Reign of Giants, too hard

[Cuddlez]

Hey guys, 

 

So - I've been playing Don't Starve together with a couple of friends. Every time we play, at the end of winter deerclopse just comes and kills us.

 

We know the strategies, lure him in to the pigs, in to a tree guardian, in to a heard of beefalo. We even tried luring him in to the dragonfly monster (they just high fived each other and killed us as a team). In every scenario we die. He freezes the mobs, they die and he eventually comes back to base and kills us.

 

We're casual players, it seems these bosses cater to a very specific few people that have put a lot of time in to the game.

 

It would be great if we could get a mode that nerfs the difficulty of the bosses, at the moment it just seems you have to be a plat-former hero just to kill them. This isn't why I play don't starve, in fact, I hate most platformer games.

 

I understand people who put more time in to the game want a challenge, that's fine. But even when we put the giants on "less" we get a massive dog attack one day, then the deerclops always comes the next day.

 

There's *no* way to tune down the content for casual players, without turning it off completely. So essentially we have to skip out on boss fights. 

 

[GalloViking]

Wrong forum. Can an admin move it to the Don't Starve section please?

 

About the Deerclops, if you don't attack him, he won't attack you. He'll just destroy your base and walk away.

[Auth]

Hey guys, 

 

So - I've been playing Don't Starve together with a couple of friends. Every time we play, at the end of winter deerclopse just comes and kills us.

 

We know the strategies, lure him in to the pigs, in to a tree guardian, in to a heard of beefalo. We even tried luring him in to the dragonfly monster (they just high fived each other and killed us as a team). In every scenario we die. He freezes the mobs, they die and he eventually comes back to base and kills us.

 

We're casual players, it seems these bosses cater to a very specific few people that have put a lot of time in to the game.

 

It would be great if we could get a mode that nerfs the difficulty of the bosses, at the moment it just seems you have to be a plat-former hero just to kill them. This isn't why I play don't starve, in fact, I hate most platformer games.

 

I understand people who put more time in to the game want a challenge, that's fine. But even when we put the giants on "less" we get a massive dog attack one day, then the deerclops always comes the next day.

 

There's *no* way to tune down the content for casual players, without turning it off completely. So essentially we have to skip out on boss fights. 

 

1. Wrong thread area.

 

2. Deerclops is insanely easy. 2 hits, run away, repeat, provided you've got no/low lag. You'll never get hit provided you do this. holding F makes you auto-attack baddies. And if you can't handle them, just turn them off. Just know if you never practice, you'll never get better. Just know you're never getting any eyebrellas (Which are insanely helpful in spring AND summer and can be repaired via sewing kit)

 

3. If you need some help learning how to do anything specifically, hit me up on steam.

[ImDaMisterL]

Wrong forum. Can an admin move it to the Don't Starve section please?

About the Deerclops, if you don't attack him, he won't attack you. He'll just destroy your base and walk away.

JUST destroy your base and walk away, he says.

Because pffft, who cares if all your hard-work gets destroyed in a matter of seconds in front of your eyes? I sure don't!

[GalloViking]

JUST destroy your base and walk away, he says.

Because pffft, who cares if all your hard-work gets destroyed in a matter of seconds in front of your eyes? I sure don't!

 

Dude, have you ever played solo? At least once?

I'd rather lose my base and build it back with its remains, than die like an overconfident newbie and restart from day 1.

[ImDaMisterL]

Dude, have you ever played solo? At least once?

I'd rather lose my base and build it back with its remains, than die like an overconfident newbie and restart from day 1.

Yes I have played solo, even before I started playing DST actually.

And it's even easier to kill the Deerclops in solo, yes, he doesn't have a neutral state, but he doesn't have doubled health and quite frankly, kiting him is super easy without all the lag I usually get in DST.

[ItsPizzaTime]

Log Suit/Footballhelmet. Hambat. Hold F. You shouldn't need more than two sets of armor for each person.

 

Before the fight have 5 cooked cactus flesh for each person participating to consume after the fight is over.
 

With at least two of you using decent gear and just holding F you can take it down without any help from mobs.

 

If you really need healing items make healing salves with 1x gland 2x ash 1x stone. two or three of these on each person should be good enough as long as you keep attacking the boss to kill it asap. The longer you fight him the harder he gets.

[Xavven]

My advice to the OP is to

 

not

 

give

 

up!

 

You're going to find tons of challenges like this, and harder, in DST. Stick with it until you find a way to beat Deerclops, or you will miss a valuable opportunity to get better at the game and prepare yourself for even harder enemies and greater loot down the road, like in the Ruins.

 

Failure in a game is just as important, if not more important, than winning, because you learn! Nobody becomes an expert at anything without learning from failures all the way there.

