were to take on 8 spiders,i would have halve health and a very damaged log suit.The armor also deteriorates a little fast for me and same goes for the helmet.

Overall though it makes it challenging but the described problems above is what motivates me to kite and the sound of getting hit and all the red flashing is really irritating.

[Zind]

I'm not sure kiting is the problem. Even if the possibility of kiting was removed entirely, people would just go around with 10 logsuits in their inventory and equip them consecutively (which is easy thanks to the number hotkeys). That would be even worse, since fights would come down to log/rope grinding at that point.

IMHO monsters themselves need to be buffed. Either their damage and speed (to make the kiting harder and actually punish the player when he messes up his kiting) or their numbers. Like you said, large groups can get challenging. Both of those solutions would be the easy way to fix the current combat system.

The hard way would be to create a larger variety in monsters, mix them up, and/or give them crowd control abilities (for example, swamp monsters would periodically bind your feet, spider queens would throw a fluid slowing you, etc). There are great illustrations of successful bestiaries in most Zelda titles, but I'm not sure the devs of Don't Stave want to put such an emphasis (and obviously, amount of work) on the combat system.

Edited December 21, 2012 by Zind

[Khrayfish]

Mobs damage needs to be increased over time.

For example, after Day 10 or 15, their damage could increase by 1% every 1-2 days.

Along with health/speed/range.

Removing kiting would be the worst thing you could do to combat.

[winddbourne]

I think it's less a problem with kiting and more a problem with combat itself. Unless your fielding an army you don't have a lot of choices. You can hack mindlessly with a tool, with a weapon, you can kite it and repeatedly fire darts, or you can semi kite your enemy dodging in and out depending on it's attack animations. You also can stack ten log suits and a few spears and simply hack away at it while every so often eating a good meal like popping potions in a standard ARPG.

[Captain Potato]

At this time I think it is premature to increase the attack power of creatures as time goes as we still do not know what other creatures the devs have planned out. The jumping spiders currently provide enough challenge for me

[antso]

This topic will presumably raise some concerns and heated arguments, but lets try to keep it civil shall we?

I'd like to raise a question against the current strategy of kiting and it's role in this game. Personally I can understand why kiting is a legitimate tactic, because it's using some dodging, timing, and dedication.

I however thing that kiting makes the game flat out easy, you can kite almost everything and avoid being in any real danger. The only time when monsters are actually challenging is when they attack in a large group thus making kiting a bit more chaotic and hectic, like say a large Hound attack.

Every monster is currently nullified by the kiting tactic thus they are no threat, so I'd like to see some changes in the current monsters attack pattern ( adding some random elements to attack ) or another solution that makes kiting less viable ( though not useless ), i.e as an effect of random attack patterns, kiters will have a harder time dodging, though not impossible.

Adding monsters that functions as anti-kiters like for example an ranged monster, that is relativly fast in it's attack animation ( not attack speed but the projectile ) making it necessary to close in fast and kill them rather than running around. This would need a bit of refining but I think my point is clear by this time. The Jumping Spiders is currently a good candidate for this, hopefully we will get a bit more of these.

Lastly I myself is an abusive kiter, it's easy, it yields large quantities of food for little to no cost ( except durability of weapons ) making kiting an extremely rewarding ( so rewarding it makes surviving to easy ).

So people, discuss! Do you think we need to do something about kiting? Is it fine the way it is? Ect ect...

Discuss? What are we? your slaves?

Now try to wake up and fight against the new jumping spiders, and try your kiting tactic, just do it more and more and more.

There has already been done something about it, and more probably will.

[Vandragorax]

In my humble opinion, providing some kind of durable shield would help solve this feeling that everything has to be run away from. I mean in a realistic survival situation it wouldn't really be that hard to create some kind of carved wooden shield to use alongside a spear and would mean we could hold our ground instead of running away all the time. And c'mon this guy is supposed to be all sciency too so where is his science solution to monsters? All we get is rudimentary weapons, spear, darts, spike traps... not much of it feels very sciency but that is another discussion.

