[Multiplayer Balance] Pig King

[Trenix]

The way the pig king is currently implemented doesn't feel multiplayer-like. There is only one pig in a random pig village and everyone on the server has to go to this one pig to trade. Because some servers may have multiple groups of friends player together, I don't think this is very fair. People will be fighting over him and will have an enormous benefit being near him. So here's my suggestion...

Pig King

 

• Should have a crown added back to his model.
• Can be killed and will drop gold nuggets, meat, and a thulecite crown when killed. It would be low loot and high risk so it wouldn't be recommended for farming. The thulecite crown drops so you can make a different pig at a village closer to you, the new pig king.
• When attacked, he wont fight back but will call out for pigs to aid him. Pigs sleeping in their houses nearby will come out and assist him.
• A pig can be turned into to a pig king by having 10 pig houses around and giving him a thulecite crown. [Credit: werlpolf] A pig will not take the thulecite crown if there is a pig king or less than 10 pig houses around.
• There can only be one pig king per village.
• When a pig turns into to pig king, the pig house remains and respawns a new pig as it normally would if the pig were killed.
• If the amount of pig houses near the pig king drops below 10, the pig king becomes a regular pig again and drops the thulecite crown.

Basically, the pig king will be renewable with a high resource cost.

[Niftygaymer]

I like this idea, I think maybe adding a second or third pig king as well would help with the low numbers of pig kings, settling arguments or fights over it.

[werlpolf]

How about, when there is a village (around 10 pig houses) one pig will be always be very happy? If you give him then something valuable like a Thulecite Crown, he will choose a place very near the village and transforms as pig king.

 

A real king needs fellows. This also makes possible to ve pig kings in the cave

[Trenix]

How about, when there is a village (around 10 pig houses) one pig will be always be very happy? If you give him then something valuable like a Thulecite Crown, he will choose a place very near the village and transforms as pig king.

 

A real king needs fellows. This also makes possible to ve pig kings in the cave

 

Great idea! Actually much better than mine, I'll add it to the suggestion.

[Wonkit]

I disagree with this idea for the most part for several reasons.

1. The griefing potential - While this doesn't have the potential to destroy your base like anyone with a torch can, missing a pig king can be very detrimental to a long-term game. Although a little bit of the gold is alleviated by meteor showers and earthquakes, most of the gold player receve is either from mining or the pig king. However, mining is not infinitely sustainable, especially in a multiplayer environment. We've all had those games where one person mines literally EVERY single gold ore, leaving you without a science machine, let alone any of the other staples. Thus, we turn to the pig king as a reliable source of gold. However, if the pig king were able to be killed as you suggest, it would remove that reliable gold source.
   
   Now what would stop someone from joining in the server, killing the pig king, and AFK'ing with the Crown? It would be very difficult to replace said crown. Of course, you could always craft a new crown, but that requires you to explore the ruins as well as to find the resources. It wouldn't even be difficult to kill the Pig King. While attacking the pig king would aggro all of the nearby pigs, one could easily dispose of the pigs first by luring them out and killing them one by one (they take 3 days to respawn after all) leaving the king exposed. They wouldn't even have to kill the Pig King! They could just hammer a few pig houses and it would have the same effect. While it's not quite as easy as torching a base, the ease of which one can noticeably grief the world is startling. This leads me to my next point.
    
2. The difficulty in rebuilding the Pig King - While the idea behind it is novel, moving the pig king to a different location would not be easy. For one, you need 10 pig houses. While the first thought would be to just hammer the pig houses, that won't cover all of the materials required since hammering will only give you half of your resources. For 10 houses, you would need 40 planks, 30 cut stone, and 40 pig skin. Assuming the average pig village is 10 pig houses, after hammering the whole village, one would still be short 20 planks, 15 cut stone, and 20 pig skin or 80 logs and 45 stone. While logs and pig skins a renewable resource, rocks are not easily renewed. Yes there are meteor showers and earthquakes as previously stated, but they are not very quick sources. Heck, getting all those materials would be an incredibly arduous task, especially the pig skin. This difficulty leads me to my final point.
    
