Ideas to make Poison more balanced

[Silentdarkness1]

I don´t want to be mean (I really don´t), but this seems to be less of a problem with the game and more of a problem with you.

 

How does one get caught by a poison hole? How did you even manage that? And you shouldn´t have dug the X Spot, you should have looked for anti-poison and coral and seaweed. I admit that if you don´t have a science machine or you´r e not prepared in some other way (say your health happens to be really low) getting poisoned can be awful. But that´s how the game has always worked. It´s a process of trial and error. I remember the first time I encountered Summer expecting Winter in ROG, I wasn´t prepared, I died and I then started a new run and learnt from my mistakes.

 

If you are having difficulties starting, which I don´t know why you would, because I´m pretty sure yellow snakes don´t spawn on the first days and also Poisonous spiders only live in Tier 2 nests, then just be careful. Snakes are really easy to deal with, so I don´t understand the difficulty you are having...

 

People are getting through Day 100s in SW and dealing with all the difficulties without any problems.

 

Seriously, I don´t mean to be condensing, but...Maybe you just need to practice a bit more?

 

*hides in fear*

 

What part of, "I WAS CHASED INTO A SWAMP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT" is not clear? Try avoiding them when your field of view is almost zero, and being chased! Nobody ever warned me that the X Spot had snakes in it!

 

Yes, this problem has always been here, the difficulty in finding gold. But, the current worldgen settings are exacerbating this problem to a ludicrous degree. To the point where I literally have extreme difficulty finding them EVERY. SINGLE. PLAYTHROUGH.

 

I don't know how people last to day 100. I can't last to the second season. And i'm not that bad at this game, I SWEAR.

 

This game has balancing issues and I can't get ANYWHERE. Period. Regardless of how hard I try. If it isn't the poison, then it's me running out of flint and twigs, or running out of adequate food sources.

 

I'll do another playthrough when Capy finishes a patch or two.

 

[MSGaBeThe1st]

A monkey walked into the spider`s home at dusk.Spiders spawned and started to follow the monkey.Night came and the monkey run with the spiders into my base cuz it saw the fire.Spiders atacked me.Poisoned.Day 3.When does the fairness begin ? 

[Donax]

What part of, "I WAS CHASED INTO A SWAMP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT" is not clear? Try avoiding them when your field of view is almost zero, and being chased! Nobody ever warned me that the X Spot had snakes in it!

 

Yes, this problem has always been here, the difficulty in finding gold. But, the current worldgen settings are exacerbating this problem to a ludicrous degree. To the point where I literally have extreme difficulty finding them EVERY. SINGLE. PLAYTHROUGH.

 

I don't know how people last to day 100. I can't last to the second season. And i'm not that bad at this game, I SWEAR.

 

This game has balancing issues and I can't get ANYWHERE. Period. Regardless of how hard I try. If it isn't the poison, then it's me running out of flint and twigs, or running out of adequate food sources.

 

I'll do another playthrough when Capy finishes a patch or two.

 

If you are in a swamp and get poisoned there, it means that:

1- you already traveled a bit in the sea and most likely crossed some coral and seaweed on the way since it's very unlikely that you appeared on a swamp island

2- if you got poisoned by a poison hole, DIG it ! It will give you a poison gland. No need to try to harass spiders or wait to find a yellow/green snake.

 

So basically by the time you get poisoned, you are most likely to be able to craft an anti-venom.

 

Twig are very common on beach biome and you can mine the lumpet rocks you flint if you are desperate to find any.

 

Food is the most abundant thing in shipwrecked. You can actually survive by eating the seaweeds around an island. Also you can catch a jellyfish and eat it raw without any sanity drain which is awesome for urgencies.

 

The game is not unbalanced, on the contrary, it gives you many things to achieve your objectives of survival. However, you have to know them and prepare yourself correctly. To survive long enough at don't starve you have to prepare yourself for next days and the dangers of the next season.

[Silentdarkness1]

If you are in a swamp and get poisoned there, it means that:

1- you already traveled a bit in the sea and most likely crossed some coral and seaweed on the way since it's very unlikely that you appeared on a swamp island

2- if you got poisoned by a poison hole, DIG it ! It will give you a poison gland. No need to try to harass spiders or wait to find a yellow/green snake.

