The Gorge - First Impressions

[1bubbainpa]

So here is my overall impression from playing 4 games and reaching level 3. Bear in mind this is to simulate a new player trying out the gorge for the first time.

1. Some people (especially everyone now, since we don't have a clue on what to do) will pick up all the coins or hold onto part of the cooking kit, and have no idea what to do with them. This wastes precious time and often leads to a loss. I feel like most players do it innocently, but I can see this being an easy grief tactic.

2. The objective and goal is not clear. Sure, you gotta feed the big wormhole in the sky, but how exactly can we do it? We're offered 3 different cooking utinsels, which I assume can only create certain recipes. Then you've got all these types of seeds you can buy, along with all the other mobs wandering around the area. What's the best way to cook what?

3. I think the currency in the game should be universal or re-worked, I can see it easy for someone to buy the wrong thing and screw over the entire team.

4. The thrill of working together with 2 other people going around "Oh ****, what do we do" is great, but that will probably wear off in the future.

5. I've only fed the wormhole once, but the one time I did, we didn't recover any time. Don't know if this is intentional or not, because the next dish takes more time to make.

6. The bad ending is hilarious.

Overall, the Gorge lacks direction and understanding compared to the Forge. In the forge, you would see that characters have certain traits, which would assign some to be a mage or a tank, while the items would help reinforce that idea. The recipe system is gonna force anyone who wants to play this mode reliably to open up a webpage of all the recipes. No one in there right mind is just gonna guess their way through The Gorge after 20 failed attempts of getting past 2-3 dishes.

I'll probably have to keep playing and see if these ideas change, but this is my first impression of the overall beta gamemode.

[Quoth143]

I'd like to know if the characters have particular abilities we could use for the Gorge. That's a little hard to figure out. 

[Fuffles]

Its an alright event, maybe slow down the gnaw just by a tiny bit or increase the food saturation, because him wanting meat after the snack kinda is not easy to instantly get... maybe make the gnaw not be there for like the first few seconds and make him appear like a few seconds later so ppl can get a feeling of their surroundings

[I Heart Popcorn]

Please add an option to skip the cut scene at the end of the failed match.

[Zhuzha]

Something I found annoyingly fiddly: you can't open the pot while it's on the fire, you need to take it off and only then open.

[C0Rb3N]

I wonder if the Gnaw's hunger bar is supposed to replenish once you sacrifice food to it. Because the way things are right now seems pointless – the session lasts for about 10-15 minutes, no matter what. Also, that constant growl gets on your nerves after a while.

[axxel]

Sadly I couldn't try everything out, but I played every character. It seems their special perks are disabled for the beta. 

I get the idea that you can buy bigger kitchen utensils to switch out but couldn't I just pick directly from the container instead of pick up pot->open->take?

It doesn't make sense to me if the Gnaw's howl warns me if I'm going to lose anyway.

The soil looks like a brown carpet.

[Rellimarual]

I haven’t played it yet, just watched a few streams and read the forums, but it seems like it just tests different skills from the game. Yep, the Forge was easy to figure out because you’re being attacked, you have weapons, all you can do is fight. This will be harder because it requires more strategizing, plus, it will really reward players who can remember a lot of recipes off the tops of their heads. Probably this will not appeal much to the kind of player who sees kiting as the pinnacle of the game. Ironically, many of the Don’t Starve streamers I watch would prefer not to have to think about food at all, just live off of butterflies, seeds and the occasional meaty stew. So this will be more of a stretch for them than the Forge, but I also think it’s more innovative as an event and am really looking forward to getting a chance to play it.

[fimmatek]

As of now, it seems to me that the Gorge is much more error-sensitive and difficult to figure out than the Forge was and a planned strategy is way more important now to progress. I feel that playing in a group instead of with randoms is a huge advantage this time. Not sure how it'll be when the Gorge will be out for two weeks, maybe people will be able to cooperate better by than? Idk, we'll see.

49 minutes ago, Rellimarual said:

plus, it will really reward players who can remember a lot of recipes off the tops of their heads.

You can always check an already cooked meal's recipes, so you don't have to remember every correct combination.

