Strategic hide-and-run type "combat"?

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

So, from my previous thread, it seems that the combat is currently the main thing of interest right now. Many have said that the game could do with much more combat-involved mechanics, and while I certainly agree, I think that combat involving just more forms of attacking and dodging would make the game much more of an RPG than a survival one.

So, while I do think that more combat options of that type could benefit the game quite a bit, I think that there's something else to the system that could be placed in; "combat" involving hide-and-run (if that makes sense). To give an idea of what I mean, imagine if instead of fighting a boss (such as Deerclops) purely by hitting him with various weapons and trying to dodge his attacks, you run away from him. You run away and you try to get him focused away from you for a bit and hide (behind trees and the like). You could lay traps to get him as well, with some mechanics in place to not make it easy; for example, if it's tooth traps, then only one or so could hit him no problem before he notices others nearby. He would lose focus from you as a result and start freezing up the tooth traps and destroying them into bits, giving you time to hide or more time to get a distance from him.

This would make boss fights intense, embrace more of the feeling of horror into the game and generally just throw out all the mega-base-day-1000-GG gameplay with default settings, or harder, on (it probably would though, even to some extent).

I honestly think that this is the better way of getting combat down with bosses to fit the theme of Don't Starve. May be that's part of the reason for why I don't really like Wigfrid as a character concept for the game, but that's a whole different topic.

I don't really expect Klei to implement anything like this in either of the games at this point, considering the shift in focus of the theme and gameplay, but I do wonder whether and how many people would be interested in this.

[. . .]

No offense, but In my opinion all this does is artificially increases time it takes to kill certain entities & I feel would be very tedious.

Personally, in my opinion I think combat mechanics of Monster Hunter would fit well with Don't Starve, a much more simpler toned-down version though, but similar none the less. Like different type of weapons that work a bit differently (e.g. spear & axe would work a bit differently from each other), stamina bar, bosses having various attacks would be a start .

Though, the ability for players to hide from all types of entities behind trees, boulders, ect. sounds like a good idea which should be included in the game & I think would make the game feel more survival-y 

Also, I think DS used to have a horror genre attached to it, but it seems Klei has abandoned make DS a more horror type game anymore & hasn't added anything horror really, the last thing they added which could be somewhat horror-ish was long pig which they removed, so yeah..

[Sicko Hog]

i think winona will be a bee this year

[ZorrerTheZmith]

Personally I don´t like the idea of a stamina bar, but that´s just me.

Something that would be nice is bosses/enemies having different weaknesses, so you would have to change your strategy accordingly. Exploiting bosses weaknesses would enrage them, though, making the fight easier and harder at the same time.

[. . .]

1 hour ago, ZorrerTheZmith said:

Personally I don´t like the idea of a stamina bar, but that´s just me.

You're right I think it would be better off as a mod anyways, but the other stuff I think woiuld be good 

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

On 06/10/2017 at 8:53 PM, SuperDavid said:

No offense, but In my opinion all this does is artificially increases time it takes to kill certain entities & I feel would be very tedious.

Personally, in my opinion I think combat mechanics of Monster Hunter would fit well with Don't Starve, a much more simpler toned-down version though, but similar none the less. Like different type of weapons that work a bit differently (e.g. spear & axe would work a bit differently from each other), stamina bar, bosses having various attacks would be a start .

Emm, I'm not sure how what I described would make the game tedious exactly. I'm sure it would make the game much more intense. Having this more for the bosses, Deerclops in particular, I think would be very good, unsure about the other giants and boss monsters though. For something like spiders and hounds, I think hiding as an option in a very severe case could be good, especially for hound attacks, if those got improved, but generally you could still easily fight and kill small opponents this way. So, in essence kind of like a scaled system of sorts:

* Small mob - easy kill, rarely, if ever need to use clever tactics, unless you perhaps want to trap one in some form.

* Slightly bigger mobs - still killable, but you might want to use tactics that are a bit more clever depending on the severity of the situation.

* Medium-sized mobs - you hunt them down! Koalefant being a prime example.

* Smaller/weaker bosses - Put some more tactics to it. Basic melee is still quite viable, but inadvisable.

Giants/stronger bosses - You'll surely get screwed if you're not thinking about beforehand or at least in the moment about this. Or you can just try to RUN!

[ZorrerTheZmith]

I can see how some people (myself included) would think this tedious, but I get where you´re coming from. Fighting bosses indirectly would make the characters "less powerful", which would reinforce the idea of survival. However, it sounds like the fights would take too long, unless the traps were considerably stronger. Long fights would get tedious, specially if they boil down to "lead boss to trap, hide, repeat". Now, it could make the fights seem more intense at first; players would be like "oh no, the boss is coming and I´m not strong enough to beat it! Gotta plan ahead!" but eventually they would get used to it and the boss would lose its intensity.

 

On 06/10/2017 at 3:44 PM, EuedeAdodooedoe said:

and generally just throw out all the mega-base-day-1000-GG gameplay with default settings, or harder, on

You seem to really hate this aspect of the game, and I respect your opinion, but the thing is: Don´t Starve had it since the beginning. The focus of the game didn´t shift, it´s just more players mastering the game and dominating nature, so to speak. Of course, there´s less horror when you´re not alone, but consider this: one of the main aspects of horror is the unknown. When you know what to expect and when/where it happens, it loses its impact (jumpscares don´t really count). Don´t Starve is not less of a horror game than it used to be, it´s just us getting used to it.

