Multiplayer suggestions - couldn't find the individual threads.

[kxdx]

Hello, salute, bonjour, users of the DS forums!

 

I have been following and listening closely to the members of this delirous place, helping me to survive the harsh environments of Don't Starve (thank you MyCological for the Wickerbottom suggestion, love playing her), (Maximum124 for the hilarious Wilson door drawing, sat up laughing all night) and the thousands of other members that live on this board that have helped make Don't Starve what it is today.

-Appreciation end-

 

Now as you may of guessed, I have not fully figured out the forums yet, so bear with me as I am willing to close and relocate my suggestions to their appropriate multiplayer boards/threads on the forums.

 

The topics I will be contributing to are as follows:

 

Ghost implementation on death of characters and ghost counter-play mechanics

- Counterplay, Counterplay, Counterplay, Counterplay! (more so questions to help understand my suggestions)

How does it feel playing as the ghost? 

Does it feel like a burden on allies to try to revive you? 

Does it feel wrong/boring that the other player can not contribute to gameplay in ghost form?

- Ghost player properties

Ghosts can not die, starve or go insane

Ghosts produce a minimal radius of light

Ghosts produce a respectable insanity aura to counteract infinite light source abuse.

(inspired from old Abigail)

- Each player's ghost has a certain perk while dead that relates to their past lives

Wilson provides an insulation factor of 60

Woodie is still able to help chop trees but at a slower rate

Willow produces a larger light radius

Wendy produces a lower insanity aura (being comfortable with death)

WX-78 pacifies nearby clockwork chess pieces acts as a lightning rod

Wes trails a balloon behind him

Wolfgang provides a 0.25 damage bonus to nearby allies (transfers his strength and fears to his allies)

Wickerbottom summons an occasional shadow tentacle to strike nearby enemies (rare) or bird (common).

Maxwell still looks dapper as a ghost OR summons a shadow puppet for 8 hours a day, 2/3 uptime. (previously thought of a sanity aura but it would abuse the light source and dwarf Wendy's perk)

- Exiting players remain as ghosts when re-entering the world to prevent death, relog and rejoin abuse. 

 

Functionality suggestion on the Sleep mechanics

- Player A enters sleep state and will remain in sleep state until the start of the next morning, being immune to health, hunger and sanity damage until exiting sleep state. The player will exit sleep state the next morning, receiving their respective health/hunger/sanity changes. (eg. straw roll, -75 hunger/+50 sanity upon waking the next morning)

- If all players on map sleep, the day will skip to the next morning, upon players exiting sleep state, each player will receive respective health/hunger/sanity changes.

- If the sleeping apparatus (e.g. tent) is destroyed during the sleep state, before the next morning, the player will get ejected from the apparatus and have a 1 second invulnerability period.

 

OR

- Player A entering sleep state and will become immobile for a maximum of 30 seconds. After the timer has expired, the player will exit sleep state, receiving their respective health/hunger/sanity changes.

- The sleeping apparatus functions normally when interacting with morning, providing full bonuses upon exiting sleep state.

- Players can manually exit sleep state prematurely, consuming the sleeping apparatus' durability (e.g. straw roll 100%, fur roll 33%), gaining a fraction of the bonuses based on 30 seconds = 100% bonus.

(thank you Starbladek)

 

Character duplication suggestions

- Gender bend version of existing characters

Effectively doubling the character roster with minimal effort on developer's side

Introduces an alternate solution to lore conflict (eg. two Wilsons)

- No colour palette swap

Don't Starve has a very distinct artist style and colour composition that would be corrupted with the introduction of shortcut colour palette swaps when the Developers have dedicated so much time to making the characters look amazing. 

(go ingame and look at wolfgang's striped overalls or wendy's flower and appreciate how the red complements the character)

- player enabled duplication option

 

Multiplayer portal introduction

- Surfaces from the ground to signal the arrival of a multiplayer guest.

- Players can not bring anything from previous worlds to gain advantage over other individuals at the start of the game

 

User interface when choosing Multiplayer

- sharing/stealing (suggested from http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/36197-naughtiness-for-harming-other-players/)

- structure sharing/individual (special thanks to Maximum124)

- Duplicate characters yes/no (Thanks to brummbar7)

- Shared respawn yes/no (I feel respawn should fall under a separate share category as opposed to other structures.)

 

Please give feedback on these suggestions or contribute your own, I would love to hear ponies's opinions on what I've suggested AND hope it sparks some of your own!

P.S. how do I construct spoiler tabs to condense this wall of text? thank you.