[Cuddlez]

Nah, we switched him off & are just enjoying doing our thing. It's a shame as I would like to kill him, but collectively as a group it's not possible. It's too much combined time wasted. Like I said, as players collectively we don't enjoy the kind of gameplay the deerclops offers. We like our base, we don't want it destroyed. We don't enjoy spamming 2 attacks and running away over and over. It's a clunky gameplay mechanic that we simply don't enjoy

 

If we had another summer to prepare, we could probably do it, but we don't enjoy rushing about to get all the combat gear in order, we have no interest in becoming MLG don't starve players. We're just enjoying the experience, and the deerclopse just isn't conductive to that kinda gameplay. 

 

Like I said, I have no problem with him existing on his current difficulty, I think it's good the game offers challenging content. I just think it's incredibly stupid that even when we turned him on to spawn "less"; he still spawned 3 times on the first winter. 

 

There needs to be a middleground for people that have no interest in doing all this stuff, give people time to settle in as a team and just enjoy the game. 

[Cuddlez]

To clarify these are the two modes that exist for new players

 

mode 1) Turn off giants

 

mode 2) Turn on giants and read guides online (not all of which are accurate, I can attest to that) on how to kill them.... Dieing over and over, restarting over and over until you find what works.

 

As a solo player, restarting over and over is less of an issue, but as a team it's boring. Middleground. 

[SageKun]

Lure him into a giant tree guard and hit him twice while he's beating down the tree guard. Assuming you guys at least hit him a few times, He should be down in no time.

[VeryDead]

There are many ways to defeat Deerclops, but the most practical way is grabbing your standard gear (logsuit + football helmet) and try to kite him. Hit him twice, run, and you should dodge the swipe if their is no lag. Beside that standard advice, I can offer additional tidbits of knowledge to help you and your friends against Deerclops.

 

1. If you hear Deerclops coming (AKA those loud warning roars and your character's warning messages), GET AWAY FROM CAMP.

 

I can't stress enough how vital it is to not fight Deerclops near your camp. He'll go after your camp and basically destroy everything. Sure, he'll leave after that, but then you'll find yourself in a spot of bother, more specifically, late winter without a camp. Keep in mind, Deerclops only spawns after he is done with all his warnings, so if you get far away from camp, once he spawns, you can return back to camp and fight him at your leisure.

 

2. Fight on the roads!

 

Simply put, if you attempt to kite him, use roads to your advantage. It can be tricky for anyone to kite deerclops with his rather big attack range, so use the speed boost that roads offer to make your fight easier than ever!

 

3. If you can, have others do your dirty work.

 

Basically, lure deerclops to other mobs. Any mob, whether hostile or neutral will do, all you need to do is get deerclops to hit them. With his AoE attack, you can easily trick him into hitting another monster. This trick can be used to weaken/kill deerclops, or do other handy things. Spider Dens growing out of control? Deerclops can handle them for you AND get you free rewards! Spider Queen / Treeguard / Bearger (if he's spawned in Together) giving you grief? Deerclops can battle them for you!

 

Generally, Deerclops will destroy almost any mob you put him against except bosses. As a word of warning though, if you get deerclops to fight Spider Queen / Bearger / Dragonfly (if you find the lava pools), although the latter 2 have good odds of winning, (especially Dragonfly) The rewards have the potential to be lost by either Bearger / Queen's spiders eating up the eyeball / Dragonfly burning the eye. Using Bearger / Dragonfly can almost guarantee the death of Deerclops at the loss of drops, so consider them a last resort.

 

Anywho, that's what I can give you for now. If you want more tips, just ask! We're all ready to help you and your friends survive winter!... Giving you tips, that is.

 

EDIT: I forgot one crucial thing!

 

ON ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, NEVER LET DEERCLOPS FIGHT BEEFALO. IT WILL CAUSE THE DEATH OF AN ENTIRE HEARD, IF NOT EXTINCTION OF BEEFALO IN A SELECT AREA OR IN YOUR WORLD!

 

That is all.

[t0panka]

You said you play with COUPLE of your friends so even if it is 3-4 you can all wear armor and kill him together without dodging his attacks and it will take 1 minute so yeah he is pretty easy! Also he drops one of best items in game that are needed for hat which gives you 100% rain protection and really good insulation from summer + to make Houndius Shootious 

 

You can make traps from teeth from hound attacks, hounds in desert and hounds protecting McTusk. I never did this but IMO this should be enough teeth to make traps to kill him.

 

You can make gunpowder and kill him with one shot probably.

 

You can take him to swamp and tentacles will eventually kill him if you have enough left

 
You can still take him to dragonfly and she will kill him. You just need to make sure that he make his attack near her and hit her. After that they start to kill each other .)

