Difficulty Scaling Consistently with Days Passed

[SirBuizelton]

Is this something that people don't want?

I had this idea years ago when I was originally playing don't starve when hounds were introduced to me and the way they get more numerous and come more often as time goes by but I don't think this is enough, to be honest. A pan flute completely neuters them.

I also know that some of the seasons get slightly harder as a year passes too, but all I know in accordance to that is puddles spawning larger in monsoon season (which, to me, is a lot more annoying than difficult).

So I dunno. I never had the chance to ask before because I never participated in the ds forums, just the game, and I'm really very curious about this. I feel like it would breathe new life into the game and do a lot to satisfy the more hardcore players of the longer you survive, the more chaotic, hellish, and all-around difficult the game gets. It'd make sense too, with the idea that Maxwell is getting angrier and angrier with us just giving him the middle finger by living indefinitely and being so invincible.

It could be simple things too. Enemy damage increases, more intensity of insanity's nightmare spawning mechanics (spawning more terror beaks more often), more spider warriors spawn instead of regular spiders until ONLY spider warriors are coming from nests. Grass/twigs taking longer to grow when they're clustered together, and requiring manure more frequently.

Things like these might really help keep the game intense as time goes on instead of just being like "well I have everything I need, I'm just a god now, I can do whatever I want." Because right when you think you have mastery of the world, it starts to get a lot more brutal and maybe some of your old methods of easy monster meat ain't so easy anymore.

I want Mother Nature to never stop demanding my respect! Beats just having the game bend over once you get to a certain point in my opinion.

Just my thoughts.

[mitboy]

I feel like caves, and, later, ruins are made for that. 

Besides, you need >1000 days to make good base on surface, in caves and in ruins. Connecting ruin and cave entrance with roads, clear every single thing and other stuff. Turn all your chests into scaled ones, make infinte filed of tooth traps, e.t.s.

[ThaumicParrot]

Yeah, even though caves/ruins aren't in yet, that's what they're for. I'm sure lava caves, once added, will be a fiery challenge for those who want it.

[SirBuizelton]

Yeah, even though caves/ruins aren't in yet, that's what they're for. I'm sure lava caves, once added, will be a fiery challenge for those who want it.

Let's hope so! But I dunno, I still feel like the surface needs more challenge in the late game because when it all becomes trivial child's play and the survival aspect is just gone, I get bored

I want to be challenged, threatened, and surprised at all points in the game somehow

[J20hawkz]

I had a similar idea but this was specific to Wargs spawning in DST. Check out the link in my sig.

I would like this.

[Codsworth]

I think that too, I miss that feeling of nature constantly trying to kick my butt (I even play DST alone sometimes just because it's a little harder and because of 90% of my morgue: ewecus) I know that Treeguards, Varg/Ewecus and hounds are there for this but I don't think the world "evolves" enough, it gets to an poing that literally nothing poses a threat to you anymore, I think that even the number of Gigants should scale with time, mobs getting slightly stronger, or maybe some random events made just to kill (for exemple the ebony warrior on skyrim, when you get to certain level he appears just to kill you and he is freaking tough), dunno I'm not very creative but the world should definetly get harder as time goes by

[SirBuizelton]

I had a similar idea but this was specific to Wargs spawning in DST. Check out the link in my sig.

I would like this.

I know plans have been made for some sort of tiger shark in SW as well but I also thought and made a thread about the potential of even more deadly versions of the shark attacks during certain seasons. A shark version of varg sounds very dangerous too, now that you mention varg

[SirBuizelton]

I think that too, I miss that feeling of nature constantly trying to kick my butt (I even play DST alone sometimes just because it's a little harder and because of 90% of my morgue: ewecus) I know that Treeguards, Varg/Ewecus and hounds are there for this but I don't think the world "evolves" enough, it gets to an poing that literally nothing poses a threat to you anymore, I think that even the number of Gigants should scale with time, mobs getting slightly stronger, or maybe some random events made just to kill (for exemple the ebony warrior on skyrim, when you get to certain level he appears just to kill you and he is freaking tough), dunno I'm not very creative but the world should definetly get harder as time goes by

My thoughts exactly :3 I'd love to see the world truly evolve as time goes on to get nastier and eviler the longer we stay, the way it truly should be. I personally don't like when the world gets to a point where it's cozy and predictable and anything that turns my head is just so easily dealt with. Even the deerclops, goosemoose, and Bearger just get laughably easy

[t0panka]

Well this is what TTA will do for DST and i have high hopes for it ... probably this will be forwarded to DS/ROG/SW in future. At least i hope so!

[SirBuizelton]

Well this is what TTA will do for DST and i have high hopes for it ... probably this will be forwarded to DS/ROG/SW in future. At least i hope so!

TTA? What's that?

[SilverBisexual]

I think it would be a good idea if you had the option for this though, and in RoG, and SW. It would be called the "Corrupted" Preset.

 

These are my ideas for RoG

 

Your world would be normal enough for maybe the first 250 days. Then after that, seasons get longer or shorter based off of random chance.

 

At day around 500, boss giants have a chance to spawn out of their regular seasons, and seasons start to become even more different. Seasons start to change order and become increasingly more varied in the amount of time for which they are around. More frequent Depths Worm attacks. Longer Nightmare Phase.

