So, does anybody think Insanity hits mark?

[Alvhem]

Okay that second smiley made me realize something.You are just a troll; i will not continue this conversation.

[Dr. Derpenstein]

Russian, by the way, top hats are not so outlandish in the plot of Wilson's timeline. The game is based in the 1920's.

[_Q_]

Start of day 6, I used like 3 wormholes, and picked up 21 flowers, my sanity is high and I found pigs villages and beefalos, cleared 1 spider nest.

[mikachu]

Well, a good point. If there is to be "sanity" at all, it should have no "meter", no "more or less" kind of thing. It is actually more of "either-or" condition. And it should not be bringing just more sorts of monsters. It's gotta be affecting judgement of a character. Maybe something like an airplane with damaged control lines. Or a character would see monsters and animals where there are none, and fail to notice the real ones. Or see the uneatable items as food and vice versa. And so on.

That's what I thought sanity would be adding. A sort of judgement error in the character, like fresh food appears spoiled or rotten and they can't eat it while they've got low sanity or something.The meter goes down a little too fast, honestly. Just in clearing out spider dens, I'll have to pick flowers/otherwise fill my sanity probably twice as often as I'll ever need to eat in the same amount of time. And jumping through wormholes twice depletes sanity by something like 80 points (roughly. Don't quote me on that, I'm probably wrong about the exact number ) Edited February 13, 2013 by mikachu

[Avarice]

The way the op talks you would think you play 5 minutes and go full blown insane. It takes many days to go crazy and it's easy not to...pick some flowers when you start, build up your base, make crockpot. You will never be insane again. Same with food, you can explore the entire map only eating what you find and not starve. I didn't build my base until day 32 on my current game.I honestly have no idea what so many people are doing to starve and go crazy in such a short amount of time.

[beno]

I start killing stuff immediately. I wouldn't call myself a very advanced player, having never seen day 30, but that's because I take risks. That's what I really like about this game. Any time you need to take 6 henchmen along for the ride, things probably aren't going to go your way. That's fun to me, though.Thinking through this as if I were a beginner, I would probably not have a problem with Sanity. In fact, I would find it to be an additional reason to play. It's a different level of game play that adds to the horror theme in a novel way. Like I stated before, it is very easy to keep sanity above 90 as it currently exists.I like the fact that this game is as difficult as you WANT it to be. Want it to be easy? No problem, don't take risks. Gather easily renewable resources, throw some frog's legs, morsels and monster meat at a few nearby pigmen and things are easy. But if you want to build a fortress, that takes some serious planning. Otherwise, you'll die halfway from the threats you face gathering the staggering amount of resources necessary to build lots of stuff.

[beno]

The way the op talks you would think you play 5 minutes and go full blown insane.

That's what I was thinking. Feels a little over the top to me.

I honestly have no idea what so many people are doing to starve and go crazy in such a short amount of time.

Me either. And I don't bother with flowers. The daylight is enough for me to recoup.

[GamingGorman]

The way the op talks you would think you play 5 minutes and go full blown insane. It takes many days to go crazy and it's easy not to...pick some flowers when you start, build up your base, make crockpot. You will never be insane again. Same with food, you can explore the entire map only eating what you find and not starve. I didn't build my base until day 32 on my current game.I honestly have no idea what so many people are doing to starve and go crazy in such a short amount of time.

Because people are bum rushing spider nests and diving down worm holes like slip n slides and wondering why their sanity is draining. Instead of adapting and changing how to play, they come here whine and demand it gets nerfed. Sanity killed me my first two games after the update, and now I miss it, I've yet to drop below 70%. Its way to easy to keep it up through bedrolls and the crockpot.

[jangofet]

Sanity needs to drop a little slower at night, and after looking at the wiki it seems like the "night light" has no use :CAlso, how does a robot become insane? Is Wx78 actually some guy in a robot costume? Or is he programmed to be able to become insane, which is would be really stupid. (self destruct button on the death star basically)

[mikachu]

Because people are bum rushing spider nests and diving down worm holes like slip n slides and wondering why their sanity is draining. Instead of adapting and changing how to play, they come here whine and demand it gets nerfed. Sanity killed me my first two games after the update, and now I miss it, I've yet to drop below 70%. Its way to easy to keep it up through bedrolls and the crockpot.

Speaking for myself, I'm not demanding the devs do anything. Yeah, I'm complaining, but I'm allowed to air my grievances with the update. I know stuff changes and I'm adapting to the update. I'm just in the habit of clearing out spider nests because I'd rather do it early on than wait for them to become a huge problem lolSometimes it's just cathartic to vent about something, even if it's trivial. People do that. Sometimes it's taken to the extreme, but for the most part, it's unfair to say everyone who nitpicks about the update is whining and demanding it be changed back. Edited February 13, 2013 by mikachu

[Oliver with a Twist]

Alright, this is my first post guys. :)This thread, particularly this message, compelled me to make an account and respond.

Okay, I am not saying there are no workarounds. "Insanity" forces the player to do certain things first, it demands certain amount of extra resources to fight it back.