3. There's little reason to move the Pig King - Why move him? Let me quote what you said.

   On 1/13/2016 at 7:52 AM, Trenix said:

   Because some servers may have multiple groups of friends player together, I don't think this is very fair. People will be fighting over him and will have an enormous benefit being near him.

   
   I don't see why the Pig King isn't fair. The fact that there's only one Pig King and everyone benefits from him equally seems to be the definition of fair to me.  Unless you're playing PVP, it is very that anyone will be fighting over the Pig King because there's very little anyone can do to stop someone else from using him besides picking up gold (Or maybe planting a few eggs if you're webber I suppose).If anything, Glommer and Chester are less fair since they can be hogged by one person. Plus, what reason is there to fight over him exactly? Yes he gives gold, but that's it. You can make golden tools and structures now. Other than that, there is not really any "enormous benefit" from being near him since you really only go to the Pig King every now and then.
   
   If anything, having the ability to move the Pig King would make it even more unfair for other players. You said it yourself, "servers may have multiple groups of friends playing* together. Not everyone is going to live in the same base. So while the person moving the Pig King may not have malicious intent, they could unintentionally hide the Pig King from other players since not everyone knows where it's going to be moved to. "It's at my base", but how are we going to use the Pig King if the location of the base is unknown to everyone.

Don't get me wrong, I do think it's a novel idea. However, I do not think it will be a healthy addition to the game. I think it would be much better off as a mod than an official feature.

tl;dr It gives power to griefers, moving the pig king would be difficult, and the fact there are little reasons to actually go through with moving the pig king.

[werlpolf]

8 hours ago, Wonkit said:

The griefing potential

Yeah, maybe I open a new thread about that. It is unbelievable how easy it is to destroy permanently structures and get away with this so rich. As soon as this unhuman and destructive potential is existing, there will never be peace and griefers will lure around the world like the giant mobs. Therefore I like to ignore this fact, since it must be changed. Else in every new world, I would need to hammer, and ignite EVERYTHING

8 hours ago, Wonkit said:

We've all had those games where one person mines literally EVERY single gold ore, leaving you without a science machine

The world is big. You get alot of gold from earthquake (2 earthquakes and you are ready for alchemy engine). The caves itself have massive gold resources, too. Gold boulders are also distributed around the world like in the dark forests. Thing is, if such ppl exist in a server, you simply can kill them and get the gold back. It cost them also some time to aquire these resources - time that you can use for preparing to kill that player.

8 hours ago, Wonkit said:

Now what would stop someone from joining in the server, killing the pig king, and AFK'ing with the Crown?

How about pig king is same as difficult as dragonfly? Pig king has several steps until he dies and when a step is reached, he drops something valuable. Means, ppl can fight pig king and get something, but it takes some time until it dies - maybe 20 or 35 days approximately. The crown is unimportant. You get new ones easily from ruins, if you are up against it. The Ancient Pseudoscience Station must be craftable. Happened once, that a rook rammed and destroyed it.

 

8 hours ago, Wonkit said:

While the first thought would be to just hammer the pig houses, that won't cover all of the materials required since hammering will only give you half of your resources.

I personally dislike it very much, that ppl come hammer villages in order to 'relocate' them. If ppl continue this relocation in every season on a public server, there will be nothing left. Wood and rocks you get very easily (earthquake, cave, meteor, moleworm). Pig skin you get from other villages (and your growing one) with monster meat

8 hours ago, Wonkit said:

The difficulty in rebuilding the Pig King

Let me guess. You like to raise a Pig King with 6 grass, 12 twigs and 3 DST-days?

 

8 hours ago, Wonkit said:

There's little reason to move the Pig King - Why move him?

Because we can? Because the world is very huge. Because sometimes the world does not ve a pig king? Or maybe because it makes fun to build something, which is not only made up of same structures. But it depends on Klei and the background story of this figure.

 

8 hours ago, Wonkit said:

If anything, Glommer and Chester are less fair since they can be hogged by one person

I don't use chester or glommer. They must be made better at least for PvP conditions.

 

8 hours ago, Wonkit said:

Plus, what reason is there to fight over him exactly? Yes he gives gold, but that's it. You can make golden tools and structures now. Other than that, there is not really any "enormous benefit" from being near him since you really only go to the Pig King every now and then.

