avoiding random death

[beefcake12]

Hi guys,

 

Warning {SpOILER}:

 

 

 

 

I just started this gamme with around 20 hours so far.  But then again once I got to winter with Wilbur it was a click fest to stay alive and warm and I didn't have any warm clothing {how do you get bunny fluff??}.

 

But i was doing ok until a random event at start of winter.  Walrus appears and at same time, two ice hounds.  I managed to defeaat the ice hounds but took too much blowdart damage and died.  Luckily I had  touch stone but then I had to get back to base to eat which was of course near the whole event, but then after getting my stuff on half health I just died to walrus again  even though I had log suit on  {i'm guessing my base was just too close to walrus portal?  LIke it was two screens away but they both still were there near my base{}.

 

Ummm so how can I get ready for events like this??  And I heard there is a boss that comes and destroys your base??  HOw do you recover from that / deal with that?  I admit its cheating but i'm already tired of injecting my hard-earned free time into this, making a nice base and reliable food sources, only to die to something like this is so frustrating.  Anyway sorry for whinging.

[Mobbstar]

Why didn't you flee and return with an ally? Getting help seems like the most reasonable approach against unexpected threats.

The walrus in particular is very slow, so you can lure it around to buy a bit of time for getting things from your base.

The best approach, however, is to just always assume that something is going to go wrong. Once you can spare the resources, leave some equipment at the touch stones.

[Majestix]

There are only so many things that can kill you, and eventually you will know them all and prepare for each one of them. Of course the most obvious one is starvation, and many people assume that once they got this down, they are sorted. Then the first winter comes, and they find that they don't have any warm clothing.

If you start in autumn, then you should, by day 20, have either a winter hat or, better, a beefalo hat, and a thermal stone. Also, once winter comes, start looking for "suspicious piles of dirt" and hunt down the winter koalafant. That will allow you to craft a very nice piece of clothing, the puffy vest.

The walrus camp can already be seen in the summer, it's a brown circle. In the winter it transforms into the usual camp. I actually like living not too far from the walrus camp: killing Mactusk gives you a chance to get his tusk, which you can use to craft a walking cane. The walking cane is, to me, a game changer - everything becomes so much easier with it. You also have a chance to get a nice hat, which regenerates you loads of sanity when you wear it. And of course those hound teeth also come in handy, e.g. for the sewing kit, to keep that breezy vest of yours from falling apart.

Having said that, you do have to know how to deal with the chaps. You can fight them alone. The usual strategy is to start taunting Mactusk while staying outside the range of his darts, until he utters his battle call, which will make the two hounds run ahead of him and chase you. Now you can safely deal with the hounds while staying out of Mactusk's range. Once you have done that, just run after Mactusk. He will start running away, but will eventually forget that you are right behind him and start leisurely walking back to his camp (he is, after all, only a walrus - not the brightest creature out there). That's when you kill him. However, a much simpler and safer strategy is to lure the whole party to a bunch of pigs, or pengulls, or beefalos in heat. The four will not last long. I often walk around the shore in the vicinity of the Mactusk camp to "summon" some pengulls.

When you kill them all, they respawn after 2.5 days. So if you didn't get that coveted tusk the first time round, come back in a few days and repeat.

As for the Deerclops, of course you don't want to let him destroy your base. When you hear his call (which will usually be at night), leave your base, put some serious distance between you and any structures that you care about, and engage the guy there (or don't if you don't feel up to it; he doesn't actually want to kill you, he just wants to destroy stuff). I always engage him, since his eye is awesome.

Anyway, you still have a lot to learn and to discover; the game is much deeper than you think, and than the title suggests.

[beefcake12]

Th'anks to you both.

[beefcake12]

Aaaaaand...i'm still at square one with this game.

 

I just don't get this game quite yet, but being a resectful gamer, will give it some more time.  Basically, I got some reliable food, tools, dug some gravestones, but I still feel stuck in the stone age technologically.  I don't want any s p oilers, just hints would be nice from a kind soul?  LIke everything I see and want to craft, needs some item that I can't seem to get or have no idea to get.  I have ex p lored my current world a little already and 

 

e.g can't get:

 

bunny fluff

way to capture fireflies

top hat

I do have gears and gems and some random items like dessicated tentacle to just add to the lovely layers of confusion and torment

 

And also I can bulid walls around my base but there is no door so whats the point?? {unless you could build walls then every night hammer one downm, get behind them,  and rebuild that one before nightfall?}

And why does my sanity plummet at night {playing as the main guy with beard}, even with a full fire??

