The term 'kiting' in Don't Starve.

[XopherPM]

The way people use the term 'kiting' to refer to fighting things in melee in DS has always bugged me. To me kiting requires using range weapons or abilities and trying to stay out of melee completely. In a melee fight I think the term 'juke' or simply 'dodge' fits the situation much better. Because you are intentionally staying in melee range until the last moment of a hit, and then only briefly moving out of range.

 

I get that this has been called kiting for a long time in Don't Starve, and it probably won't change. The problem is that the more traditional use of 'kiting' still has meaning in DS, such as kiting a Deerclops away from your base, or kiting a player with blow darts.

 

I propose people stop using the term 'kite' in reference to using melee attacks and use 'juke' instead. I think the differentiation is important to explaining things clearly.

 

Thank you.

 

P.S. Don't take this too seriously. It does bug me and I wanted to get this off my chest, but It's not a big deal. I also wanted to know what other people thought of this.

[Asparagus]

A sound argument and a valid statement...

[Guest]

Here in the clay Klei forums, nobody that's sane really cares much. Personally, I just heard the term 'Kiting' and just used it, not really caring. You make sense, but I don't think many people think it's much of a deal. Its just like how people say escape wrong before I kill them because of it.

[Kzisor]

@XopherPM, the term "juke" refers to as fake or feigning an attack. You aren't faking nor feigning an attack, you are attacking. IMHO juking is as bad as kiting.

[DarkXero]

Since we are getting pedantic here, I'm going to chime in.

 

As far as I remember, kiting means to hit a monster and lure him away from something, pulling it.

This tends to be like a hit-and-run. This can be done with melee or ranged weapons.

 

Juking to me means making special manouvers to dodge, like zig-zaging away, or triggering attacks (by faking attacks, statuses, etc.) to evade in a certain way (like how Dota players run in a predictable way to lure a projectile, and then use a skill to teleport in the opposite way).

Dodging means dodging, it's just a generic umbrella term.

 

Considering this, kiting is the more appropiate term, as it means hit-and-run, instead of just run.

 

My guess is that since monsters in this game don't have great openings and they mostly have 1 attack, fighting a monster melee is the same as fighting a monster ranged. The abstract pattern is the same: get close enough to hit, hit until monster goes to attack, pull back. Being ranged though means that you get more attacks before pulling back. Thus, careful people constantly perform hit-and-runs.

 

You can also prepare yourself with armor and healing items, and then don't pull back at all. This gets called tanking.

Which you may find also odd, since sometimes the tank is not the one putting damage.

[XopherPM]

@XopherPM, the term "juke" refers to as fake or feigning an attack. You aren't faking nor feigning an attack, you are attacking. IMHO juking is as bad as kiting.

But you are. You are faking out your opponent (either a player or NPC) by being in range of their attack until the last moment. But fair enough, maybe 'juke' implies more complicated maneuvers.

 

As far as I remember, kiting means to hit a monster and lure him away from something, pulling it.

This tends to be like a hit-and-run. This can be done with melee or ranged weapons.

 

Juking to me means making special manouvers to dodge, like zig-zaging away, or triggering attacks (by faking attacks, statuses, etc.) to evade in a certain way (like how Dota players run in a predictable way to lure a projectile, and then use a skill to teleport in the opposite way).

Dodging means dodging, it's just a generic umbrella term.

 

Considering this, kiting is the more appropiate term, as it means hit-and-run, instead of just run.

 

My guess is that since monsters in this game don't have great openings and they mostly have 1 attack, fighting a monster melee is the same as fighting a monster ranged. The abstract pattern is the same: get close enough to hit, hit until monster goes to attack, pull back. Being ranged though means that you get more attacks before pulling back. Thus, careful people constantly perform hit-and-runs.

 

You can also prepare yourself with armor and healing items, and then don't pull back at all. This gets called tanking.

Which you may find also odd, since sometimes the tank is not the one putting damage.

 

In your hit and run example the melee hit is usually more about getting the monster's attention than doing any significant damage. To me kiting implies that you are more worried about getting your opponent to follow you rather than killing it right there. I don't know if I would consider fighting something exclusively at range as kiting, but it is more similar at least. You make a good point that in this situation the mechanics are the same as fighting melee. Tanking implies simply soaking damage, so I do agree with the term tanking as it is used in DS.