Yes, and therefore I think, it is not a big deal that everyone should be able to raise a pig king, right?

 

8 hours ago, Wonkit said:

If anything, having the ability to move the Pig King would make it even more unfair for other players.

First you question the benefit (big deal) of pig king and now you say it would be unfair not having him???? Where is the logic when you compare two bases, one is in a pig village the other in a spider forest? Everything has a benefit where your base is, just use the environment. Besides, if someone really likes to hammer villages and create his own village, which is not even half as big, then go to that player and take over his base and resources.

 

9 hours ago, Wonkit said:

I do not think it will be a healthy addition to the game

Pig king is not necessary since the caves are out. I never use him, since it cost just time for the conversion process (meat -> gold). Better go spelunking. But it could be changed, when it will become more beneficial to create own villages...

[Wonkit]

Before I start my rebuttal, let me start of by stating that we may be at a misunderstanding. Judging from what you have said, it sounds as if you are talking about PVP. If so I suppose it would be more understandable. However, keep in mind that I am talking about survival mode, so killing the other player is out of the question.

Let me begin by clarifying something.

13 hours ago, werlpolf said:

First you question the benefit (big deal) of pig king and now you say it would be unfair not having him???? Where is the logic when you compare two bases, one is in a pig village the other in a spider forest? Everything has a benefit where your base is, just use the environment. Besides, if someone really likes to hammer villages and create his own village, which is not even half as big, then go to that player and take over his base and resources.

The pig does have a benefit to a certain extent. Free gold is free gold after all. Trinkets are easy to come by. After digging a few graves, and farming the desert (which is all too common in DST due to the scarcity of gears), you're going to have quite a few trinkets. Once you cash them all into the Pig King for 3-4 stacks of gold, the Pig King is effectively useless. Having large amounts of gold quickly is only useful in a few situations such as base building and slurtles.

Unlike having a base near the Pig King however, the usefulness of a spider forest doesn't plateau over time (at least not for a very long time). That's because of the fact that the spiders provide monster meat, which can be turned into eggs for better food. Also, you're more likely to visit the spider nests much more often since you farm the spiders for food is consumed quickly, compared to the Pig King whom you only visit when you need gold every now and then. Similar statements could be said about other biomes. The desert biome for example has all the grass, twigs and other stuff, while providing monster meat and cacti to fill your hunger and sanity. The grasslands has large amounts of grass while also having beefalo which can serve as a food source, a fuel/fertilizer source, and a protector against hounds. The Pig King simply doesn't offer enough to justify living near the Pig King as opposed to other biomes.

Wait, would that statement not just add to your side of the argument? Not at all. For one, as I previously stated, you do not need to go to the pig king very often as a few trips will do. It's much more fair since everyone knows what biome the Pig King is. However, if the King is moving from place to place (realistically, not many servers will actually progress far enough to afford to build a new one because of the crown), how would anyone be able to keep track of where he is. You would think "just explore" but then think about the possibility of someone moving to the Pig King to somewhere you had already explored.

 

13 hours ago, werlpolf said:

The world is big. You get alot of gold from earthquake (2 earthquakes and you are ready for alchemy engine). The caves itself have massive gold resources, too. Gold boulders are also distributed around the world like in the dark forests.

The world is big on normal settings, I can't disprove that. However, there are many players in the "big world". On average, there are about 2-4 bases per server, each of which are isolated from each other. A typical base will have an Alchemy Machine (4 gold), a bird cage (6 gold), an Ice Box (2 gold), a flingo (2 gold), and a lightning rod (4 gold). Altogether that is about 18 gold, or 36-72 gold nuggets used per base. While that may not sound like a whole lot, it has not taken into account other materials such as opulent tools, amulets, walking canes, miner hats, etc. This gold drain is increased even further if there is a Wigfrid in the game since both her spear and her helmet consume gold (plus many Wigfrids make helmets for everyone). All of these sources will deplete the amount of gold veins on the map. Even the random ores in the spider forest and birchnut forest are limited.

