My experience thusfar and suggestions

[Suspicious]

Well first off I'd like to say I've enjoyed myself immensely and despite it being a beta have only encountered 3 very minor bug related issues.

Upon being deposited in my first world and getting the hang of the controls things seemed simple enough to get the hang of. I've burned through at least a dozen wilsons so far, and one girl. I realized she was inferior due to not being wilson. Not once during the many deaths I faced was it due to starvation and indeed food seems plentiful in this game. All the deaths I met were due to arrogance and pushing my luck with the various critters the game has to throw at you and luckily never left me feeling I'd been cheated out of a run.

It was a pleasant surprise to find that the accumulation of research carries over in games since the prospect of farming more grass for rope wasn't all that enticing and it wasn't too long before I had everything unlocked(thanks greatly to the discovery of grave-digging) even if the vast majority of the time I had no access to it.

The is until beefallo are encountered, these great loveable hairy beasts and their accompanying brown gold make the battle for survival almost trivial. Building a stead of farms and migrating bushes from the starting zone renders all food needs moot and not much in the way of hostile creatures inhabit the planes aside from spiders which are hardly a threat until queens start lumbering around. The only thing marring my progress during this recent successful run has been a lack of stone. But due to my abundance of food, a well stocked pack means having a several day soujourn to scout out the whole world go quickly and smoothly without worry. If anything remotely dangerous occurred I had no reason to stick around and could always fall back on my stead or a bridge and rest without worry.

Once a suitable quarry was found that was it. Now wilson sits upon a throne of food a pig king himself with a village erected by his own hand an army of porcine defenders ready to die for him at a moment's notice. At this point I finally had a chance to try out the crock pot, which proved a fairly pointless sink for all my massive excess of food. Why wait hours to cook a meal when 3 honey could heal me up just as well or gorging myself on nuts/berries/meat to keep my belly full at a whim is simpler by far?

Then there is the tent, an excellent construct if you were unfortunate enough to not be wilson and will let you remedy this grievous error on your part likely as a result of not understanding how great it is to be wilson.

So now he sits with the whole world explored and an arsenal of clubs, darts, and other pointy unpleasant things atop his mountain of gold and food fueled by the bowels of diligent beefallo and no motivation to move from the spot(until a portal to the next world gets added). The only things he can't avoid dealing with is the occasional assault of flaming hell hounds.

Now I'm thinking of just killing him off so I can start over and see what the world will throw at me this time.

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Some thoughts and suggestions.

Torches and mining helmets don't seem to see much use from me, their limited duration and consumption of equipment slots leads me to just throw down campfires 10 times out of 10. Apart from fireflies there seems to be no incentive to brave the night for hidden goodies which brings me to...

Graveyards are plenty spooky but really don't offer much in the way of risk in exchange for the massive research benefits and occasional amulet. I really feel that at night, grim grinning ghosts ought to have the run of the place and make settling anywhere near one of these places a death wish. But dealing with the not so restful dead at night could also be rewarding of itself and the array of magical items we can currently build is awfully light at the moment. As such I would like to suggest the fog from graveyards be much more expensive and prevent the construction of campfires to give the aforementioned mining hats and torches a little more use.

Currently I see beefallo as my ticket to easy the mode. The moment I find them I set up shop to stay as all my worries are put to rest. I have a few suggestions on how to make this large curious creatures a little more of a hassle to benefit from.

-Firstly migration, keeping them on the move would keep you on the move and prevent easy farming.

-Secondly predation, currently nothing messes a beefallo having regular hound or pig spawns poaching beefallo would force the player to risk his neck defending them every now and then

Hell hounds, these fiery beasts got me good the first time setting ablaze my precious berry bushes. But simply staying in an open spot renders them nearly as harmless as their mundane counterparts. These ought to be beasts to fear and I suggest letting their attacks set fire to your log armor if you happen to be wearing any. That'll put some more bite behind their bark.

Fishing, why bother? Fishing takes a long time, doesn't yield much, and I could be making off like a bandit just jumping between ponds harvesting frogs. Give fish some auxiliary uses, perhaps a source of mercury for more stylish hattery? The phrase mad as a hatter comes to mind and with the talk of a sanity meter coming this would make fish a far more interesting resource to be looking into.

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About those bugs, this isn't the bug report forum but I just want to quickly bring them up.

-Sea not spawning, just blackness

-pig man 'going home' by running into the border of an island forever

-picking up a poop with inventory full, and using it to fertalize resulted in the poop graphic hovering there for the rest of the game

Edited December 26, 2012 by Suspicious
typo

[mobius187]

Torches and mining helmets don't seem to see much use from me, their limited duration and consumption of equipment slots leads me to just throw down campfires 10 times out of 10. Apart from fireflies there seems to be no incentive to brave the night for hidden goodies which brings me to...