 

So basically by the time you get poisoned, you are most likely to be able to craft an anti-venom.

 

Twig are very common on beach biome and you can mine the lumpet rocks you flint if you are desperate to find any.

 

Food is the most abundant thing in shipwrecked. You can actually survive by eating the seaweeds around an island. Also you can catch a jellyfish and eat it raw without any sanity drain which is awesome for urgencies.

 

The game is not unbalanced, on the contrary, it gives you many things to achieve your objectives of survival. However, you have to know them and prepare yourself correctly. To survive long enough at don't starve you have to prepare yourself for next days and the dangers of the next season.

 

1.1-WRONG! Didn't find coral by then.

1.2. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. 50/50 chance.

 

2. Not neccessarily.

 

3. I still run out of twigs too easily. It is true what you said about limpet rocks, though.

 

4. You need a net for that. I'm forced to just tank damage from it instead. Sweet Potatoes are better, because you don't need materials to gather them.

 

5. I disagree. The game seems to screw me over consistently by NOT giving me the things I need to survive with.

 

[EmilioEstevez]

After the first playthrough you should have learned that poison is easy and venom glands are pretty easy to get.

 

If it's spring season good joy, you can easily kill mosquitos by auto-attacking them first before they attack you.

 

If you somehow get poisoned in the beginning of the game? Well, your poisoned already, so go ahead and find stink rays and it's guaranteed venom gland from a group.

 

 Coral is also renewable. Poison is fine imo

[brummbar7]

People do need to realize, it's very easy to say coral is everywhere when you've exposed most of the map, but when you're starting, it's very easy to take several wrong turns and not find any for a long time.  SD is not making that up, it happens.  But that's why a fast boat is so important, to do a systematic and thorough exploration. 

 

And Stinkrays are not a guaranteed gland.  I once had to kill two entire groups of them to get 1 gland.  They're a fairly high chance though.

 

The game does have balance issues (food and sanity very easy to get, volcano season a mess), and I think things will probably change over time.  I'm hoping seashell armor gets nerfed.  It's pretty silly that it stops poison, when seashells are as easy to get as they are.

[PhelsarusBeel]

So for everyone i that says Gold is easy to get in Shipwrecked i like to show you something

 

 

 

These 2 screenshots are from my current playsession and it took me 8 full ingame days to find just 1 Goldboulder to be able to make a science machine. In the meantime there where 3 different oppotunities to get poisoned with me being unable to do anything against it or to cure it (those being the Swamp, some yellow snakes that just dropped out of trees and spiderwarriors on that one island with the dens). And again if you say "well just reset if you get poisoned" NO that's bad gamedesigne forcing me to restart just because i was unable to find a specific set of ressources to get rid of poison so early.

 

And before anyone asks why i just went on one direction well i was following the waves to speed up traveltime and 4 days in a row it was me going north until i finally hit the Fogwalls.

[Bearry]

Getting poisoned is nasty at early game, but it's also a good excuse for you to rush to farm poison glands since you know you're already poisoned. 

But if you can't find any stink rays or spider warriors to kill.... then you're screwed.

[Codsworth]

Well, i NEVER got poisoned exept from the Poison mosquitoes (cause i didn't have found enough seashells at the time to make ans armor), that because every single way to get you poisoned is completely easy to avoid, don't mess with tier 2 spider den's you don't get spider warriors, yellow snakes are stupidly easy to kite, stinkrays? why would you even mess with them in the first place?

 

by the time that poison mosquitos begin to spawn, is almost implossible that yo haven't found material to make Anti-venom or seashells to make an armor

[DarkXero]

those being the Swamp

 

Don't enter the swamp.

And the poison gas geisers are very easy to avoid during the day.

 

some yellow snakes that just dropped out of trees

 

Spend the night on your boat.

 

spiderwarriors on that one island with the dens

 

If you are in a massive kerffufle that triggered the warriors, run.

If you triggered them yourself, you have ZERO excuse here.

