The MacTusks - aren't they overpowered?

[Arlesienne]

Evening, kind folks,

I have been the group's MacTusk hunter for quite some time and have reached the point of believing the MacTusks are overpowered, even in the multiplayer version.

If I roll a long winter, it gives me about twenty-two days of the spawning period. The walruses respawn in a little over two days unless my estimates are incorrect. There is Papa MacTusk, Wee MacTusk and two ice hounds. Papa has his  lowdarts, Wee commands the hounds. So far, so good.

The problem is, once you have a strategy, you can farm the hunting party indefinitely, even when you end up the only person on the server. After acquiring five berets (not counting the one I gave my pal John) plus about seven tusks (again, the ones we made into walking canes do not count), I began thinking this may be an overpowered feature. I just used traps, tanged weapons and kiting (you can see the details here: http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/67575-the-curious-case-of-arlesienne-in-winter-pvp-or-how-i-farmed-berets-and-doubts-about-the-state-of-society/). Nothing special. With 111 maximum health and 100 hunger (less than Wes for comparison). I still managed to fight them all despite the lack of backup. Don't you think the walruses should be stronger or at least rarer?

 

[Karmattack]

I don't think they were ever meant to be particularly difficult, especially since they respawn. 

[CarlZalph]

Well, with server size going up to 16 by default you have to consider that everyone would want a cane and shanter.

Having an elite few having the items or the server fighting over the walruses because of their rarity doesn't promote teamwork.

 

Though some pure default worldgens can spawn just one walrus camp, lowering the walrus item output dramatically.

[AnonymousKoala]

13 minutes ago, Karmattack said:

I don't think they were ever meant to be particularly difficult, especially since they respawn. 

TBH most things in DS are jokes when you get to know them well enough. 

Its not necesserily bad though sometimes

[SuperPsiPower]

32 minutes ago, Arlesienne said:

Evening, kind folks,

I have been the group's MacTusk hunter for quite some time and have reached the point of believing the MacTusks are overpowered, even in the multiplayer version.

If I roll a long winter, it gives me about twenty-two days of the spawning period. The walruses respawn in a little over two days unless my estimates are incorrect. There is Papa MacTusk, Wee MacTusk and two ice hounds. Papa has his  lowdarts, Wee commands the hounds. So far, so good.

The problem is, once you have a strategy, you can farm the hunting party indefinitely, even when you end up the only person on the server. After acquiring five berets (not counting the one I gave my pal John) plus about seven tusks (again, the ones we made into walking canes do not count), I began thinking this may be an overpowered feature. I just used traps, tanged weapons and kiting (you can see the details here: http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/67575-the-curious-case-of-arlesienne-in-winter-pvp-or-how-i-farmed-berets-and-doubts-about-the-state-of-society/). Nothing special. With 111 maximum health and 100 hunger (less than Wes for comparison). I still managed to fight them all despite the lack of backup. Don't you think the walruses should be stronger or at least rarer?

 

I can agree with you on some points, but I think that the Mactusks are fine the way they are. Even when im in a group of 3-4 people, I find getting 4 tams and 4 canes more of a hassle. Plus we can use the spare canes for lazy explorers, which are just too good. And if we made them stronger, or drop rates less, people on dedicated servers wouldn't be able to get their own either.

[Mikeadatrix]

Step 1. Find the Walrus Nerds

Step 2. Have a pal, or if your lonely, kill the hounds.

Step 3. Have someone (or yourself) chase the big daddy.

Step 4. Wait for him to lose agro and walk back home.

Step 5. Beat the crap outta him with while he's stun locked.

Step 6. Come back 3 days later and rinse and repeat.

[Arlesienne]

I think that perhaps making them cooperate if more than one igloo spawned close would help. If they could have tactics like merms, pigs or spiders. I just like the initial challenge, but it quickly gets easy. Especially if you play on a roleplaying server. Limping back to offer the beret to one distant Wigfrid to gently flop over afterwards is less effective when you get several berets if you follow me ;). Which LUA governs HP if I may? I could increase the difficulty on my own with this information. Or is there a mod to make the hunt more memorable? I only see ones which make the loot craftable... I wish more players wanted to go for the walruses. Sadly, nobody ever joins me.

...Would a little plea for those similarly-minded to join me on a server be inappropriate :)...?

[smallishbird]

20 minutes ago, Arlesienne said:

Which LUA governs HP if I may? I could increase the difficulty on my own with this information.

Tuning.lua, although changing mactusk's hp won't make it anymore difficult because you could still stunlock him. 

[Arlesienne]

49 minutes ago, smallishbird said:

Tuning.lua, although changing mactusk's hp won't make it anymore difficult because you could still stunlock him. 