Torches are important... you never know when you'll wander just a bit too far from your camp or make a foolish mistakes (eitehr leeting a campfire die out or not lightning it fast enough. And what about when enemies appear in the night (i.e. hounds)? I always keep a torch on me, even if I don't plan to use it for exploring.

There was a suggestion a while back to make some changes to the Miner's Hat. I suggested that bee hives/boxes produce Bees Wax, then along with String (refined Silk) they could be combined into Candles. Then you could replace the Fireflies in the crafting formula for the Miner's Hat with the Candle instead. This would then allow two possible options:

1) Wearing the Miner's Hat wouldn't light it, rather you would need to use Flint to light the wick. Then to extinguish it you simply remove it from your head slot. What this means is players who want to wear the Miner's Hat, but not use it, can do so now.

2) Allow a player to use a Candle on a Miner's Helmet to restore its durability. As a note, the new Candle would be unlit, so you couldn't just stay in the dark replacing Candles with fresh ones. You would need to replace it and then re-light the Candle with Flint...and who knows what could happen in that short span of time while plunged into darkness?

Graveyards are plenty spooky but really don't offer much in the way of risk in exchange for the massive research benefits and occasional amulet. I really feel that at night, grim grinning ghosts ought to have the run of the place and make settling anywhere near one of these places a death wish. But dealing with the not so restful dead at night could also be rewarding of itself and the array of magical items we can currently build is awfully light at the moment. As such I would like to suggest the fog from graveyards be much more expensive and prevent the construction of campfires to give the aforementioned mining hats and torches a little more use.

There were suggestions along these lines. My favorite involved the possible ghost the player could "dig up". I suggested that the player's greed should be used against them, and for every grave they dig up, at sunset a hostile ghost would spawn at every open grave. Now this wouldn't be an issue if the player wasn't near those graves, except that this connected to another suggestion involving "weather". One suggested weather was fog, and on a foggy day ghosts spawn right away and wander in search of the player. It would be like how the Gobbler hunts for berry bushes... the ghosts would be drawn across the map towards the player.

Lastly, I don't know why they are, but ghosts should be invincible... I mean they're dead spirits... what are we hitting and how can we kill something that's already dead?

Currently I see beefallo as my ticket to easy the mode. The moment I find them I set up shop to stay as all my worries are put to rest. I have a few suggestions on how to make this large curious creatures a little more of a hassle to benefit from.

-Firstly migration, keeping them on the move would keep you on the move and prevent easy farming.

-Secondly predation, currently nothing messes a beefallo having regular hound or pig spawns poaching beefallo would force the player to risk his neck defending them every now and then

It's believed that beefalo will be less hospitable once their new AI comes along, as the Devs have hinted they will behave differently based on the season. We believe this is in connection with the possibility of mating season and/or baby beefalo. The idea being that if you get too close to a baby beefalo the adults will attack you. Of course we also believe this is where the beefalo hat will come into play... allowing you to pretend to be a baby beefalo to move among them without harm.

As for beefalo predators, that would be nice. Of course the beefalo first need to have babies and have those babies grow into adults. The same is true for the Tallbird, which we know Smallbirds hatch from eggs... now we only need Tallbirds to do that. The hounds would make good predators once this is all in place.

Hell hounds, these fiery beasts got me good the first time setting ablaze my precious berry bushes. But simply staying in an open spot renders them nearly as harmless as their mundane counterparts. These ought to be beasts to fear and I suggest letting their attacks set fire to your log armor if you happen to be wearing any. That'll put some more bite behind their bark.

The danger of the flame hound vary... usually the hounds become a more serious threat as time passes. I once fought over a dozen of them... and it wasn't pretty.

Fishing, why bother? Fishing takes a long time, doesn't yield much, and I could be making off like a bandit just jumping between ponds harvesting frogs.

Yes, there does need to be more to fishing. We've suggested other types of fish and even the rare aquatic monster to pop out of a pond while fishing. For winter and the possible future inclusion of "rot", we suggested drying fish to preserve them.

Give fish some auxiliary uses, perhaps a source of mercury for more stylish hattery? The phrase mad as a hatter comes to mind and with the talk of a sanity meter coming this would make fish a far more interesting resource to be looking into.

That's what the top hat and dapper vest are for.

[Suspicious]

Torches are important... you never know when you'll wander just a bit too far from your camp or make a foolish mistakes (eitehr leeting a campfire die out or not lightning it fast enough. And what about when enemies appear in the night (i.e. hounds)? I always keep a torch on me, even if I don't plan to use it for exploring.

Perhaps I am just obsessive, I made that mistake in early games and now cling tenaciously to my campfires or always have the resources to build a new one if need be. Nightwolves just cause me to sent my campfire to overblaze and I stand my ground.

The contingency benefits is still a fair argument for them but there is still little incentive to go gallivanting during the dark hours.

Lastly, I don't know why they are, but ghosts should be invincible... I mean they're dead spirits... what are we hitting and how can we kill something that's already dead?

