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Balance, on DS and DST


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Hello, I have been a long time follower of Don't Starve, doing all if not most of the puzzles, and watched its development grow over time, and after all that, there's one thing that has irked me tons on DS, and that is all around balance in the game, wich seems all around just not tought very well so im gonna give my whole impression off it after all these years of playing and watching.

It concerns me how I go to reddit, and people say to not build farms due to Berry bushes being a much better source of food, and I don't deny it, while it might seem good at first glance, the farming consists on farms, light, and most importantly, Seeds. Now hear me out on this, when I play Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley, those games have seed makers that give always atleast 2-3 seeds of the same type, so you can upgrade them and sell them for more or cook them so you don't have to start over, on Don't Starve, we have the most notorious Birdcage, wich often than not, only gives 1 seed of what you gave it wich makes the farming a waste, with a marginal chance of getting another and a 50% for a normal seed, thus making farming not reliable unless you use mods so they always drop 2-3 of the same type like these other games.

While I don't deny that the game tries hard to nerf turtling, the game is basically all based on it for survival and that is something you can't deny, given how most nerfs to it have, as a byproduct off it, made turtling even better, like the turkeys, wich can be easily baited with berries, and are yet another layer of free food for Berry Bushes, Berry Bushes can be fertilized, giving up to 5 more berries each poop, wich is what farming lacks, renewable food, oh you got a DragonFruit? Bless to RNG it drops 2 so you can use it to make a Dragonpie, wich you could've spent  getting monster meat and ice to make meatballs (Humm...), farms are litterally a noob trap and a time sink with no actual returns, wich is why nobody makes farms without mods like what I mentioned. Changing this to be more reliable would make them atleast decent.

The mushroom planter, while it might seem good at first, you can only get 4 harvests, and requires fighting a boss just to be able to be refertilized, wich seems a bit overkill, as you need most needed Nightmare logs used in magical crafts, I think there was something of using normal logs to do the same on the code, but it was never utilized wich I think should be the way to work by default, the wall being that you need to fight a Treeguard to make it, but after that you can use logs to refertilize the expensive mushroom planter.

Now we get to the crockpot foods, some foods are never plainly used because they are worse than the sum of their parts, and some are made exclusively to screw a player (Kabobs) when you can just use 3 ice to make meatballs, wich makes 0 sense to me, I remember when crockpot foods each where multipliers but where unstackable, at least that way you could get more than what you had, wich is what cooking food should be for, not just another trap layer for newbies that don't know how fillers work.

Gathering food for a group of more than 4 can be very troubling, couple in a namely Valkyries strict diet and it could be worked on, I once tought that maybe we could make a picnic basket or the like, and then you fill it with food and place it on the ground, and all players come to eat together, restoring -50% less in each food  but  being able to share it with others, from up to 4-8 players at most to have a huge feast.

Now while I forget about every raid boss mechanics (Is this Wow?) most of the bosses and enemies are glorified HP sponges on DST, almost doubling or having insane amounts of HP (Firefly, Bee queen, Klaus... Etc etc) they rely on tiring the player out instead of having proper HP bars that should be like terraria wich scales with all nearby players, and not just a huge frick ton of HP that makes them a wall, normal enemies shouldn't even be touched, it makes Wolfgang look like normal damage, not everyone gangs up on a spider warrior to kill it.

Now setting aside the dubious HP of monsters on DST, another troubling matter has rattled me bones greatly, character balance is all over and badly done, it is clear that some characters have been treated too harshly on DST being treated as griefers for no reason (Not like anyone can just make a torch and burn everithing up? Or make a hammer and destroy everithing?) Woodie and Willow respectively, while their powers might seem good at first glance, Woodie is now a glorified wood eater, eating half of the logs he makes, making him a worse wood cutter now that Maxwell Puppets exist,  sanity regen is not even that great given how easy sanity is to refill, and the lack of armor and damage on Wereveaber leave woodie in a curse that actually screws you over but provides nothing good out of it like on vanilla DS, poor little canadian should get his powers back.

Willow is also a high offender, her perks now being a worse torch with 0 range that lasts longer wich is easily replaced by the likes of the miner hat or lantern, and even refillable too, the lighter should have a higher radius and be refillable by others with logs and other fuels, but is infinite still in the hands of Willow, Making her a valuable aset to the team, not many characters are, and light is a trouble for many early, but this would make her better even in mid-end game where she falls of if not in early game given how useless her lighter and Bear are, while the bear might be a good distraction for Insanity creatures, its not good for anything else, making Willow fall below Wes in therms of usefulness, filling a niche role that nobody likes or is that useful.

Next we have Wilson, who isn't good at anything or has any noticeable perk outside of being the mascot protagonist of the game wich tons like, having a downside of overheating faster on summer with a beard and also being insulation for winter wich not others have, along with being able to trim his beard to get beards that you can get easily by just murdering bunny and bunnymen while insane, he gets to fill a role where he's neither strong nor good other than providing beard for effigies, and that can be made by others so his perk isn't that useful.

Wolfgang is in a very good spot, rewarding expert players with up to x2 healing and damage wich is much needed now that every monster takes x2 hits to kill, he provides the team with strenght when needed for bosses or getting meat or other valuable drops from monsters, one of the characters I feel should be the base in power.

