Reworking DST auto-attack and attack prioritization

[EpicCity]

I've been playing a lot of Solo Dst recently as Wolfgang, and couldn't help but notice how bad auto attack is compared to singleplayer don't starve. I have about 350 hours on singleplayer don't starve, and about 50 on dst. DST auto attack has delay between switching targets, which means after killing a target, you can't attack a new target for a short period of time. Say you have 2 spiders on screen, as Wolfgang you can one hit kill a basic spider. So you kill one of them, and while still holding control+f, Wolfgang will stand still for about a half second before attacking the second spider. This makes the DST combat system super clunky. The fix doesn't even require that much work, just port over the auto attack from regular Don't Starve, which has no attack delay. Now, I'm not quite sure if this attack delay was added to balance PVP, but at least when fighting NPCs, we don't need this delay because it's a pain to deal with after being used to the normal auto attack.

[Soulk]

I know right, i feel the same when i changed from DS to Solo Dst, but now i am used to the system if you know you 1 hit things press F for each creature, when i play wolfgang and i have full belly and i know i 1 hit any spider with ham bat and there are like 6 of them around me i just time each F so its F  F  F  F  F  F and it´s done, indeed i think this is to help on PVP but anyway a lot of things are different from DS to solo DST, for instance i really really like the cancel attack on DST i've died several times on DS because i press F and no way to stop my character, the bad thing i had to get used to the new kite for monsters for example i can hit beefalo 6 times but when i started on DST on the 6th attack was canceled so i was hitting 5 times, but in DS when you already started the 6th attack and you press S to move down as he finish i was used to that, now i have to wait until last hit land to move.

[PillsStealer]

Hey, welcome to the forums!

4 hours ago, EpicCity said:

DST auto attack has delay between switching targets

The reason why there is a delay between attacking is the game is the game is "predicting your movement" This is all the thing with input lag. In other words, the animations "tend to lag". You can change this by disabling "Movement Prediction" in the options settings.

 

I personally like the delay attack, it's useful for canceling attacks. Spider Wars!

[JohnWatson]

Let go of F after every kill to skip the delay then press F again. That's it. Problem solved.

You should also take advantage of attack-cancelling, kiting is a lot easier in DST because you could cancel your attack animation. Just use your ears to determine when you hit and start dodging at that moment. Try it on the insanity creatures.

If you have perfect timing, you could even achieve a faster attack speed. Try this with punching. Find a mob to fist, then cancel your animation after every hit to speed up your punching rate.

[pofil]

7 hours ago, JohnWatson said:

Let go of F after every kill to skip the delay then press F again. That's it. Problem solved.

You should also take advantage of attack-cancelling, kiting is a lot easier in DST because you could cancel your attack animation. Just use your ears to determine when you hit and start dodging at that moment. Try it on the insanity creatures.

If you have perfect timing, you could even achieve a faster attack speed. Try this with punching. Find a mob to fist, then cancel your animation after every hit to speed up your punching rate.

Have you actually tested if mobs take damage when you cancel the animation? In my experience, whenever I don't finish a hit, my weapon does not use up durability and the mob does not take damage. The animation needs to complete, or be very close to completion at least, for the attack to work.

Thanks for the tip on letting go of F after a kill, though, I will try it.

[PanAzej]

Oh, I thought this will be a thread about how characters don't prioritize attacking hostile targets while attacking with ctrl+f.

I attacked butterflies way too many times instead of that pesky hound who's onto me.

Or even better - a bird that just landed nearby 2 seconds ago.

[TheKingDedede]

5 minutes ago, PanAzej said:

Oh, I thought this will be a thread about how characters don't prioritize attacking hostile targets while attacking with ctrl+f.

If you just hold F, you'll target the nearest hostile mob running towards you. Holding CTRL+F makes it so your character will attack anything nearest to them, and just holding F near a hostile mob will suffice. If you have a mouse, you could also just try using CTRL+Left Click to attack mobs with precision. Much better and much more precise than using CTRL+F and running around attacking butterflies during a hound wave.

[EpicCity]

5 minutes ago, TheKingDedede said:

If you just hold F, you'll target the nearest hostile mob running towards you. Holding CTRL+F makes it so your character will attack anything nearest to them, and just holding F near a hostile mob will suffice. If you have a mouse, you could also just try using CTRL+Left Click to attack mobs with precision. Much better and much more precise than using CTRL+F and running around attacking butterflies during a hound wave.

Oh really? I didn't realize it was like that. I also had some problems attacking non hostile monsters nearby, thanks for the advice!

[JohnWatson]

5 hours ago, pofil said:

Haveyou canimy tested if mobs take damage when you cancel the animation? In my experiencesouenever I don't finish a hit, my weapon does not use up durability and the mob does not take damage. The animation needs to complete, or be very close to completion at least, for the attack to work.

Thanks for the tip on letting go of F after a kill, though, I will try it.

The animation does not need to complete, it just needs to finish half-way. It's easy to see this by listening to the impact sounds then cancelling right when you hear the hit.

[PanAzej]

2 hours ago, TheKingDedede said:

If you just hold F, you'll target the nearest hostile mob running towards you. Holding CTRL+F makes it so your character will attack anything nearest to them, and just holding F near a hostile mob will suffice. If you have a mouse, you could also just try using CTRL+Left Click to attack mobs with precision. Much better and much more precise than using CTRL+F and running around attacking butterflies during a hound wave.

It's still annoying how a lot of times ctrl+f picks for example a bird over a butterfly, even if butterfly seems to be closer to you, and there's no way you'll melee-kill that bird that just landed nearby.

Clicking butterflies with mouse? I'd rather not...

[TheKingDedede]

6 hours ago, PanAzej said:

Clicking butterflies with mouse? I'd rather not...

Just use CTRL+F when not in danger so you can kill butterflies in peace. Birds swooping in are annoying, though.

Also, I just thought I'd throw in a bonus tip. If you CTRL+F a target and swing at it at least once, you can then just transition to using F. You then should be able to attack your intended target as long as you're within range and just holding F, and you're character will then focus on that one target without getting distracted. Almost as if you had locked-on onto it or whatnot.

[ItsPizzaTime]

One of the main reasons I don't play single-player is because of how the combat in this game is, also that you can hold something with your mouse and press space to still pick things up. Little things like these make a huge difference for me in comparison of the two games.