Why does it seem i'm always so busy harvesting and refining food and resources that i don't have much time to do what I really want to do?  Its like "ohh, tommorow I think i'll go up there and use my shovel to dig gravestones".  Oh wait, crop needs harvesting, and replanting, and ok now i'll head off once i've dumped some stuff in chests.  Oh wait, need more chests as my chests are full.  Ok craftr a chest.  Oh wait, need more wood for chests {and will need extra for campfire etc.}  Go chop some trees   Ok i've crafted chest, dumped some stuff, and oh wait, traps have caught some rabbits, better see to those cause I can't see those traps in once it gets dark.  phew.  All done.   And nearly half the day is gone by already, hmmm, should I even bother because if I travel that far, then i'll have to use resources to make another campfire up there {or torch too I guess}.

 

And on top of that I don't know how long the jerky i've just stored in my chest will last.  Should I save it for winter or eat it now??

 

At times this game is more torment to me than good.  This will sound flagrant but I think the devs are sadists, want to see us suffer.  I'm honestly sick of being in the stone age wihile being taunted with all these things I could craft, if I had the resources, while every day an endless juggling act to stay alive manage resources fight random mobs and prepare for winter/summer, learning every -friggin- thing the hard way {i.e permadeath},   I bet they are laughing at reading these stories aboiut guys like me struggling to do anything just derping along while by day 20 they have created a friggin bad-ass ice- staff wielding freak who snacks on Deerclops and spelunks just for fun hahaha must be hilarious.

 

I would like an explanation from the devs, however insulting to my intelligence it is, why they made the game so tormenting ?.  Or do they expect everyone to just read hint guide and wiki and not learn things from exploring and experimeinting which is usually the best part of the game??  Happy to admit i'm still learning the game but sick of struggling while I walk around aimlessly just p icking flowers and randomly jabbing things with my dumb spear and log suit.  Hooray.

[Majestix]

8 hours ago, beefcake12 said:

I would like an explanation from the devs, however insulting to my intelligence it is, why they made the game so tormenting ?

I am not a dev, but I am just going to venture a guess: this game is not made for 10 year old kids that need instant gratification. Like you say, exploring, dying a lot, learning everything the hard way is the fun of the game. I like the fact that the game is hard (and can be tweaked to become even harder - I am guessing that you are playing without the Reign of Giants DLC so far), because otherwise it would get boring much more quickly.

Now for your actual questions: bunny fluff can only be found once you go down to the caves and either kill some giant bunnies (not the little cute things you see on the surface) or hammer down their houses. Basically, you still have some dying to do, before you should stick your nose down there (and then - you guessed it - you are in for some more dying down there). You can capture fireflies with a bug net (in the tools menu). So venture out at night with a bug net at the ready and when you find fireflies, quickly swap around between the torch and the net to catch some fireflies. The top hat is in your dress menu, and can be crafted with 6 silk.

And don't expect to stop dying any time soon. Be glad that the game is taunting you for so long, because once you have completely mastered it, it will become much less addictive.

[beefcake12]

 Thanks for your kind exlanation of how to get these things.  Yes I missed that you could craft a to p  hat from the menu.

 

14 hours ago, Majestix said:

Like you say, exploring, dying a lot, learning everything the hard way is the fun of the game

What I said was different, and where we might differ in our views, and that's fine.  I did say exploraing a lot and experimenting were one of the great joys of a game, but I did not say I think dying a lot is the fun of the game.  IN fact, to clarify I don't mind dying alot, but not when it is always permadeath AND to random stuff you cannot possibly predict nor prepare for, unlss you cheat and read wiki all the time. 

 

The fact that you have to die a permadeath so often to learn these things, when life is short enough already, is not my cup of tea in a game, nor are events that you cannot prepare for, until  again, you have to die to learn them, whether natural. or random.

 

Now, don't get me wrong, I hate and abhor hand-holding and the way it has infiltrated most games today.  But I stand by my views that building a game much  nearer the other end of the spectrum is just as bad   I don't mind if no-one agrees with me, i'm happy to be the only that truly feels this way, whether I appear immature, too mature, not yet mature, or some what mature, lol. 

 

Flagrants as it sounds, I still stand by more view that the devs are sadists, and an explanation to the way they made the game so painful and tormenting would be nice, especially as a paying customer who saw the good reviews, dont let me become jaded I thought I had finally bought a good game here??

[imsomony]

Take a look at the attached article @beefcake12 ... it was an interview with Jamie (Klei CEO) from back when the game was originally created, giving insights into why he and Kevin (Lead Developer/Designer) made things the way they are.

 

To some of your other questions about specific gameplay aspects:

 

Bunny puffs: you have to go into the caves and destroy bunny houses and/or the bunnies themselves. They just make a glorified sleeping roll or new bunny houses though, so they're not really necessary until you're in late-game and looking for ways to recreate the entire world in your image.