The exact same holds true for health and hunger. There's "workarounds" when it comes to being hungry or badly hurt, and both force, rather compel, you to prioritize actions that are going to help you survive longer over other actions that you might've had planned. I see no reason why you should take special exemption to the sanity meter over the health and hunger ones.

But HOW does that add anything to the experience??

Any addition, by definition, adds to the experience. Whether or not it's a good or bad addition is up for debate, but it does ADD to it.

From what I see so far its mostly trouble, artificial difficulty, with no real connection to natural mental constitution of a human ( IRL it takes months and years of solitude to get unstable, not mere days )

This is pure special pleading. What connection to the the natural condition of a human does cutting rocks into stone blocks happen in half a second? How about fashioning timber into boards?What connection to the natural condition of a human is there to fighting a colony of giant monster arachnids? Or bipedal humanoid pigs?Better yet, what connection does any human have to a demonic wilderness?You do not care at all about these other conventions that have no real connection to the natural order of things, but just because you don't like the insanity update, you're trying to grasp at ANYTHING to be contrary.

And, BTW, what is more comforting and relaxing to a human being than a night spend near a good, well-arranged fire? It is in our blood, so to say And now the guys insist that my player character should go crazy because of that

They said you'd go insane if you went days without sleeping, and they're correct. People do go insane if they can't sleep over long periods of time, but then again, this is some otherworldly demonic wilderness in which the night is only a quarter of the day/night cycle, and btw, you DO retain more sanity the closer you are to your campfire at night.

[Cryten]

Damn guys dont make this feature pointless like you made gobblers and being naughty.

[Avarice]

Make it 100 days at least before trying to pick apart the mechanics, if you struggle to live 10-20 days then there is much you still need to learn about the game.

[ImStarving]

I sincerely hope the sanity system doesn't get a massive nerf due to people complaining that they can't simply ignore it and continue their old strategies. There really isn't much at all that needs tuning aside from the nightmare creatures perhaps.

[QShadow]

The sanity system is great as far as I can tell, I dont know if the majority just plays as Wilson but I dont, and cause of that I'm very pleased that you get a possibility to farm beard with non Wilson Charachters thanks to the sanity update.

[beno]

Make it 100 days at least before trying to pick apart the mechanics, if you struggle to live 10-20 days then there is much you still need to learn about the game.

I get the point of what you're saying, but please realize that "going for as many days a I can" isn't what drives me to play DS. I use a few days (usually just the first day) to get enough for an axe and pick axe, chop down a few trees, build a backpack and gather some food. That's really all I need to enjoy the game. From then on, its just explore and see how long I can live without a stable base. I've managed to get to about day 26 (I think) just continuously moving on. Eventually, I do something rash that gets me killed. In any other game, I would kingdom-build. While DS shares features of RTS games, I feel it's not designed to be played like RTS games.

[Tomily]

Oh, nice! Now I am forced to be friends with a PIG. And whats the reason for that? Nope, I don't think that vicinity of a pig-shaped human mock-up would make one more mentally stable... If I had a choice, I'd rather be befriending a DOG, or a beefalo, after all. Camping in the middle of beefalo crowd actually gives at least some comfort and protection.

You can do LOTS of stuff to not go insane. Pick flowers, eat cooked meat, eat ANY crock pot food, taffy especially, sleep, be friend of a pig, wear top hat, dapper vest, etc etc etc.You can play 500 days straight without going under 80 on the sanity meter.

[River Ravin]

I have to be honest, my first time truly playing was in this update. I've watched other people, and strategised, but that was it. I decided to start on Wes, just because he looked interesting. I jumped 3 worlds in a total of 7 days without dropping below 50 sanity (He only has 75, if you don't know), and I only found out about the bed rolls on day 6-ish. I died because of mis-clicking, but that's beside the point. It isn't that hard to not go insane. I think of it this way. Are most people used to slaughtering animals and being warriors in fights? No, that is things that hunters, and those in the military do. I don't know if I could kill an animal, and as for fighting, I doubt I could hold off those spiders for long. These things drain your sanity though adrenaline and desperation. You have to admit these characters we're playing are not either hunters or military, though Wolfgang and the robot may have a bit on them in that category. Doing things that are more normal and things you are used to can calm you, and help you regain your sanity. I think it's pretty balanced right now. I haven't tried any worm holes, and I didn't do much hunting, but what I have viewed seems okay. You just can't only murder and destroy everything around you and expect to be completely sane. Or jump through worm holes... Because, I mean... I doubt any truly sane person would go into something that toothy and slimy willingly..

[Khrayfish]

My two cents:

-It's easy to avoid going insane

-It's easy to go insane

It is a great addition to the game! I love this update.

However...

I would like to see some sort of familiarisation thing with insanity - for example if you have left your base for a couple of days sanity will fall faster (During the night) and will go up slower (During the day), then when you return to your base (Some sort of calculation will have to do I suppose however perhaps just a minimum of 3 structures - Fire, Science, Crock pot etc) and it will increase rapidly until you get 100% again.

Why?

When I leave my base for a couple of days I love returning to the safety of my base - free from monsters and untold horrors!