 

And before anyone asks why i just went on one direction well i was following the waves to speed up traveltime and 4 days in a row it was me going north until i finally hit the Fogwalls.

 

If you tell me the first thing you do is follow the waves until you hit the fogwall, then you suck at exploring.

The waves are to boost you if they are favorable, or to challenge you if you want to go in the other direction.

They are not island pointers.

 

Do more local exploring, explore a circle (ring) around the island you start on, and pay attention to shallow water because it means land is nearby. When you find a jungle island, circle it with your boat, looking for boulders with gold. Maybe in the first two there won't be any gold boulder, or the only one that is there will be in the center of the island, but I always found gold in the end.

 

If you do your spaghetti noodle exploring strat, you will most likely find empty water.

[Mobbstar]

Stage 3 would be 7 damage over 30 seconds and Stage 4 would be 1 HP every 5 seconds.

 

This is kind of unrelated, but didn't you notice that stage four would be less harmful than stage three?

30 / 5 = 6; 6 < 7

 

 

On a side note, why does everybody seem to connect bubbles with poison? If I were to start emitting bubbles, I'd guess a really nasty disease, a modified form of rabies at best. Symptoms for poison are things like fever (sweating) and (areally) changing skin colour. Even if we go beyond realism, it'd be more reasonable to see liquid poison particles rather than bubble poison particles.

[DarkXero]

it'd be more reasonable to see liquid poison particles

 

And how do you picture this?

[grekon]

So for everyone i that says Gold is easy to get in Shipwrecked i like to show you something

You are obviously doing it wrong. Not only do you sail aimlessly with the waves until the end of the map but also you don't even bother to thoroughly check every island you find. There is usually gold in 1/5 islands and I'm being favorable to you because I believe there is usually gold in 1/3(not all the time). I won't go too deep into tips on how to explore the map because this thread, to remind you, is about poison not finding resources(which many in this forum seem to find easily but not you or your supposed friend). Maybe I will post in the other navigation thread you started.

 

Can you answer these 2 questions? It might clarify what is wrong in your games.

1. How many islands do you explore in the first 10 days? I mean explore like checking what the island contains in and out.

How long does it take for you to gather enough resources to make an alchemy machine?

For me the number of islands I explore in first 10 days is usually 6- 8, although I remember I once explored 9 islands in 6 days, And i mean it. I walked next to the island's edges to find all the biomes and know what stuff they have. It usually takes me about 7-8 days to rush an alchemy machine. Sometimes I only need 4 or 5 islands to do it. But just by going around I find more islands and I take that opportunity to check what they have.

 

Edit: Another question.

Do you know in what biomes gold usually is? You can also name some specific characteristics these biomes have.

[Bananenbauer123]

Long comment!!!

I don't want to be rude but... Some people have huge problems with venom and others don't really care about it.
Let's get this discussion back to the point.
Venom in the early game CAN be a game changer, I agree that when you get bitten by accident you should have more reliable ways to cure yourself or slow down the debuff.
The first thing a player will and should do is to immediately watch out for the required resources.
To sum it up the player needs: 
- a sience machine [4 rocks - easy | 4 wood - easy | 1 gold - medium]
- 3 seaweed - easy, 2 corals - medium, 1 venomgland - medium
Most of these resources are very easy to obtain.
However you can be unlucky at finding corals, gold or venom gland'

RNGs can greatly influence your gameflow. I once had to explore 4 island just to find enough flint for my pickaxe. The starting island only had 1 flint lying around and I was forced to use it for my axe to chop trees in order to build the 6-log, 4-gass raft to leave the island.

I'm currently on my 5th run 
On my 1st run I didn't even encounter venom at all tbh. Died to palm treeguards on day 26. 

On my 2nd run I died to poison I believe that was around day 35, the reason was, that at that given time I didn't even know where to find venom gland at all. I once saw the recipe in the survival tab but didn't bother worrying about it, I have been bitten by poisonous snakes while wearing the shellarmor and my first thought was, that all poisonous enemies can't poison you for as long as you wear ANY kind of armor. Obviously I was mistaken and got poisoned by a warriorspider later on while wearing a log suit. 
The strange thing is that up to this point I never ever found a single poison gland, so I didnt even know where to start looking for it. 
I guessed one could just wait out the debuff by using a tent etc. however this only empowered the effect RIP.