New suggestion, this offers an excellent opportunity to fill out the rather dessicated magic list with something for banishing spirits.

The danger of the flame hound vary... usually the hounds become a more serious threat as time passes. I once fought over a dozen of them... and it wasn't pretty.

When I got to the point where I felt invincible(a condition that can be cured by being anyone but wilson) I stopped playing so I haven't experienced 30+ wolf packs since it struck me as pointless. But really a dozen of anything beyond vanilla black spiders should worry anyone. I've built everything and put things on ice at day 60 since nothing seems worth doing anymore now that I'm at the top.

Yes, there does need to be more to fishing. We've suggested other types of fish and even the rare aquatic monster to pop out of a pond while fishing. For winter and the possible future inclusion of "rot", we suggested drying fish to preserve them.

That's what the top hat and dapper vest are for.

Rot would have to apply to all meat and just make fish more of a hassle unless fish were far longer lasting than any other meat(jerky anyone?). There was a panning suggestion in another thread that looked quite promising. The chance of fishing random other items(provided they'd be useful in some way) would also make it more tempting.

Also top hat and dapper vest are only the beginning, a true gentleman(or fair lady)'s quest for tasteful attire is never truly sated. Though I could easily see more requirements being piled onto the top hat's material requirements to elevate it further up.

Edited December 26, 2012 by Suspicious
typos

[mobius187]

Perhaps I am just obsessive, I made that mistake in early games and now cling tenaciously to my campfires or always have the resources to build a new one if need be. Nightwolves just cause me to sent my campfire to overblaze and I stand my ground.

For me I usually spend the night in my base camp, but if I'm there and I hear the hounds howling... I run for another location to fight them. After all I don't want flame hounds to burn down my entire camp. At night, that's when the torch shines. I'll equip it and run from my base camp to my "hound camp", light its firepit, and get ready to fight.

The contingency benefits is still a fair argument for them but there is still little incentive to go gallivanting during the dark hours.

True. There are very few at this time. Of course I'm sure the Devs want it to be this way to some degree, after all, they want us to fear the darkness.

New suggestion, this offers an excellent opportunity to fill out the rather dessicated magic list with something for banishing spirits.

Sure, why not? You could have something like... "Ceremonial Rites" (a statue) that lets you rebury the grave in order to put the ghost to rest. Or encircle the grave in salt... like something from the TV series, Supernatural.

When I got to the point where I felt invincible(a condition that can be cured by being anyone but wilson) I stopped playing so I haven't experienced 30+ wolf packs since it struck me as pointless. But really a dozen of anything beyond vanilla black spiders should worry anyone. I've built everything and put things on ice at day 60 since nothing seems worth doing anymore now that I'm at the top.

Have you faced the spider queens and jumping spiders? If she spawns too many spiders it can be... daunting. And yes, hounds are currently the "end game", as they just keep multiplying.

Rot would have to apply to all meat and just make fish more of a hassle unless fish were far longer lasting than any other meat(jerky anyone?). There was a panning suggestion in another thread that looked quite promising. The chance of fishing random other items(provided they'd be useful in some way) would also make it more tempting.

Now if you want to read up on suggestions for rotting foods, I would suggest a thread like this one.

Fishing up random items sounds a bit... Torchlight 1 & 2. However, what if the acquatic creatures you could fish-up could be harvested to supply useful crafting odds and ends? For the beach biome I suggested a ginat crab that the player could kill and use to craft either a shell-like armor that was fireproof or a claw weapon that could grab a foe, pinning it. Mind you, these suggestions weren't discussed in details.

[Suspicious]

Have you faced the spider queens and jumping spiders? If she spawns too many spiders it can be... daunting. And yes, hounds are currently the "end game", as they just keep multiplying.

The only death my wilson has faced in this most successful of runs(luckily I had my meat effigy ready to go) was against not one but two queens in the middle of a swamp. That was hectic and I knew in hindsight I should have just legged it. Tentacles everywhere, spiders everywhere, managed to kill one queen but it was in fact, a jumping that finished me off by leaping far further than I expected it to be able to.

Fishing up random items sounds a bit... Torchlight 1 & 2. However, what if the acquatic creatures you could fish-up could be harvested to supply useful crafting odds and ends? For the beach biome I suggested a ginat crab that the player could kill and use to craft either a shell-like armor that was fireproof or a claw weapon that could grab a foe, pinning it. Mind you, these suggestions weren't discussed in details.

That could work. So long as all the hassle makes the fish more worth the trouble than it currently is. Another possibility would be making more fish based recipes at the crock pot making for more potent dishes with fishes.

As for a claw weapon that grabs? At least one character best shout 'GET OVER HERE' or I will throw down my hat.

Though all this talk of making fish useful is getting me thinking about their application in SCIENCE. With all those tentacles and fish in the same place. I am just waiting for a shoggoth to make an appearance as a swamp boss.