The caves do not solve this issue either. While you say that it's possible to get a lot of gold from Earthquakes, keep in mind that an earthquake only has a 20% chance of dropping a gold nugget. That's only for it to spawn, don't forget that there's a large chance it will shatter upon impact. While you can find enough gold for an Alchemy Machine after two earthquakes, the fact that earthquakes are infrequent (at least early on) means you're going to be waiting for a while without anything.

While it's true that caves do have large amounts of gold hidden within the stalagmites, the problem is that if you're down in the caves looking for gold, you most likely have a base set up. The Pig King is great for those still setting up looking for sources of gold because it's accessible to anyone. While it can take some effort to find the Pig King, it's still much less effort to get 4 gold from him with morsels than it is  to go deep underground. This makes it much easier to join in a server that's halfway through autumn or close to winter. Having the ability to kill the Pig King would hamper that. If you start from the beginning of the server, the Pig King is indeed not necessary. Otherwise, the Pig King provides a strong start to the disadvantaged, something the caves do not do.

I would also point out that finding the stalagmites to mine would take just as long as converting food to Pig friendly formats. To go spelunking, you would first have to set up the food you need while in the caves, wait through a loading screen, explore the caves until you find some stalagmites, walk back to the entrance, and wait for the loading screen. On the other hand, you can just use some extra eggs you made for bacon and eggs or use some of the trinkets you probably found while tumbleweed farming or digging up graves, and simply take a wormhole to the Pig King

 

13 hours ago, werlpolf said:

I personally dislike it very much, that ppl come hammer villages in order to 'relocate' them. If ppl continue this relocation in every season on a public server, there will be nothing left.

You say you wouldn't like hammering the villages, but the truth is people would definitely do that in order to reach a new Pig King more quickly. Can you imagine how irritating that would be in the long run? But let's assume the best, that everyone leaves the Pig Houses intact and gathers the materials the long way. That's still 160 logs, 90 stone, and 40 pig skins. I'm not saying it's impossible to do, not at all. What I am saying that it would take a very long time. The Pig Skins alone would take a long time as not only would you have to wait for the pigs to respawn after killing them, gathering all of the Monster Meat would be a huge hassle. In total, you would need 160 monster meat, meaning you would have to kill 160 spiders with the best RNG you could get (probably much higher considering the 50% drop rate) or 160 hounds (I'm assuming you're not farming vargs or tentacles).

 

13 hours ago, werlpolf said:

How about pig king is same as difficult as dragonfly? Pig king has several steps until he dies and when a step is reached, he drops something valuable. Means, ppl can fight pig king and get something, but it takes some time until it dies - maybe 20 or 35 days approximately.

Having the Pig King have the same difficulty as the Dragonfly seems great at a first glance. After all it would require a coordinated group effort to kill the guy (unless you're Flare2v), thus implying others share the same sentiment of moving rather than the rogue anarchist that could've happened. However, this doesn't quite address any of the issues I stated above. For one, newcomers would still not know where the Pig King was moved to. Also, it would take more than one person, the Pig King would still likely be able to be slain by just a small base of two people as they can do with the Dragonfly is now.

 

13 hours ago, werlpolf said:

I don't use chester or glommer. They must be made better at least for PvP conditions.

The way that Chester and Glommer are currently implemented doesn't feel multiplayer-like. There is only each in a random spot in the world and everyone on the server has to go to this random spot first. Because some servers may have multiple groups of friends player together, I don't think this is very fair. People will be fighting over them and will have an enormous benefit being near them.

 

Finally, you still haven't addressed

1. How the Pig King is inherently unfair in a multiplayer environment
2. The reasons why anyone would even fight over the Pig King

[werlpolf]

Oh  So much text, for so less content. I don't mean it mean. I also think we are talking on different levels on same things.

10 hours ago, Wonkit said:

Finally, you still haven't addressed

1. How the Pig King is inherently unfair in a multiplayer environment
2. The reasons why anyone would even fight over the Pig King

1 and 2:

23 hours ago, werlpolf said:

Pig king is not necessary since the caves are out.

Who is fighting for Pig King in DST??? I see only people fighting there (when PvP is on), because many peopl like to go there and then they meet each other. There is no more special reason fighting for Pig King as for spider biome or anything else.