 

At day around 750 spiders become, like SirBuizelton said, only Warriors, and in the caves, only Spitters. Rain starts to become almost continuous, making Drying Racks nearly useless. Pig now have a chance to refuse meat and only accept up to 3 pieces if they do. This now makes Werepigs useless for farming impossible. Much shorter Calm Phase of the Nightmare Cycle, with a very long Nightmare Phase. When over though, only about 75% of Nightmare Creatures will die off.

 

At day around 1000, objects will now combust no matter what the season. Make sure to keep those flingomatics fueled! Giant's health, as well as most mob's health, has now doubled. Grass and twigs will need to be fertilized immediately after picking them. Meteors will spawn anywhere and at anytime. There is no way to stop them. Depth Worms come in much larger packs have triple health, while Rock Lobster's health in halved as well as their damage. Rock Lobsters can no longer "turtle."

 

At day 1500, all mobs, except for giants, have a chance to randomly die in masses at any time. Pig Houses where a pig has died like this, will become merm houses. Berry bushes stop producing. Grass and Twigs stop growing. Random combustion is now an even bigger threat. All giants have triple health. Tooth Traps have a chance to fail/break whenever they are triggered. Tumbleweeds are now much more rare. Nightmare Fissures spawn in random places on the surface.

 

Any other ideas?

[jigggy2000]

What I would like to be implemented is something I've seen in some other games. it's have an in game item or area where if you get this item or do something in this area it starts to make the game more difficult. I think they MAY be doing that with the appeasing the volcano god thing they hinted at. You know do this and there will be less meteors. It is possible they will make it go the other way as well. do this and there will be even more meteors.

 

Well, if they do that I want them to include more of this feature around the game world. I mentioned this in another thread that I want them to balance the difficulty across the whole game (not just make little parts of the game super hard). So it would be cool to have like maybe tribal idols that you come across, and if you do something here the game starts to increase an aspect of the game to a higher difficulty periodically. It would be good if they did this as a high risk high reward type thing too. So you get rewarded for surviving this challenge for an x amount of time. This can go the other way as well. If you want to use these things to make the game easier for you that option is available as well but you get no reward. 

 

To balance it they could make it so if you want it easier you have to use up resources and the required resources starts to amp up each time you use it. but making it harder doesn't use up much resources at all.

 

The good thing about this approach is that the player has control over the base games difficulty at all times. On top of this it allows for players to maybe prepare a little before taking up the challenge, or maybe not prepare to make it more challenging for them. I guess there could a couple where they are always active (like the volcano god) where you have to continually use resources to keep from making the game harder, but do nothing if you like the difficulty but get rewarded with something if you want to make it even more harder. (kind of like easy, default and hard modes). I like the idea of this island gods thing they have at the moment. you could have maybe an island god for everything like one for sea hounds one for the ocean one for trees and plants. Each one having an idol for its god affinity (kind of like in real life island tribe culture). 

[InSpace]

Who would play a world for 1000 days lol, 8 days is about an hour

[t0panka]

TTA? What's that?

 

Trough the Ages

 

 

"More information about Through the Ages will come in the New Year, but in general, you can think of it as a mini-DLC (so, substantial, but smaller than Reign of Giants). It will be focusing on the evolution of your world over longer periods of time; things like alternate winters, and mechanics that work over the course of a year or more. And as we promised, this mini-DLC will be free to all DST players."

[Yokoblue]

I feel that world should become harsher as time goes by but a little bit quicker than what you said.

Things should start to get harder every year imo (which makes it around 72 days).

 

Every winter you survive makes the next winter harder etc...

 

Treat it like hounds attack, they grow in strength.

 

 

Suggestions

- Spawning a varg with the hound attack (remove x hounds and replace it with 1 varg)

- Winter / Summer temperature become harsher every year (with a max to not auto kill people who survive 1000 days)

- More rain during spring, Harsher rain (you know the rain the you almost drown in )

- Ice/Fire version of monster during the Winter / Summer (Ice spider, fire frog...)

- More frog rain / Meteor strike / Things set on fire / More terror beak when going crazy and faster

etc...

 

These are all things that you can prepare for, so you keep the way the game is played. It only makes season harsher and people are suppose to grow stronger every season and be able to equip themselves with stronger items every seasons.

 

 

[CammoAmmo]

Personally, as a player who is not as talented at Don't Starve and who really loves to simply conquer a world so that there's nothing more to do than base build, I would like for this option to be toggleable in the world gen options as I can see a real need for it but I myself do not really want it. I think I speak for all fellow noobs when I say this But on the subject, I think it would make the most sense to have it increase every year. That way, the player will understand that oh, new year, more difficult, and can have a concrete goal to strive for (x amount of years).

Also, I find the increasing puddles simply annoying as well. The only difficulty it increases is that I must waste more time mindlessly hacking bamboo.

EDIT: Actually, when I think about it, I would like a milder form of this, maybe without huge changes and simply just scaling enemy health and overheating/freezing danger, no new mechanics but simply harder ones.

[SilverBisexual]

Who would play a world for 1000 days lol, 8 days is about an hour

 

I have a world at 1300 days. Just for fun really.

 

[SirBuizelton]

Who would play a world for 1000 days lol, 8 days is about an hour

Well, considering the name of the game is, in theory, survival.. Everyone? o.o