Of course it would break like the other armour as it was hammered on by enemies and perhaps could burn too lending it a weakness in situations like fighting Hellhounds, but would allow us some saving grace from the "ARG RUN AWAY" tactic which at the moment is, as many rightly say, pretty much the only viable tactic.

[w00tyd00d]

In my humble opinion, providing some kind of durable shield would help solve this feeling that everything has to be run away from. I mean in a realistic survival situation it wouldn't really be that hard to create some kind of carved wooden shield to use alongside a spear and would mean we could hold our ground instead of running away all the time. And c'mon this guy is supposed to be all sciency too so where is his science solution to monsters? All we get is rudimentary weapons, spear, darts, spike traps... not much of it feels very sciency but that is another discussion.

Of course it would break like the other armour as it was hammered on by enemies and perhaps could burn too lending it a weakness in situations like fighting Hellhounds, but would allow us some saving grace from the "ARG RUN AWAY" tactic which at the moment is, as many rightly say, pretty much the only viable tactic.

Haha, actually that doesn't sound like a bad idea, or at least maybe some sort of block button? Adding a shield like that in to the game would require a whole other inventory slot just for that item and I'm not sure the devs would want to do that, but maybe have like a block button where if you didn't have any sort of armor on you would negate say 10% damage and with armor you negate an extra 10% damage plus save your armors durability (would still take like 1%-2% durability damage, lets say). That way the kiting ability is still a viable option AND/OR you can "block" if you want to hold your ground, but your timing needs to be impeccable (you could make it so the block lasts about a half a second, similar to like a "counter-move" mechanic, and non-spamable so you would have to use it at the exact right time because there's a 1-second cooldown or something). I think combat would be a lot more interesting and engaging that way.

EDIT: Even better idea, make it a "parry" and allow it only if you have a tool or a weapon equipped. That way you can use the RMB as your parry and won't have it a secret to new players. I was thinking about it and the biggest theme of this game is being able to teach yourself how everything works and there isn't sort of any keymapping in game so unless you experimented with every button on the keyboard, how else would you figure out what block/parry would be?

Edited December 21, 2012 by w00tyd00d

[Uszaty]

At least kiting is a skill you need to fight effectively and survive. I very much prefer that over mindless spamming of LMB/Spacebar and tanking everything.

I'd love to see more complexity than kiting, but I'm afraid it's not gonna happen. So let it be how it is, but give us more weapons/traps to fight our enemies in the future. Maybe some means of Crowd Control to help while being vastly outnumbered.

[w00tyd00d]

At least kiting is a skill you need to fight effectively and survive. I very much prefer that over mindless spamming of LMB/Spacebar and tanking everything.

I'd love to see more complexity than kiting, but I'm afraid it's not gonna happen. So let it be how it is, but give us more weapons/traps to fight our enemies in the future. Maybe some means of Crowd Control to help while being vastly outnumbered.

Don't know if you were referring to my post or not but the way I was thinking it could work is not being able to spam the parry/block option, and that if you do and fail to do it at the precise time, you'll get f$%#ed up lol. Which gives the player more control over fighting but if they don't have the skill and timing to do it, they can still kite and fight that way. That way you don't take away kiting but gives those other players wanting a bit more control what they want.

[Critter79]

I know that I myself have a habit of tanking. First thing I researched (besides the advanced science machine) was the logsuit when I first started. Up until I hard reset myself I kept a logsuit in the first slot of my backpack so i could equip it quick if I got into trouble. However, tanking + optimus pine = not a good idea. Which I learned the hard way. Tentacles, same problem. Their very behavior lends itself to kiting as a tactic. But I like having to take different tactics against different monsters. I can usually tank tallbirds and hounds and a decent amount of regular spiders. I can't wait to get a good distance weapon like fire darts because I just hate gobblers that much. I want to see them burn down to drumsticks!

[Excess]

uhmdown suggested some randomness on the spiketacle attacks that could make kiting more... intense

It's worth looking at.