Isn't stunlocking available to melee weapons only? And his darts are infinite, I believe. I need a reason for players to cooperate to get the hunters down. They are one of the most exciting opponents as they have an agenda - until you find a strategy to farm them with little to no effort.

[Axehilt]

Feels like it's Tam o Shanters specifically which are too strong.  Best sanity hat in the game paired with decent insulation is the main problem. It creates more interesting decisions to have to choose one or the other, or have weak 'hybrid stats:

• Sanity Hat.  Best sanity gain
• Hybrid Hat.  Average sanity gain, average freeze resist
• Insulation Hat.  Best freeze resist

So even better than balancing Tams specifically would be if they did a balance pass for all hats so that at any given "challenge tier" you have hats that feel like balanced decisions and aren't as do-everything as the Tam (since the hybrid option should feel worse at both individual traits.)

[PillsStealer]

An easy way to kill them is to freeze the MacTusk then kill the hounds

Then murder the hopeless MacTusk

[Faintly Macabre]

1 hour ago, Arlesienne said:

Isn't stunlocking available to melee weapons only? And his darts are infinite, I believe. I need a reason for players to cooperate to get the hunters down. They are one of the most exciting opponents as they have an agenda - until you find a strategy to farm them with little to no effort.

Melee as opposed to what? What else would you fight him with? Either way, stunlock doesn't even enter into the equation if you chase him to the point of leashing, as he'll bumble back towards home and happily let you whack away unless you make the mistake of switching targets for more than a couple seconds.

[Arlesienne]

8 minutes ago, TheHalcyonOne said:

Melee as opposed to what? What else would you fight him with? Either way, stunlock doesn't even enter into the equation if you chase him to the point of leashing, as he'll bumble back towards home and happily let you whack away unless you make the mistake of switching targets for more than a couple seconds.

As I mentioned. I kill them with traps and ranged weapons. If I have Archery installed, it is traps and a bow. If not, darts and traps. Maybe with gunpowder. Not really a fan of boomerangs, I usually prototype one and give it to another player. While I appreciate all comments, I specifically mentioned the fact I am beginning to grow restless with how easy hunting the hunters has become for me. So I am not looking for an easy way.

@Axehilt's idea is actually interesting. But the beret is tier two, not tier three. So I use a beefalo hat to prevent freezing and the beret just for spelunking.

[Faintly Macabre]

4 minutes ago, Arlesienne said:

While I appreciate all comments, I specifically mentioned the fact I am beginning to grow restless with how easy hunting the hunters has become for me. So I am not looking for an easy way.

The point was just that whatever difficulty you add to them will be artificial and if your players don't want to do it the hard way, changes you make to HP or anything else will be invalidated by the aforementioned AI quirk.

[TemporaryMan]

@Axehilt except it already is balanced that way, and the tam isn't a "do-everything" hat:

• rabbit earmuffs minimal effort, minimal warmth
• winter hat moderate effort, moderate warmth, moderate sanity
• beefalo hat high effort, high warmth, protection from beefalo, 20% waterproof
• tam o'shanter high effort, moderate warmth, very high durability, very high sanity

So in the end, you have to choose between warmth or sanity, beefalo protection or sanity, waterproofing or sanity, ease of maintenance or warmth... it's only the rabbit earmuffs and winter hat that are truly obsolete.  Add in an eyebrella and you can easily find yourself spending the end of winter/start of spring choosing between eyebrella + cane + warm clothes, or beefalo hat + umbrella + backpack, or umbrella + backpack + tam and just hope you don't get too wet...

[Arlesienne]

Winter hats are not obsolete. Neither are rabbit earmuffs. Making the dapper Maxwell wear them and then taking screenies... Glorious!

Either way, I would only make changes in the LUA for myself (if playing alone). I worry about having been misunderstood.

[Axehilt]

18 hours ago, TemporaryMan said:

@Axehilt except it already is balanced that way, and the tam isn't a "do-everything" hat:

• rabbit earmuffs minimal effort, minimal warmth
• winter hat moderate effort, moderate warmth, moderate sanity
• beefalo hat high effort, high warmth, protection from beefalo, 20% waterproof
• tam o'shanter high effort, moderate warmth, very high durability, very high sanity

So in the end, you have to choose between warmth or sanity, beefalo protection or sanity, waterproofing or sanity, ease of maintenance or warmth... it's only the rabbit earmuffs and winter hat that are truly obsolete.  Add in an eyebrella and you can easily find yourself spending the end of winter/start of spring choosing between eyebrella + cane + warm clothes, or beefalo hat + umbrella + backpack, or umbrella + backpack + tam and just hope you don't get too wet...

Er, but your list shows exactly why the Tam isn't balanced like I'm suggesting and is overpowered (providing both "very high" (the best) sanity and also moderate warmth.)