 

Regards, kxdx

[Dwarfscout]

You seem to have some really cool and interesting opinions on it so far. I especially like the idea of ghosts giving an aura, it'd be a great way of dead companions still contributing without making death a boon. My only real criticism is would WX-78's be too specific/too powerful at one particular point and useless anytime else? 
Anyway, I'm really interested in seeing how these ideas might adapt/change with the release of new info or the input of other people on the forums.

[kxdx]

Here is my suggestion of identifying individually owned player structure, in the picture below.

It was inspired by Maximum124's drawing of Wilson's door.

 

A very good point Dwarfscout, I had missed the fact that WX's perk would be pointless if there weren't clockwork chess pieces on the map. (e.g. the biome had already been cleared or ponies weren't willing to explore the ruins.)

[Starbladek]

This thread is very well organized, which I greatly appreciate.

 

 

Ghost Implementation:

The one you suggested is not something I would want. I believe the penalty for dying in multiplayer should be that you are no longer able to be with your friend, whether it be in ghost form or living form. I want to feel lonely when my partner dies. I don't want to see them hovering about as if they're still around, let alone give me some gameplay benefits.

 

But, by the same token, I'd like to contribute atleast somewhat to the world. Have something beneficial to do while I wait to be revived. It would be boring to just be an invisible ghost floating around spectating the others. I don't know how to remedy that. Maybe have the dead player transport to some nightmare realm or something, where they can live indefinitely until they are revived, and gather some stuff they could bring back into the real world.

 

On the whole, I don't want there to be interactivity between the dead player and the living players. But I also want to be able to do something while I'm dead. I'm not sure what that would be at the moment, though.

 

 

Sleeping Mechanic:

I think sleep should just be changed so that it isn't used to skip night at all. You'd use the sleeping bag, and your player would become immobile for a maximum of 30 seconds or so, at which point they would automatically wake up with all the benefits/penalties of sleeping. You can manually wake yourself up at any point, incase something urgent arises, but you'll only gain a certain amount of sanity relative to how long you were asleep, and your straw roll would still be destroyed.

 

You'd still only be able to sleep at dusk/night, and if morning comes while youre still sleeping, youll automatically wake up.

 

 

Gender Bending Characters:

Now that's just silly.

 

I don't think a color palette swap is a good idea either. I think that people should just be forced to choose different characters upon starting a game. If someone chose the character you wanted, tough luck. You also wouldn't be allowed to join games where someone is the character you are.

 

 

Multiplayer Portal:

That would be really neat to see a portal spring out of the ground and someone walk out of it! I don't think people should be able to bring stuff as well, but that would create problems with being unprepared if the world is currently in summer or winter.

[Parrotoss]

I really like the ghost suggestion, but instead of having a ghost form be permanent, it should have a time limit and then the player would be dead dead. It would be a nice mechanic to attempt a last ditch rescue or revenge quest.

[Ridley]

Hmmm

 

After a few hours of ghosting, I am going to really wish I could play with my friends again as my character. I don't want to have to keep restarting games because of a careless death, or even death by a possible bug. Obviously, areas of the game will be easier with more players; though death should not be as inherently permanent as SP. 

 

Fun is the name of the game with MP, while keeping the Don't Starve challenging wilderness. Dying and restarting servers to play with friends will get old after awhile, which would hinder MP. Being punished for dying, without making you compelled to want to start over, would better MP. 

 

Obviously though, if everyone dies its time to wipe that world clean.

[kxdx]

Fun is the name of the game with MP, while keeping the Don't Starve challenging wilderness. Dying and restarting servers to play with friends will get old after awhile, which would hinder MP.

Indeed, a great point. Why make a convoluted system that just hinders gameplay progression in the end when you could introduce a death mechanic for other players, who are dead, to still enjoy the game.

 

Parrotoss, may I ask you, How does it feel playing as the ghost? (especially when your timer runs out and you can not revive as you are suggesting.)

 

This is the main reason why I highlighted COUNTERPLAY. It is an integral part of game balance and player interactivity.

For an appropriate explanation of what counterplay is, I would suggest watching 

because they will explain it far better than I ever could.

[Ridley]

@kxdx 

 

I love those guys. I try to use them and the jimquistion as a spine for how I approach problems/ideas in the games I play. I always recommend extra credits, jim kind of scares me at times though. He contains elements I wouldn't say out loud, but I do watch his stuff.

[kxdx]

This thread is very well organized, which I greatly appreciate.