Winter warmth: since you're playing as Wilson, don't shave your beard! It helps with insulation. You can make rabbit earmuffs by catching rabbits in savannahs with traps, vests using koalefant trunks, a winter hat, a beefalo hat, or hope to get a Tam-o-shanter from the walrus. You can also use a thermal stone, heat it up nice and hot (glowing orange) next to a fire before you go exploring. But do note, as the thermal stone cools, its coldness will also affect your temperature, so you'll eventually need to reheat it or it will contribute to you freezing. I typically try to begin winter with a Winter Hat, and then spend every few days killing the walrus in hopes of getting his Tam-o-shanter. Both items provide warmth AND sanity boost, but the Tam moreso.

Fireflies: make a bug net and a torch, and go searching for them at nighttime. You'll need to stand right at their small light radius to catch them, doing quick switches between using your torch and your bug net.

Top hat: made with silk, so you'll need to kill some spiders and/or their nests.

Walls/Doors: purely decoration. I believe there may be a mod out there that adds doors if you really want them. I don't bother with walls myself until much later in the game, since they're just aesthetic.

Sanity: sanity management is a core element of the game, it drops at a steady rate for everyone when dusk and night comes, and all characters must find ways to keep it up. You can pick flowers to make a garland, wear the top hat, each cooked (not raw!) green caps, or kill the walrus in winter and hope he drops a Tam-o-shanter. In a pinch, you can make a straw bedroll and sleep for the night, however this causes your hunger meter to drop by 75 points, so make sure you have some food available for the next morning.

Food spoilage: all food spoils at varying rates, but if you can make an icebox and put it in there, it will slow the spoilage. No need to eat your jerky now unless you're hungry or it's beginning to turn, jerky lasts a pretty long time. Just keep an eye on the "spoilage meter". It goes from being full green (fresh), to half-yellow (semi-spoiled), to low red (nearly rotten). If you have a bird cage, you can feed spoiling cooked meat/jerky (even monster meat!) to the bird to receive fresh eggs to use in the crockpot. If the eggs start to spoil, you can refresh them by cooking them and feeding them to the bird again. By the way, are you playing regular ("vanilla") Don't Starve, or are you playing with the Reign of Giants DLC enabled? If you are playing vanilla, you can leave jerky on the drying racks and/or food in your crockpot indefinitely, and it will not begin to spoil until you take it off.

 

Also, if the permadeath aspect of the game is killing some of the enjoyment for you in these early learning days, there's a mod for that. However comments suggest that it may be crashing games when Shipwrecked is enabled. So if you own SW, don't make your save compatible with it for the time being, and hopefully @simplex will be able to update the mod soon.

 

 

Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic rewards in Klei’s latest game; Don’t Starve.pdf

[Ispin69]

Now that I started a new world, I keep dying from tentacle spikes and merms that chase me through 3-4 different biomes (i think there's a bug when the merm houses aren't in the swamp) in early game. I get greedy in the swamps when I see delicious loot but I'm not fast enough without the walking cane. And early on, I don't have the prestihabitator to make meat effigies. I can't find the touchstones even though I walk the entire map edges, rarely are the touch stones near the edges anyways. So it's like death after death -- so many maps lost after walking the edges of the entire map. It's really frustrating.

[imsomony]

4 hours ago, Ispin69 said:

merms that chase me through 3-4 different biomes (i think there's a bug when the merm houses aren't in the swamp)

There is a set piece in the game where either several merms spawn around a pig, or several pigs spawn around a merm. Sometimes there's a house in the center, but sometimes not. It's usually in a non-swamp biome, like a random patch of grass or forest. In that set piece, the merms chase you FOR AGES before giving up, and typically don't run back to the original spawn/set piece point, they just fall asleep once you've outrun them... is that what you're seeing?

[Ispin69]

2 hours ago, imsomony said:

There is a set piece in the game where either several merms spawn around a pig, or several pigs spawn around a merm. Sometimes there's a house in the center, but sometimes not. It's usually in a non-swamp biome, like a random patch of grass or forest. In that set piece, the merms chase you FOR AGES before giving up, and typically don't run back to the original spawn/set piece point, they just fall asleep once you've outrun them... is that what you're seeing?

Yes, I didn't know that was a set piece. Four merms killing one pig with a pig house, then they chase me forever and I can't make more torches. Fighting them is not a skill of mine. Usually I have dodge a bit then tank when stun locked but I never finish them without them getting a punch in or two and die or can't stop long enough to make another torch and die because it's night.

[R1ncewind]

it's pretty easy to avoid base destruction after winter even without agroing boss.

just build chests with few wooden walls (tbh i didn't looked for boss code to know how much structures is enough to fool him) around your base.  he will destroy it and do nothing after. Just walking around.

But better to agro him and lead him to aggressive animals/pigs to make them fight with each other It's pretty common strategy for any boss/event/hard mob.