Other monkeys keep stealing stuff even after having given a banana to one monkey

[FreyaMaluk]

I did read the patch notes but I thought that other monkeys won't steal your stuff.

After the update, I was expecting that only the befriended monkey will throw me its loot and will, of course, stop stealing from me. But now it's like I need to give a banana to each and every single monkey for them to leave me alone. Well, that is just dumb IMO.

I'm not against a challenge, but this is just making the game frustrating.

I'm fully aware that the monkey ball in a chest was a bit much of an exploit, but without it and without the all-friendly mechanic monkeys are just too annoying.

I hope the devs can change this back or offer a better solution. This change is very uncool. 

[voyager156]

18 minutes ago, FreyaMaluk said:

But now it's like I need to give a banana to each and every single monkey for them to leave me alone. Well, that is just dumb IMO.

I'm not against a challenge, but this is just making the game frustrating.

I agree.

[stl1234]

Prime ape see, prime ape do.

They just watched you feed one of them, after it annoyed you by stealing everything. Of course they will repeat the behavior, so that you'll feed them too.

I think this is a good balance. They are still an awesome source of food and manure, and one banana is no longer is enough to make an entire jungle full of prime apes friendly, which was pretty silly. Now, they have a downside at least.

However, I'd still suggest one change. Feeding one will make it throw all the things he stole, if there was a bit of a time before others steal them again that would be ideal. The prime apes immediately stealing items given by another is rather hostile.

[SapphireBullets]

I'd have hoped giving a banana to a monkey would at least get the others to back off.

Maybe with a new little animation where your monkey friend does something to shoo away the others.

[TalZahn]

Agreeing with what's being said mostly; other monkeys should back off for a duration so you can get back some stolen items. Though i suppose if you combine it with a walled off silly monkey ball, you'd have the same effect.

[Daggaroth]

8 minutes ago, SapphireBullets said:

Maybe with a new little animation where your monkey friend does something to shoo away the others.

They could probably get away with using the sort of no/rejection animation they have when you're trying to give them items that they don't want, only, directed towards the other Prime Apes.

It would be nice if feeding a monkey meant at least his room-mates would be nice to you as well (though living in the same Prime Ape Hut). I would be a nicer balance between 1 Banana = 1 Monkey and 1 Banana = Infinite Monkeys

Oh well, I guess there is always walling in a Silly Monkey Ball or using Wilbur

[AnonymousKoala]

Thing is Apes feel...not worth it in the least now as friendly.

You want your loot back? you better find the specific ape.

You want the apes to not be jerks? better get enough bananas to eliminate hunger issues worldwide.

You want the apes to help you do stuff? yeah they dont do anything beneficial really.

At least they follow me, right? Nope, they're stuck on land like all other followers.

 

 

[HeilerderWelten]

51 minutes ago, AnonymousKoala said:

Thing is Apes feel...not worth it in the least now as friendly.

You want your loot back? you better find the specific ape.

You want the apes to not be jerks? better get enough bananas to eliminate hunger issues worldwide.

You want the apes to help you do stuff? yeah they dont do anything beneficial really.

At least they follow me, right? Nope, they're stuck on land like all other followers.

 

 

Just kill them all and burn down there huts like me...that is there destiny ^_^

[AnonymousKoala]

Just now, HeilerderWelten said:

Just kill them all and burn down there huts like me...that is there destiny ^_^

Yet they're befriendable.

Why make them so if they're useless for any purpose as "friends"?

 

[FreyaMaluk]

 

1 hour ago, stl1234 said:

However, I'd still suggest one change. Feeding one will make it throw all the things he stole, if there was a bit of a time before others steal them again that would be ideal. The prime apes immediately stealing items given by another is rather hostile.

Exactly.... It is indeed too hostile. I think that after the banana all surrounding monkeys should back off for at least 60 seconds. That is more than enough time to gather all the stolen items. 