Oh, btw, it looks like the cook book can store only 3 different recipes per meal. Is that actually the case and if so, is that intended or a bug? And which recipes are kept, the first 3 or the last 3 (recently discovered or old recipes)? I would like to know that.

[TemporaryMan]

49 minutes ago, fimmatek said:

As of now, it seems to me that the Gorge is much more error-sensitive and difficult to figure out than the Forge was and a planned strategy is way more important now to progress. I feel that playing in a group instead of with randoms is a huge advantage this time. Not sure how it'll be when the Gorge will be out for two weeks, maybe people will be able to cooperate better by than? Idk, we'll see.

If @Clwnbaby couldn't beat it last night with a consistent team and voice chat, I suspect the win% for randoms without voice chat will be 0.  I suspect the most common ingredient in the Gorge will be salt.  Remember how acrimonious the Forge was with randoms in gold speed attempts?  I suspect just trying to win at all will be like that, or worse.

 

Edit: I just got a call from someone named Clouseau, something about wanting his suspects back.  Any idea what that means?

[RancorSnp]

Well well well, so let's sum up the impressions Gorge Beta left on me. 

At first the Gorge felt very overwhelming, everything needed to be done at once everything was a mystery - typical don't starve. At this point it felt a little unfair, but also by far the most fun.  I dare to say early Gorge was way more fun than early Forge.  Forge, as much as I enjoyed it had no depth to it and was extremely boring, with enemies dealing not enough damage and tanking way too many hits.

After a few games, we got a basic idea of what dishes we can make, and who does well in what role. Splitting the responsibilities we fell into a confort zone, where we could easily survive for some time, but had no real idea on how to clear the map. And any experiments risked losing the map due to failed dishes. Despite that we somehow managed to figure out first favor dish.

And then the time update arrived. I'm still not really convinced about that one. While at this point my team still wouldn't be able to clear the map in under 15 minutes. Currently the amount time is very abundant, which helped a LOT in finding the remaining favor dishes we lacked,  but removed all feeling of pressure the map had.

That said, one thing I do appreciate about the Gorge is experience earned for time survived. The same thing that was the worst part of the Forge. In case of the Forge timer basically meant that the worse you are at the game, the more rewards you get. In case of the Gorge it's a brilliant risk and reward mechanic.  You can rush for the win and score 18 minutes clear, but this will reward you less, than surviving for 35 minutes before leaving the realm.  I really do like that.

The problem however is, that while the Gorge has all the depth, it has very little replayability. Even though gnaw changing the dishes he asks for from time to time, means you can't reliably win making the same 3 dishes. There is little reason to keep playing after you have already cleared it once or twice. And the excessive amount of time does contribute to it, as much as seeing how long you can wait before escaping is a good way to earn levels, there is no sort of pressure on the party that already has cleared it, as they are easily able to escape with 15 minutes to spare, it really does not matter how lackluster the performance is, which takes away the feeling of "I want to clear that again!"

The forge lacked any sort of depth and required almost nothing from the players, but it did keep me motivated to clear it again every day or two. It however run the beta for far too long, which resulted in me not having most of my skins. As even though full release boxes gave me maybe 10% of the costumes I had, I was already far too fed up (and too high level) to try and get them back. 

In that regard I feel like the Gorge beta ran for a good amount of time, as these two days were just enough to experience it fully , hopefully it was also enough time to fix the reported issues. Still, I'm afraid that my team won't keep playing the gorge for that much longer, as there is little left to achieve. 

Still I loved the Gorge a lot more than the Forge, it's definitely a step in good direction that makes me wait impatiently for the next event to come. I'm also hoping for a bit more lore (and that the final event will end with the most epic story conclusion boss fight , but that's unrelated to the topic)

[Rellimarual]

I’m seeing streamers who have cleared it going after accomplishments like getting all the recipes or clearing in 7 dishes.

one thing that might help is for the timer to be set variably, according to the average level of the players. This would put more of a challenge on experienced players but it would also make inexperienced players an asset because including one would give the team more time.

[Mgxc]

I find it nearly impossible to win without a team that you know. In forge it wasn't that much of an issue you can just join a team and finish it.