[leonseye]

Where I come from, "kiting" refers to staying just outside of a mob's range so that it can't damage you.  It has nothing to do w/ ranged weapons or melee, but everything to do w/ using your enemy's hit range to your advantage.

 

In that vein, "kiting" seems to be very appropriate for what's being done in DST.

 

I come from a MMO / RPG background, mostly.

[RalphKastro]

wait, you mean I can't kite zerglings with Zealots? That really explains why I always lose PvZ

[XopherPM]

Where I come from, "kiting" refers to staying just outside of a mob's range so that it can't damage you.  It has nothing to do w/ ranged weapons or melee, but everything to do w/ using your enemy's hit range to your advantage.

 

In that vein, "kiting" seems to be very appropriate for what's being done in DST.

 

I come from a MMO / RPG background, mostly.

I also come from a MMORPG background, so I find it interesting that I don't see it that way. Maybe using the words 'melee' and 'range' was wrong. I think it's more that I see kiting as staying out of range of your opponent completely, whereas juking or dodging is more about timing. In WoW I would never have considered moving out of melee range to avoid an attack, then moving back in, as kiting. I feel this describes a usual fight in Don't Starve better.

 

wait, you mean I can't kite zerglings with Zealots? That really explains why I always lose PvZ

I don't play Starcraft. If it's common in games like that to refer to a melee unit kiting another melee unit as a means to defeat it, then I'll just have to concede that my understanding of the term is incomplete.

[RalphKastro]

I don't play Starcraft. If it's common in games like that to refer to a melee unit kiting another melee unit as a means to defeat it, then I'll just have to concede that my understanding of the term is incomplete.

nah, it's not. I was just expecting more people to catch my "I suck at Starcraft so bad" joke. Sorry for the confusion.

But overall, it's just words, maaan. 

[applebottom]

And here I thought kiting came from actual kiting. Which I used to play as a kid.

 

That's how you take the other person's kite down: you dodge in and out of its range, but you always swoop back in to tear the other kite using your kite's frame...

 

When I heard it being used in Don't Starve, I found it very fitting.

[Flare2V]

Different understandings from different places. Kiting is currently the most universally used term and it will most likely stay that way because it is currently the most universally used term. Oh well.

[blubuild]

Actually, I think that universally the term kiting means simply getting a mob to follow you, i.e. leading it around (such as the example given inthis thread of leading a Deerclops away from your base), which is like holding a kite.

I didn't even know the term "juke", and it seems indeed that as far as etymology is concerned, the correct term to use would be "dodge" or something similar, and not "juke" nor "kite".

I see the DS term "kiting" as a slang term/shorthand for a specific play tactic. And as it's slang, the language used doesn't have to actually be accurate.

[XopherPM]

And here I thought kiting came from actual kiting. Which I used to play as a kid.

 

That's how you take the other person's kite down: you dodge in and out of its range, but you always swoop back in to tear the other kite using your kite's frame...

 

When I heard it being used in Don't Starve, I found it very fitting.

Heh, when I was a kid we called that a kite-fight.

 

I didn't even know the term "juke", and it seems indeed that as far as etymology is concerned, the correct term to use would be "dodge" or something similar, and not "juke" nor "kite".

I think the term comes from football and other similar sports. One 'jukes' a tackle by faking out the other player as to which direction you are going. I still think this fits, especially in pvp, but as Kzisor pointed out most people think of 'juking' as something more involved.

 

I see the DS term "kiting" as a slang term/shorthand for a specific play tactic. And as it's slang, the language used doesn't have to actually be accurate.

 

Different understandings from different places. Kiting is currently the most universally used term and it will most likely stay that way because it is currently the most universally used term. Oh well.

 

I totally get this and agree, again it's not a big deal. Word usage evolves, but words are used to convey more complex ideas. I think using 'kite' this way leads to ambiguity.

 

One can defeat a Deerclops by kiting him to a reed trap, or kiting him with blowdarts, or kiting him with a hambat. There's nothing in the word that suggests the large differences in these strategies.

[ShnarfBird]

I don't see why it can't be both things.

[MaybeBernie]

Melee combat is awful and weird. The system needs major changes.

[RalphKastro]

Different understandings from different places. Kiting is currently the most universally used term and it will most likely stay that way because it is currently the most universally used term. Oh well.

Linguistics is magic, isn't it? 