 

There are so many possibilities how to kill giants and lot of them are really easy. Just go and do one of those things. After you try or kill him couple of times it will be really really easy. Not like Dragonfly where you really need to prepare properly and have some strategy but eventually she will become easy too We can kill her in whatever season 2v1 without problems.

 

And about hound attacks - they are dropping teeth so you can make traps and with those you dont need to do anything just stand in middle of them.

[Flare2V]

Equip armor.

[Mobbstar]

I might write a quick boss-nerf mod for DST.

 

Did you try kitting him while somebody else takes a stab and as such takes over the kite?

 

 

Equip armor.

 

Whilst that is not exactly wrong advice...

N00bs be like...

[Mday]

There are things you can do to make the fight easier.

1) I build my base as tight as possible so there is less area to cover. Place expensive structure in the middle so that deerclops don't get to destroy it. This allow me to wait for deerclops at my base. 

2) As soon as I hear the deerclops coming, I place a few fire pit around my base so that I can see the surrounding in the dark.

3) If your base isn't near any road, spend some time and make 10 cobblestones. Craft a 2x5 arena where you can fight the deerclops.

4) I use a boomerang to catch the deerclops attention as soon as he spawn. Dart can miss somehow so I won't use that.

5) Ask your friends to stay back while you kite him. I find it easier to kite while doing it alone.

6) Get some cooked cactus/green mushroom for when you needed the sanity.

7) Use a fresh ham bat. 

8) Your friend should get ready to take over the fight for when you are low on HP/sanity and cannot continue.

9) If everything fails, just take the deerclops to somewhere far away from the base. The most important thing here is to stay alive.

[Xavven]

9) If everything fails, just take the deerclops to somewhere far away from the base. The most important thing here is to stay alive.

 

#9 really works, too. I am usually out to kill, but don't forget you can trash him. Kite him far away from your base. You have to slap him once or twice to keep him running for you. Then, once you're far enough away, run in a straight line away from him until he stops chasing.

 

Never forget to keep twigs and grass on you to build torches if the chase continues too long through the night. Wear warm clothing and/or have a heatstone, or you will freeze to death while trying to lead him away. You can always burn a tree down with your torch if you're desperate and deerclops is on your tail.

 

And sometimes, if the situation is really dire, I simply use healing items, like poultice or salve, while freezing to death just to buy myself a few extra seconds to run, if I can't warm up for some reason.

[Mobbstar]

Here you go! Or there, I don't mind.

 

A mod specifically for tuning health and damage values of boss monsters down.

[CameoAppearance]

ON ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, NEVER LET DEERCLOPS FIGHT BEEFALO. IT WILL CAUSE THE DEATH OF AN ENTIRE HEARD, IF NOT EXTINCTION OF BEEFALO IN A SELECT AREA OR IN YOUR WORLD!

 

Eh, killing one beefalo herd isn't a problem if you have a lot. (If you started with them set to More, or if it's an old world where the beefalo have already reproduced a lot. Or both.)

 

Siccing treeguards on the Deerclops is the strategy I like best in solo -- get the Deerclops to follow you to where your tree buddies live and wait for his habit of indiscriminately knocking over trees to enrage them -- but it doesn't work as well in DST between his ice attack and his increased health; one treeguard won't necessarily kill him. It will distract him and soften him up at least.

 

Attack Deerclops as soon as possible while he's not focused on you, preferably before he destroys anything expensive or fussy to rebuild like an Ice Flingomatic or a Prestihatitator. Ranged weapons are the better choice, because his attacks are area-of-effect so he can hit you even if he's not aiming for you, but you can just run up behind him and hit him with an axe between smashes. He'll chase you once you have his attention, so make sure you have your winter gear on as you won't be able to stop running for very long. Run towards treeguards, into a swamp, into an isolated spare herd of beefalo, into a cluster of spider dens, wherever. Anything that would easily kill you if you tried to fight it is a pretty good threat to turn against the Deerclops. (I wouldn't recommend a pig village because he'll probably knock them all down and they're hard to rebuild.) If nothing else you can get him to fight something else a safe distance away and that'll keep him busy not smashing your base.

 

Alternately you could just turn him off in world generation. The Deerclops is the only giant who will actively hunt you down in DST. (Even the Bearger, who wanders around the map year-round, will only run into you by coincidence.) The Eyebrella is nice, but you can get through spring with less-nice rain gear. You don't need a 100% waterproof hat if you have umbrellas or the Rain Coat/Rain Hat combo, even as WX. It's just more convenient.

 

There are a couple of mods that let you dial down the giants' health though. As well as Mobbstar's, there's Classic Giant's Health on the Steam workshop that also allows you to lower their damage and a few other things.