On my 3rd run I managed to survive 52~ days and during the monsoon season I have been poisoned several times by the yellow mosquitos, however since they drop plenty of venom gland it wasn't actually much of a deal. I later on died to insanity because of the constant rain and beeing unable to prototype appropriate clothing with my flooded alchemy engine.

On the 4th and 5th run venom hasn't been much of a deal either (the volcano season even more so).
The yellow mosquitos are so easy to kill without getting hit (just hold F yay).
The venom as it is now is just either a game breaker due to how badly it explains itself or a simple annoyance. The effect isn't readable enough you don't know what you are supposed to do.

I do believe venom should be a Challenge! I like the idea of the mechanic, but it needs tweaking.
On the one hand, to make the antidote less of an earlygame breaker, the ingredients should be easy to find - I don't say easy to obtain, but one should know where to look for them and be able to craft them right away once collected.
On the other hand venom should at any given point in the course of play, pose a threat. Crafting antivenom SHOULD mean additional effort, it is meant to use up playtime and the player has to associate it with displeasure. 
Having poisnous enemies drop the core ingredient do cure the poison doesn't make any sense from a gameplay perspective. 
The player can afford to get poisoned while also obtaining the antidote - he will be able to craft more antidote than needed to cure himself. Thats contradictional -> The player should morelikely be persuaded to not get poisoned at all (by avoiding fighting poisonous enemies). And if the player decides to fight poisonous enemies it should be because:
1. the venom gland is used in other crafting recipes [however currently all of them are useless]

2. the poisonous enemies protect an imporant resource.
Either way the enemies should get in the players way, not in the sense they spawn in your face, but they just so happen to be where you wanna go.

Which brings me to another point. The yellow mosquitos are absolutely pointless, please make them bound to the new swamps biome.
If the player so happens to need mosquito sacks, he will come all by himself. Or he wants to collect cut reeds or whatever. But he will also have to prepare, just like it always used to be in dont starve.

Because people will ask I'd say, lets make the antidote be crafted from a mushroom (perhaps the blue one?), some vines and some seeweed. The resulting item should also have a rot timer, this will prevent the player from stacking the item because it is relatively easy to craft, but he will not be able to stack up as many to go Yolo-mode-nobdy-can-poison-me.
Eventually you could also have the antidote decrase sanity and hunger, but for now, 

 

please tell me your opinion on that.

 

[Cryfor]

In my opinion - Poison difficulty comes with two things: player skill and player information.

 

a player new to the game may find poison very difficult and unfair, as they don't now anything about the game and don't know fighting strats etc.

 

a player who played 1000+ days may find poison quite lackluster, after experiencing it once as snakes can easily be avoided and the ressources for anti venom are easy to get, if you know where to look for them.

 

So where do you set the balance here?

 

I think - for me personally - poison is fine as it is in the early game, I would love to see it being a bigger threat in the later stages of the game. I think nerfing it is not needed right now as it would just make this mechanic obsolete.

 

I love the learning process of dont starve - which is basically not telling you anything by itself and forcing you to try out OR go to a wiki and check out the information. This is not for everybody, I understand - but that is how dont starve was and hopefully will ever be. I mean hell, who hasn't been killed by Pengulls in ROG because he attacked without knowing what they do - they do need a nerf? no.

 

Btw, we are in early access right now with shipwrecked - so all things are subject to change aaaaaaaaaand there are no world generation options as of now, which is also a way to tone down things a bit if it feels too difficult.

 

[PhelsarusBeel]

So i took some days of from this topic and was rethinking the entire thing again and maybe come up with a way that both partys be happy with and i might got one.

 

Introducing The pressure bandage. This item is a beginner survival crafting recipe made out of 3 Seaweed (it's in the Antivenom recipe so it seems to help cure it) 1 Plamtree leaf and 1 Vine. It would completly negate the effect of poiosn while worn however it occupies the chestslot meaning that you have to deal with a smaller inventory if you don't want to suffer from the effects of poison. However the bandage also has a freshnessmeter spoiling in about a day maybe less so you have to recraft it over and over if you don't want to die from poison. Also it doesn't cure poison only prevents the HP and sanity draining effect (or maybe lowers the sanity draining substancialy down) so you still need to make Antivenom to completly get rid of it.

