Damage nerf, Armor nerf, and Gold nerf are cheap solutions.

[J192]

Thread discussing this: http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/42930-discussing-damage-armor-and-golden-tool-rebalances

[rezecib]

Well, since this is here now, here's the mod I wrote to implement the changes I proposed: DamageRebalance1.1.zip
Although I wrote this as a mod, my intent is not for it to be used as such. I want this to be a proof of concept, that this system can work in the game and is easy to implement. Ideally the base game will use something like this in the future.
 
I didn't change gold tools, but personally I don't see a reason why they should be any different in single player and multiplayer. If you nerf one, nerf the other, but I don't think it needed a nerf.
 
The way damage works in the mod is a mob keeps track of the last time it was hit by a player. If it gets hit by a player again, it checks the last time it was hit by a player, and if that time was less than 90% of a player's attack period ago, it reduces the damage to 60%. The idea of this is that if you're fighting something alone, it's just like single player, but if you're fighting together, it's pretty similar to the damage we have currently.
 
(I used 90% because in testing I found that if player just beat on something, sometimes their animation would be shortened by being hit, which is weird, but that's what happened)
 
The way armor works in the mod is that players take twice as much damage as they would in single-player, and the absorption is changed to reflect that. This keeps the current behavior for log suits, but makes grass suits worse (honestly who used those anyway?) and all armors better than logs suits a little better.
 
I think the actual multiplier on how much damage a player takes with armor could probably be tweaked. Twice as much seems a bit high, but since log suits and football helmets are the most commonly-used armors, I used the current behavior for them as a reference.
 
Edit: Isosurface suggested a better armor scaling: absorption squared. I updated my example mod with it. So a quick comparison table:

[J192]

Well, since this is here now, here's the mod I wrote to implement the changes I proposed: DamageRebalance.zip

Although I wrote this as a mod, my intent is not for it to be used as such. I want this to be a proof of concept, that this system can work in the game and is easy to implement. Ideally the base game will use something like this in the future.

 

I didn't change gold tools, but personally I don't see a reason why they should be any different in single player and multiplayer. If you nerf one, nerf the other, but I don't think it needed a nerf.

 

The way damage works in the mod is a mob keeps track of the last time it was hit by a player. If it gets hit by a player again, it checks the last time it was hit by a player, and if that time was less than 90% of a player's attack period ago, it reduces the damage to 60%. The idea of this is that if you're fighting something alone, it's just like single player, but if you're fighting together, it's pretty similar to the damage we have currently.

 

(I used 90% because in testing I found that if player just beat on something, sometimes their animation would be shortened by being hit, which is weird, but that's what happened)

 

The way armor works in the mod is that players take twice as much damage as they would in single-player, and the absorption is changed to reflect that. This keeps the current behavior for log suits, but makes grass suits worse (honestly who used those anyway?) and all armors better than logs suits a little better.

 

I think the actual multiplier on how much damage a player takes with armor could probably be tweaked. Twice as much seems a bit high, but since log suits and football helmets are the most commonly-used armors, I used the current behavior for them as a reference.

 

Edit: Isosurface suggested a better armor scaling: absorption squared. So a quick comparison table:

The part about damage is very clever!

 

However, in my opinion, I still think nerfing damage and armor are cheap solutions, a lot of people actually know why and provided a lot of reasons (in your thread, mostly).

Basically, the armor+damage nerf stops players from ganging up on single targets, but makes fighting groups of mobs (spiders, bees, hounds, etc.) very infuriating and annoying to the point that it's easier to fight them in single-player.

 

Like I said before, I think the best solution would be to make mobs 'smarter'. Something like these:

- Reduce mob stunlock duration to 25%-50%

Instead of being frozen in place, they will have a fighting chance against several players who are repeatedly hitting them.

- Reduce mob attack duration to 50%-75%

Reduces the time of freezing right on the spot for after missing/hitting. This reduces the amount of hits performed using the kiting technique.

While this makes fighting alone slightly harder, it gives mobs a chance to fight back against multiple players while still allowing players to fight alone without huge unnecessary risks.

 

Also, the gold nerf is redundant. More players means more resources to consume and boulders are finite resources.

[Kukela]

That is absolutely the smartest solution to the unfair and frankly ridiculous previous damage rebalance in DST. I have been walking around and got jumped by spiders and frankly dealing 60% damage often makes my only recourse to flee.

 

Absolutely fantastic solution. I can't overstate my satisfaction with this.