 

 

Ghost Implementation:

The one you suggested is not something I would want. I believe the penalty for dying in multiplayer should be that you are no longer able to be with your friend, whether it be in ghost form or living form. I want to feel lonely when my partner dies. I don't want to see them hovering about as if they're still around, let alone give me some gameplay benefits.

 

But, by the same token, I'd like to contribute atleast somewhat to the world. Have something beneficial to do while I wait to be revived. It would be boring to just be an invisible ghost floating around spectating the others. I don't know how to remedy that. Maybe have the dead player transport to some nightmare realm or something, where they can live indefinitely until they are revived, and gather some stuff they could bring back into the real world.

 

On the whole, I don't want there to be interactivity between the dead player and the living players. But I also want to be able to do something while I'm dead. I'm not sure what that would be at the moment, though.

 

 

Sleeping Mechanic:

I think sleep should just be changed so that it isn't used to skip night at all. You'd use the sleeping bag, and your player would become immobile for a maximum of 30 seconds or so, at which point they would automatically wake up with all the benefits/penalties of sleeping. You can manually wake yourself up at any point, incase something urgent arises, but you'll only gain a certain amount of sanity relative to how long you were asleep, and your straw roll would still be destroyed.

 

You'd still only be able to sleep at dusk/night, and if morning comes while youre still sleeping, youll automatically wake up.

 

 

Gender Bending Characters:

Now that's just silly.

 

I don't think a color palette swap is a good idea either. I think that people should just be forced to choose different characters upon starting a game. If someone chose the character you wanted, tough luck. You also wouldn't be allowed to join games where someone is the character you are.

 

 

Multiplayer Portal:

that would create problems with being unprepared if the world is currently in summer or winter.

Ghost implementation:

As stated, I would love feedback on my ideas and hope that it sparks your own ideas! 

The nightmare realm feels interesting but not well fleshed out, could you give it some more insight? Would the realm promote player death? How would players reenter the living world?  Is it too much coding effort (and change from single player) to generate an entirely new world specifically for multiplayer? 

 

Sleep mechanic:

That was actually my previous concept until my own experiences influenced my current concept, I use straw rolls to skip night/dusk more than the sanity bonus.

If players can automatically eject themselves at will, could it be abused in combat to sleep tank in the tent with the health regen? etc.

Finally, what happens if you got ejected into the middle of the night with no light sources and you were depending on morning's light to survive?

 

Gender bending characters:

hehe yeah, I was a shot in the dark to find an alternative solution to character duplication and colour palette swapping. 

But I don't want someone who only feels comfortable playing e.g. willow to suddenly be excluded because someone was faster in the character select or a willow already exists in that game.

 

Multiplayer portal:

Haha, isn't that the point of getting screwed with a winter start?  The challenge of King of winter?  The developers have already introduced an option to start a game on winter/summer/autumn or spring so I feel it isn't unfair, but a part of the game. I love the concept even more now sorry.

 

Thank you for your input, you have given me a lot to think about and I will attempt to alter my suggestions.

[Guest]

- No colour palette swap

Don't Starve has a very distinct artist style and colour composition that would be corrupted with the introduction of shortcut colour palette swaps when the Developers have dedicated so much time to making the characters look amazing. 

(go ingame and look at wolfgang's striped overalls or wendy's flower and appreciate how the red complements the character)

- player enabled duplication option

 

I actually disagree with this.  I think recolors wouldn't be that bad.  I even made a little mock-up of what it would look like if everyone played as Wilson (Although it's been posted several times now, so I'll just include the link: http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff10/SpookersandOckwardd/Wilson4.png).

[kxdx]

I actually disagree with this.  I think recolors wouldn't be that bad.  I even made a little mock-up of what it would look like if everyone played as Wilson (Although it's been posted several times now, so I'll just include the link: http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff10/SpookersandOckwardd/Wilson4.png).

May I ask where this has been posted? I would like to contribute to these threads.

The picture reminds me of link for some reason but the proof of concept is always valuable.

My only gripe with colour swapping isn't actually the shorthanded-ness of it but rather it interfering with Don't Starve's art design, when you have time, visit the main menu of Don't starve.

 

Also, may I incorporate your picture to amend the main post?

[Guest]

May I ask where this has been posted? I would like to contribute to these threads.

The picture reminds me of link for some reason but the proof of concept is always valuable.

My only gripe with colour swapping isn't actually the shorthanded-ness of it but rather it interfering with Don't Starve's art design, when you have time, visit the main menu of Don't starve.

 

It's just been scattered around a few threads, mainly threads on the topic of how playing as the same character would work.  Here's one of them: http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/36124-same-characters/