6.7 sanity/minute solves nearly all sanity concerns. This means (unless they added much tougher sanity challenges) it wouldn't make sense to add a hat with better sanity gain than that.  This means the Tam either needs to provide 6.7 sanity/min and nothing else (sanity hat), or it needs to provide 120 secs insulation with ~3.3 sanity/min.  

The Beefalo Hat itself is nearly in the same boat, since ThermStone with one of the 120 insulation hats gets you through basically the entire day.  But at least in this case there's some value to the Beefalo Hat (you can drop the thermal stone.)  Whereas with sanity there's really just no need at all for sanity above 6.7/min.

[AnonymousKoala]

32 minutes ago, Axehilt said:

Er, but your list shows exactly why the Tam isn't balanced like I'm suggesting and is overpowered (providing both "very high" (the best) sanity and also moderate warmth.)

6.7 sanity/minute solves nearly all sanity concerns. This means (unless they added much tougher sanity challenges) it wouldn't make sense to add a hat with better sanity gain than that.  This means the Tam either needs to provide 6.7 sanity/min and nothing else (sanity hat), or it needs to provide 120 secs insulation with ~3.3 sanity/min.  

The Beefalo Hat itself is nearly in the same boat, since ThermStone with one of the 120 insulation hats gets you through basically the entire day.  But at least in this case there's some value to the Beefalo Hat (you can drop the thermal stone.)  Whereas with sanity there's really just no need at all for sanity above 6.7/min.

*6.6

6.7 is Maxwell. 

I will be quiet about anything more though because I passively hate the Tam O' Shanter being called amazing sanity hat. It blocks night sanity drain and that's it. That's its one good thing sanity wise. 

[Axehilt]

1 hour ago, AnonymousKoala said:

*6.6

6.7 is Maxwell. 

I will be quiet about anything more though because I passively hate the Tam O' Shanter being called amazing sanity hat. It blocks night sanity drain and that's it. That's its one good thing sanity wise. 

If you're positive about that number, please update the wiki.

Your comment about Tam being called amazing makes no sense.

• It has double the sanity gain of the second-best sanity hat in DST.
• Night sanity drain is probably 80-90% of all sanity drain that happens in DST.  

Why on earth would you hate people calling it amazing?  It basically removes sanity concerns from the game while worn (while also providing great insulation and lasting long.)

 

[TemporaryMan]

If you  think being the best at one thing and just average at a single other thing is OP, just wait 'til you see the eyebrella, hibearnation vest, floral shirt, windbreaker, horned helmet, scalemail and blubber suit.

As for being twice as dapper as the next best hat, the beefalo hat is twice as warm as the second-warmest hat, eliminates beefalo attacks, and paired with an umbrella it eliminates wetness, too.  That's three concerns from early spring solved.  Honestly, I use it instead of the tam half the year; the hibearnation vest is more than enough to solve sanity issues in winter.

Night drain isn't 80-90% of sanity loss; even in winter with the longest nights of the year, night drain barely amounts to more than what you'll lose during the deerclops fight.  If there were no wormholes, no other monsters and nothing else that drains sanity, night drain would be ~55% of sanity loss during winter, less every other season of the year.

And as for the durability, since the sewing kit restores 5 days' durability, any additional amount past 5 days just allows me to get away with being lazy and not paying attention.

[Arlesienne]

Um, alright, Gentlemen, let's assume I'm lazy or just enjoy the looks of the beefalo hat. My original intention remains - how to occupy yourself during winter? And believe me, I use a very winter-prone character for more challenge, because the MacTusks are making it a bit too easy otherwise (as in: "Placing Fireplaces Is Kind of Boring and You Cannot Wander the Swamp That Much").

[Muche]

Tam o' Shanter and Maxwell have exactly the same sanity bonus TUNING.DAPPERNESS_LARGE=6.6666666666.

[Arlesienne]

4 minutes ago, Muche said:

Tam o' Shanter and Maxwell have exactly the same sanity bonus TUNING.DAPPERNESS_LARGE=6.6666666666.

Do keep that information away from my players please. Some of the most creative ones would be the first to suggest a vest... made of Genuine Maxwells for Best Dapperness (TM).

[Faintly Macabre]

1 hour ago, Arlesienne said:

My original intention remains - how to occupy yourself during winter?

I do wish there was more Winter content. The challenges Winter presents early in the game make up the content but later on in a world it just turns into 15 days of eating and waiting for the Deerclops to show up.

[Arlesienne]

7 minutes ago, TheHalcyonOne said:

I do wish there was more Winter content. The challenges Winter presents early in the game make up the content but later on in a world it just turns into 15 days of eating and waiting for the Deerclops to show up.

Exactly. And hunting winter-inclusive mobs. The walruses and koalefants. Just no pengulls. Call me a chicken, but they terrorise me. I can steal an egg at times, but usually it is just waiting for thrm to rot for gunpowder.