Now there is a bigger problem mentioned by @AnonymousKoala

59 minutes ago, AnonymousKoala said:

You want your loot back? you better find the specific ape.

How in God's sake am I suppose to know which monkey was stealing what? This is just getting silly, really.

[DeputyDeath]

I've never had an issue with a prime ape stealing stuff that a befriended ape threw at me.

However, I'm still skeptical about this change. It's more balanced, but, as koala mentioned, finding a specific ape is pretty difficult and it can be extremely frustrating. Especially when you see a prime ape die and it was carrying over 20 flint plus your bird trap, but that's a problem for another thread.

At least make befriended prime apes more useful please? Maybe you could make them harvest food crops from berry bushes and improved farms, and they'd throw it all back to you. Just SOMETHING that means they can be utilised for a good purpose other than getting your freaking stuff back.

[TemporaryMan]

You don't need to find the specific monkey that stole your stuff, and you don't need to befriend them all.  Just befriend several of them at random and start a war.  (Skip to 23:00 for the monkey war.)

 

 

[AnonymousKoala]

11 hours ago, TemporaryMan said:

You don't need to find the specific monkey that stole your stuff, and you don't need to befriend them all.  Just befriend several of them at random and start a war.  (Skip to 23:00 for the monkey war.)

 

 

Thing is, other than monkey wars, they have no use. Pigs, bores, bunnymen, even rock lobsters(aka if you get me on the overworld my race will conquer it) have some usage, some reason to make you want to befriend them. Apes only have the fact you can monkey farm and that's it. 

[TemporaryMan]

Well, they demolish hounds and sealnado, they defend themselves from snakes and mosquitoes, and can be hired for a monkeys-vs-spiders war.  So there's a couple things they can do.  What do bunnymen do except judge your dietary choices?

I suppose if befriended ones could be ordered to climb trees to fetch coconuts, eggs or snakes that'd be a plus.  Or if they'd imitate you when you pick grass and twigs and then throw whatever they collect your way.

[AnonymousKoala]

1 hour ago, TemporaryMan said:

Well, they demolish hounds and sealnado, they defend themselves from snakes and mosquitoes, and can be hired for a monkeys-vs-spiders war.  So there's a couple things they can do.  What do bunnymen do except judge your dietary choices?

I suppose if befriended ones could be ordered to climb trees to fetch coconuts, eggs or snakes that'd be a plus.  Or if they'd imitate you when you pick grass and twigs and then throw whatever they collect your way.

Bunnymen make a bit better companions when insane. Beardlords ftw. (I do hate em though. But I hate apes more)

[stl1234]

6 hours ago, AnonymousKoala said:

Thing is, other than monkey wars, they have no use.

I'm going to disagree. Here are a few uses:

• They are an incredible fighting force in numbers, works against hounds, spider queen, sealnado, wildbores, snakes, etc..
• They help you gather twigs and grass while you are doing other things, if you hire them first.
• In small numbers they are helpful in collecting resources. Work on resources, let them collect, drag them away, feed them and/or kill them to retrieve everything. Banana = backpack.

What I'm planning to do is to wall off and dedicate part of my island, preferably snake infested section, or an entire island to prime apes to deal with hounds. I'll also use this to have them kil each other, which allows me to collect all prime ape drops, hounds teeth, snake skin.

In addition to above, I'll have a single hut outside of the wall. I'm going to use this to gather apes before going for tree chopping/bamboo hacking, they will act as a backpack. When I'm done, I'll feed them to get what they have collected for me, and stay near my twig and grass farm to have them collect grass and twigs while I do other things. Finally, before the bananas time out, I'll have them killed to gather their drops as well.

Before this change, they felt like an exploit. Now, they are bad unless you know how to utilize them (or play as Wilbur), like any other creature in Don't starve.