 

10 hours ago, Wonkit said:

The Pig King simply doesn't offer enough to justify living near the Pig King as opposed to other biomes.

Therefore I always talk of him in regard of a village, where you get food and pig skin, too. What you are saying is just your personal opinion. Other would think differently. So please keep it to everyone's decision and ideas of finding an appropriate place for their base.

 

On 1/19/2016 at 4:17 AM, Wonkit said:

If anything, having the ability to move the Pig King would make it even more unfair for other players.

 

10 hours ago, Wonkit said:

However, if the King is moving from place to place

 

10 hours ago, Wonkit said:

but then think about the possibility of someone moving to the Pig King to somewhere you had already explored.

 

10 hours ago, Wonkit said:

For one, newcomers would still not know where the Pig King was moved to

This moving again. Forget it. I ve never mentioned to move the pig king, but the ability to raise one! How do you do that? Destroying villages? I told ya, what todo in that case. This endless travel is another issue, as like as destroying structures in seconds, where you needed many minutes to create them and the ability to log off while in combat. The issues themselves must be tackled. If you like to keep the game with this 'features', then you can use them as arguments. For me these are no arguments, because they are (software-/ design-/ time-)problems.

 

10 hours ago, Wonkit said:

realistically, not many servers will actually progress far enough to afford to build a new one because of the crown

And this is fine, because first: The Pig King is very difficult to kill and secondly it is very difficult to raise.

10 hours ago, Wonkit said:

That's because of the fact that the spiders provide monster meat, which can be turned into eggs for better food.

.. which in turn can be exchanged into gold.

I guess it brings nothing discussing it further. Anyway Klei can make his own mind up.

 

10 hours ago, Wonkit said:

After all it would require a coordinated group effort to kill the guy

RIGHT!!!!! It is DST

 

10 hours ago, Wonkit said:

Pig King would still likely be able to be slain by just a small base of two people as they can do with the Dragonfly is now

as like as everything else in this game, right? Just start a new world, when you are missing the pig king.

 

10 hours ago, Wonkit said:

but the truth is people would definitely do that in order to reach a new Pig King more quickly

The truth is, that such people and PvP-ler will always exist, doesn't matter if the pig king can be killed or not. Especially the PvP-ler are hammering everything, taking their interested resoureces and leave the other half behind. This is nothing new, it is already existing. You cannot argument with this statement, because destroying bases, burning forests, and killing noobs is very very easy peasy in this game. No one - even Klei (game itself) not - will stop you from doing this.

 

10 hours ago, Wonkit said:

That's still 160 logs, 90 stone, and 40 pig skins

Yes, WE can EDIT: and btw for god sake: you still have 10 pig houses!

[Wonkit]

Just to clarify, you are talking about PVP right? 

 

[werlpolf]

On 1/20/2016 at 3:09 PM, Wonkit said:

Just to clarify, you are talking about PVP right?

actually in general. I think features should match in PVP as well as in non PVP games in order not to diverge the play styles into different games.

Didn't I talk about elements, which are only for non-PVP? Like creating 10 Pig houses without destroying them?

Anyway, I think some modders need to handle it. Just talking good sense without doing anything isn't healthy. Maybe I get bored or get luckily enough time to try doing it. What I really like is to implement the Jacksparrow compass

 

 

[DwerBomb]

23 hours ago, werlpolf said:

actually in general. I think features should match in PVP as well as in non PVP games in order not to diverge the play styles into different games

I disagree. The game is called Don't Starve Together because you should collaborate, so coop is supposed to be the default mode to play. Pvp is an additional play style, and shouldn't influence the main game.

 

Having just one King in one place sounds fair.

[Wonkit]

I'd like to point out you were the one who stated that people fought over the pig king.

On 1/13/2016 at 7:52 AM, Trenix said:

People will be fighting over him and will have an enormous benefit being near him

I'm just saying.

 

 

14 hours ago, DwerBomb said:

I disagree. The game is called Don't Starve Together because you should collaborate, so coop is supposed to be the default mode to play. Pvp is an additional play style, and shouldn't influence the main game.

Agreed. If anything, I think PVP could use a few balancing tweaks since it's a bit unbalanced at times *cough*p

anflute*cough*.