[StaypuftMMM]

Jukting

 

[Ridley]

Along time ago there was a thread like this. Juking was determined to be the right one out of the two. However, it doesn't seem to matter much.

[Flare2V]

Melee combat is awful and weird. The system needs major changes.

 

This is coming from someone who is probably not all that great at it. Once you get the hang of it, I promise, you'll enjoy it.

 

Along time ago there was a thread like this. Juking was determined to be the right one out of the two. However, it doesn't seem to matter much.

 

There is no "right" one of the two. Different understandings from different places. While it originally may have meant one thing in particular, it has been widely used with another meaning in different places. A good example of this is the word "chips". Chips means both french fries/crisps depending on where you live/your background/the way you speak, but there is no one given meaning.

[Asparagus]

I'm still gonna use "kiting" though...

 

No matter what the original usage for it was, DS players made it their own and gave it their own definition: To strategically time an attack on an enemy and/or dodge at the moment an enemy attacks...

 

...

Plus "kiting" has a better ring to it than "juking" (wait... duke = fists... duking = juking?)

[MaybeBernie]

This is coming from someone who is probably not all that great at it. Once you get the hang of it, I promise, you'll enjoy it.

 

 

Thanks for the compliment.

 

Same ping, both with movement prediction disabled, hitting at the same time, however the other person manages to have his attacks prioritized over mine. Happened too many times.

 

As I said, it is extremely awful and weird. There is not much to melee combat in PvP. Yes you could argue that it's complicated to hold ctrl+f, switch to torches and move back and forth a little, then come back and attack and that only "pro players" are able to do it, but it's not. 

 

Klei should improve the system, possibly adding a block mechanic to get out of stunlock (especially when attacked by 2 players), make movement prediction disabled by default, and also do something about macro users (have seen 4 players that attacked way too fast).

 

 

[XopherPM]

As I said, it is extremely awful and weird. There is not much to melee combat in PvP. Yes you could argue that it's complicated to hold ctrl+f, switch to torches and move back and forth a little, then come back and attack and that only "pro players" are able to do it, but it's not. 

 

Klei should improve the system, possibly adding a block mechanic to get out of stunlock (especially when attacked by 2 players), make movement prediction disabled by default, and also do something about macro users (have seen 4 players that attacked way too fast).

 

Gotta learn to juke. =P

 

There are block items in the caves and ruins, which are coming soonish.

Movement prediction should be a built in option, but not completely disabled.

The super fast macro attacks can be a problem that will hopefully get fixed, but you can usually just get behind them before they get it going again.

[Flare2V]

Thanks for the compliment.

 

Same ping, both with movement prediction disabled, hitting at the same time, however the other person manages to have his attacks prioritized over mine. Happened too many times.

 

As I said, it is extremely awful and weird. There is not much to melee combat in PvP. Yes you could argue that it's complicated to hold ctrl+f, switch to torches and move back and forth a little, then come back and attack and that only "pro players" are able to do it, but it's not. 

 

Klei should improve the system, possibly adding a block mechanic to get out of stunlock (especially when attacked by 2 players), make movement prediction disabled by default, and also do something about macro users (have seen 4 players that attacked way too fast).

I didn't mean any offense to you. I just felt stating "no offense" is redundant as all hell.

 On top of that, failure to communicate. By "melee combat" I thought you were referring to fighting the environment (hounds, spiders, etc). The PvP melee system is definitely a bit wonky, here are a few tips to get you started.

1. Against players with movement prediction disabled: bait out your enemy's attack, back up only slightly and attack yourself. If you attack in the downtime of their swing you can get a few hits in yourself.

2. Against players with movement prediction enabled: hit your target once (twice if you can), back up, and repeat. They'll be able to cut through your stunlock after the first few hits, but they won't be able to get the first hit in.

3. Teamplay. Always play with a friend. It's damn near impossible to gaurantee a victory in melee combat against multiple enemies unless you play as a team. Striking the player going for your team mate and timing stunlocks on single targets is key.

4. If you have 200+ ping don't worry about what happens. You're too at too much of a disadvantage at this point.

5. Always, always disable movement prediction.

Hopefully that helps, didn't mean to hurt your feelings at all.

[Johnny5isAlive]

It's damn near impossible to gaurantee a victory in melee combat against multiple enemies

But it is satisfying as all hell during a 1v3 when you can coax people into accidentally team killing mid fight.