While they are still useful, I find it inconsistent that the was poison made a non-threat, but prime apes are made much harder to deal with. There definitely needs to be more balancing in the game (in addition to a lot of bug fixing). Couple of small changes I can suggest that could help make them more manageable:

• They can be fed vegetables and fruits other than bananas to befriend them for a shorter while. Or they could be just friendly, but not a follower when this is done.
• A bit of time after feeding one that they don't steal anything. Others should also expect to be fed, and if they are not in some time, then they can go back to being annoying.
• A banana fed to one could make a few apes friendly in a radius (similar to how meats work on spiders as Webber)
• They could drop their inventory of stolen items when they have (or chasing) silly monkey ball.
• They could drop their inventory of stolen items when they are asleep.
• (While this doesn't make it easier to deal with them, it makes them a lot more useful) They could pick pickables (twigs, grass, limpets, seashells etc.) even when they are not friendly. Which would allow the picked items to be retrieved later by another method.

Any number of the above could be implemented, all relatively easily, to increase their utility/difficulty ratio, which may be a better balance.

[SandvichSpy]

I found it pretty silly for an entire island of apes to stop annoying you just because you were friends with a single one of them.

I think this change made Wilbur feel alot more unique since other characters could just get the same benefits by feeding a single measly banana to one Prime Ape.

[oCrapaCreeper]

This does make Wilbur more useful I guess.

[AnonymousKoala]

7 hours ago, oCrapaCreeper said:

This does make Wilbur more useful I guess.

Huh.

That's true. Unlike Webber who has a hostile mob that is usually not that annoying anyway as his "friends", Wilbur doesn't lose any "friends", but instead can utilize the godawful apes much more easily.

[FreyaMaluk]

On 3/25/2016 at 7:38 PM, stl1234 said:

I'm going to disagree. Here are a few uses:

• They are an incredible fighting force in numbers, works against hounds, spider queen, sealnado, wildbores, snakes, etc..
• They help you gather twigs and grass while you are doing other things, if you hire them first.
• In small numbers they are helpful in collecting resources. Work on resources, let them collect, drag them away, feed them and/or kill them to retrieve everything. Banana = backpack.

What I'm planning to do is to wall off and dedicate part of my island, preferably snake infested section, or an entire island to prime apes to deal with hounds. I'll also use this to have them kil each other, which allows me to collect all prime ape drops, hounds teeth, snake skin.

In addition to above, I'll have a single hut outside of the wall. I'm going to use this to gather apes before going for tree chopping/bamboo hacking, they will act as a backpack. When I'm done, I'll feed them to get what they have collected for me, and stay near my twig and grass farm to have them collect grass and twigs while I do other things. Finally, before the bananas time out, I'll have them killed to gather their drops as well.

I agree with you. Monkeys are very useful. They have saved my a* multiple times from hounds, spider queens and other mobs and can also be used to gather and to store resources. BUT, I do consider a bit too much that you befriend a monkey and the others immediately steal what the other monkey is giving to you.

The majority of people playing SW see them as a banana and morsel farm, but not me. I do recognize their value and that's why I am not particularly thrilled that now I do need to kill them all if I want my items back.  

I suggest that there is time where they will back off after giving a banana. I doesn't need to be long, 20-30 seconds. That's fine. @SapphireBullets' idea is very cool I think.

On 3/24/2016 at 6:47 PM, SapphireBullets said:

Maybe with a new little animation where your monkey friend does something to shoo away the others.

It is not crazy to think that they will protect their benefactor from other monkeys, at least for a while.

Some of your suggestions are interesting as well:

On 3/25/2016 at 7:38 PM, stl1234 said:

• A banana fed to one could make a few apes friendly in a radius (similar to how meats work on spiders as Webber)
• They could drop their inventory of stolen items when they have (or chasing) silly monkey ball.

I do wish that they could be given the order to gather stuff like you do with piggies (chop, harvest). That would be really cool.

[Rellimarual]

I've never found any use for them, personally. Spiders and fishermerms are all anyone really needs.