 

My idea here is that this is a cheap to make item that you however have to spend some valuable ressources for (4 flint because you need both an Axe and a Machete as well as Seaweed for food) as well as sacrificng the chestslot you might want to use for a Thatchpack/Backpack instead. With an item like this we would have a little bit more breathingroom if poison kicks in to early but still have the actual threat of poison since you might not want to leave a backpack full of usefull ressources back if you want to make it.

 

So any thoughs on this does this sound like a reasonable idea to anyone?

[matthoffman]

the more i played the game, the more i feel like we should keep the poison mechanics as it is now.

 

the new mechanics change the way we play the game: If you dont have your seashell armor on, avoid the yellow snakes, spiders, etc. Once spring comes, you will get plenty of venom glands as you kill the mosquitoes and the poison thing will be nothing even since.

 

people just need time to learn and get used to the new mechanics.

[LordTS]

I find the poison only a problem when you are new to the dlc. 

 

My first two playthrough i died to the poison, didn't knew what caused the poison, wasn't prepared for the anti venom.(those pesky farting rays)

 

As you gain knowlodge about the itens, monsters, etc it becomes much easier to avoid it.

 

But it would be nice another way to become unpoisoned, or something to delay it, like people already suggested.

[_Q_]

There is one thing in this that makes no snese at all.

If a hound gets poisoned by a snake and then bites the player, player gets poisoned to, it has 0 logic whatsoever.

 

[grekon]

So any thoughs on this does this sound like a reasonable idea to anyone?

 

Before I talk about your suggestion I have to once again point out that poison has to kill. Once you get the green screen you are supposed to feel the approaching slow death. 

 

Next up, you are yet to make real arguments as to why the poison needs more ways of curing. There are already ways to avoid it, items that can protect you from it and the antidote. Why do you need more of it, why isn't that enough?

 

All I am getting from you is that you are getting poisoned a lot. The second thing is that you have difficulties finding resources to make the antidote. I personally find that to be untrue and it does seem that there are others here that also think it might be just you. We also said everything about how to deal with the poison mechanic already, all the solutions are there.

 

As for the bandage you are suggesting, you do realize that it goes against the idea that poison kills right? Of course if that is not the point of poison then I guess your argument is valid. On top of that the bandage is basically a reversed seashell suit. Where seashell suit protects you from poison before you get poisoned, the bandage protects you from poison after you get poisoned. Why should a survival game give you remedies to all your mistakes instead of putting out threats and punishing you for your mistakes? The game also has a very good way of dealing with this mistake/punishment. For each poisonous monster you kill and deal with, you can get more venom gland. The more poison monsters you kill the more times you can cure yourself, more mistakes you can make.

 

Finally to go back to the issue of getting poisoned. I believe we should agree on the benchmark. How often do you think a decent player would get poisoned. How much is acceptable and how much isn't. In my opinion getting poisoned once every 20 days is about right. (give or take few days)

[Final272]

       I played don't starve shipwreck for awhile and when i got hit by those gas bubbles (thought i was far enough apparently not) i saw myself being poisoned. 

       So i knew what materials i needed to get asap even though i was in early game. killed 15 poison snakes not one anti-venom. The coral and seaweed were easy to find of course. Unfortunately for me in the end i ran out of heal-able items and completely cleared two island of trees that the poison snakes spawn from. It wasn't enough and my journey ended there.

 

-They at least need to make venom a slightly more common drop, or at least make it to where low stages of venom disappear over time.

-Another good idea is to introduce poison plants that have a decent change of dropping venom. You take damage and a good chunk of sanity when picking it; however you get venom.

[Flare2V]

poison is fine u're bad

[t0panka]

One thing i don't like about poison. Those little green bubbles on your health bar that are showing you are poisoned. Why not make whole bar green? I guess that one made Capy because it doesn't look like DS style (you know what i mean)

 

Other than that poison is good!