Wendy's a great character for dealing with hordes of dumb monsters like spiders, being easy silk and meat, but Webber also fills this role aswell, im not sure on if I would use her anytime after learning how to fight.

WX is a HP wall that can be boosted by wickerbottom's thunder book indefenitely, making him a good scout and wall for tanking hits but not good for anything else, his lust to eat gears to replenish his bars or upgrade him makes him a gear sink that might screw others.

Wickerbottom is the ultimate support character, being able to grow, get birds, or sleep enemies like a panflute thanks to her power books, she's a great asset to any team and you should never play without her, her Gardening book is a must if you need to feed many people, and her on tentacles book can prove useful to farm tentacles or protect against hounds, most characters should be able to help in a way like her, it's a team game after all.

Wes is the most OP character, he can make balloons by farming those pesky mosquitoes nobody bothers with just to get his power back, but that makes him even mightier even if its for 3 days, turning him instantly insane, perfect for farming Nightmare fuel, the balloons are also good crowd control against hounds, and his damage can down even the fiercest  Dragonfly, if you see someone pick him and has the sunglasses skin, be prepared to be astonished with insane amounts of feats you'd wish you could pull off with a handicap like him. Only for pro players.

Maxwell has been hit hard also, loosing his items (Understandable) But also being nerfed sanity regen wise of a tam o' shanter, while keeping his insanely low HP, the only change i'd wish is for him to be able to refuel magic items with nightmare fuel at the cost of Sanity or maybe Health, so he's a glorious mage that works all around his sanity, also maybe upping his HP to 100 or sanity regen to 10 so he's atleast a bit better, being able to turn insane permanently at will, Maxwell is the best gatherer for anything (Sorry Woodie) and a good mage, the best for supporting someone fighting with his puppets and magic, tough the duelist is mediocre at best, it feels bad that players only use him to turn insane, id wish they could be upgraded or something.

Wigfrid, a worse Wolfgang, jack of all trades, made by newbies wich creates bad habits (Facetanking) permanent 25% damage along with armor but the armor is irrelevant given how it doesn't stack on DST unless you're not wearing anything (Bad thing) her weapons are a good way to make a gold spear and gold helmet instead of a pig one with double durability wich proves useful early on, but is easily forgotten when you start getting shellmet or shadow swords. her meat only diet is bad to take care off when all you have is 20 bushes of berries, and her regen from killing is instead provided every few attacks with lesser effect, wich isn't that great. I think her defense buff should stack and that using higher damage weapons or attacking bosses restore more sanity and HP to make up for the lack of Veggie based foods wich can be very detrimental, also she can't eat Veggie crockpot foods from the picnic, to make it even worse.

Webber, he's a fun little guy to play with, but the bad thing is that the spiders he makes are hostile to other players when neutral and nets slow them down, so he might want to base alone or make a den far wich makes it bad for him, being able to eat monster meat without downside is a good thing if you're starving and have nothing else to eat, including crockpot monster foods altough they don't fill that much, you can use your friends to get pigs to do work for you indirectly, and you can provide silk wich is most precious in all stages, used for most important clothing items or food items like the bug net for getting bees, being also able to befriend spiders to make an army wich I think should have a bigger aoe for recruiting, like a tier 1 webbing area,  though I feel the dens he makes should not be hostile to other players and slow them down as he made them, so he's like a mom/dad to them and doesn't hurt their friends unless they attack first.

Winona... The newest addition to the DST crew, charlie's sister, and a work woman, with no downsides (Wilson?) let's check her out:
-Can craft 2x faster (0.5s) wich while it might seem good, it's not really that much as you notice you never make a huge bulk off items or the saved time isn't that great by any means unless something catches you by surpise (I often just build at night to save day time)
-Can take 1 free hit from Charlie, while it makes sense lore wise, I know all your moves and all that, this just makes it so you can take 1 free hit every time you're in the dark so you can be even more in the dark without light, wich isn't that impactful except on a dire need.
-Her duct tape, wich is a 1:1 silk repair but for expensive amounts of grass is the biggest let down of her Kit that I think many can agree on, I was expecting her to repair tools, weapons and armor and boss items, like the sewing kit does for eyebrella or other clothing boss items , kinda like my friend W00t did for his repair mod and use Maxwell for magic like the Magiluminescence and the drop the Fuelweaver boss drops and Winona for normal items, and all im met is with a expensive but cheap to make sewing kit that does the same instead of being unique and repairing items by say, the same way the sewing kit, this has gotta be what breaks this character as she's not great at anything, and her duct tape can be easily replaced by the sewing kit given how common tooths are unless you like using tons of grass, you get another Wilson with no downsides that doesn't do anything meaningful.

Winona has been anticipated by many, but this show often tells how bad the balancing and uniqueness in both the game and characters is in Don't Starve, what could have been yer trusty girl workwoman you could lend your tools to repair, are instead meat with a bland and boring character that all can do is a cheap sewing kit that you can make by day 3-13 with hounds

This is all I wanted to get off my chest, if this gets popular, i'll make a Shipwrecked version.

Posted on the Klei Forums and Reddit


TL;DR: Klei should pay more attention to balance 

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