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

1 hour ago, ZorrerTheZmith said:

I can see how some people (myself included) would think this tedious, but I get where you´re coming from. Fighting bosses indirectly would make the characters "less powerful", which would reinforce the idea of survival. However, it sounds like the fights would take too long, unless the traps were considerably stronger. Long fights would get tedious, specially if they boil down to "lead boss to trap, hide, repeat". Now, it could make the fights seem more intense at first; players would be like "oh no, the boss is coming and I´m not strong enough to beat it! Gotta plan ahead!" but eventually they would get used to it and the boss would lose its intensity.

True. The same thing goes for sponging bosses and giants right now, but in a more boring way. If you're careful in crafting the game's mechanics, you could make the gameplay interesting even if it repeats and you know how to beat the boss the first time. Another idea to add to this is to have some form of AI where the mob (in this case the Deerclops) could learn from mistakes made just a while ago or it progressing to the next coming of the giant. Not really an extremely intelligent AI, but switching in the behaviour of the mob. The player adapts, but then, to some extent, so then could mobs. For instance, if you take the scenario of tooth traps, deerclops hitting one, you hiding, him freezing the rest to destroy them and you running away, trying that the next or so time would result in it blowing a freezing breath right after freezing the traps to stop you from escaping. Difficult to implement, but it would vary the experience.

1 hour ago, ZorrerTheZmith said:

You seem to really hate this aspect of the game, and I respect your opinion, but the thing is: Don´t Starve had it since the beginning. The focus of the game didn´t shift, it´s just more players mastering the game and dominating nature, so to speak. Of course, there´s less horror when you´re not alone, but consider this: one of the main aspects of horror is the unknown. When you know what to expect and when/where it happens, it loses its impact (jumpscares don´t really count). Don´t Starve is not less of a horror game than it used to be, it´s just us getting used to it.

The game's focus has shifted. While mastering the game and being GG at it has been in the game pretty much since its inception, the focus of new content was to circumvent that further more and make things more survival-like and be more horror-esque, with things coming after you, content that matters more to change up the core gameplay and whatever else more. Now, it's decorations, pets, optional bosses, making sure that you can build your base grander, to a point where those that are professionals demand from newcomers to "git gud" quickly and adapt the same way of playing, to a scary degree honestly. Instead of just playing the game and seeing what it has to offer and trying to immerse into the experience, as much as possible, it's all about making sure of the management of the world, of other players and every corner of land being under surveillance. I almost came to wanting that as well, glad I opted out of that. I'll try to see if I can make the kind of experience I'd really want and see whether others can appreciate it as well. Part of that is what I've created the last two threads for. Agh, anyway, I'm rambling!

[. . .]

5 hours ago, EuedeAdodooedoe said:

Emm, I'm not sure how what I described would make the game tedious exactly. I'm sure it would make the game much more intense.

Imo this wouldn't change much but requiring more resources to kill entities/bosses?

So, you need to build a bunch of traps/big trap & lure entities/bosses into them like how players can already do with tooth trap fields & you hit them a couple times then hide behind trees & stuff? This would make combat feel less like combat & more like tag which the game's combat already sometimes feels like...which is why I said this would make game feel more tedious !

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

6 hours ago, SuperDavid said:

Imo this wouldn't change much but requiring more resources to kill entities/bosses?

So, you need to build a bunch of traps/big trap & lure entities/bosses into them like how players can already do with tooth trap fields & you hit them a couple times then hide behind trees & stuff? This would make combat feel less like combat & more like tag which the game's combat already sometimes feels like...which is why I said this would make game feel more tedious !

It was just a starting point, of course that's not all that this kind of combat would need to offer. And obviously scaling down boss' hp to fit these kinds of fights and not taking forever just to beat one boss would be necessary to have.

[ZorrerTheZmith]

16 hours ago, EuedeAdodooedoe said:

Another idea to add to this is to have some form of AI where the mob (in this case the Deerclops) could learn from mistakes made just a while ago or it progressing to the next coming of the giant.

While the idea of "hide and run" doesn´t appeal to me (I agree with SuperDavid´s latest post on this), mobs/bosses learning from previous encounters would be amazing. Adding to the example of Deerclops: if you fight it mostly with melee, it comes back with a short range insta-freeze attack to keep you at bay. Kill it from a distance, it learns to freeze projectiles in midair.

 

16 hours ago, EuedeAdodooedoe said:

Now, it's decorations, pets, optional bosses, making sure that you can build your base grander, to a point where those that are professionals demand from newcomers to "git gud" quickly and adapt the same way of playing, to a scary degree honestly. Instead of just playing the game and seeing what it has to offer and trying to immerse into the experience, as much as possible, it's all about making sure of the management of the world, of other players and every corner of land being under surveillance.

Oh yeah, you got a point there. It´s a shame, really.

[JohnWatson]

how about a mechanic where you can throw a spear at the deerclops and instead of just dealing 34 damage, there's deep complex realistic mechanics that involve physics and anatomy, when the spear comes in contact with the deerclops, there's several factors regarding the spear that gets considered: its kinetic energy, its impulse, and its yaw, this means that the damage done to the deerclops depends on the mass (spears made with different flints have unique shapes and mass) and velocity of the spear and the angle it was thrown from, this makes sense in real life because projectiles with more momentum will typically inflict more physical trauma, and also it's not just the spear that we need to consider, we also need to look at the deerclops, the wound inflicted on the deerclops will also depend on its own velocity, its nutrition (a deerclops that has a good diet of rabbits and volt goats has a better chance of recovery from injuries than one that doesn't), and the location of the impact, like if it hits an appendage or a vital organ, for example if it was hit in the arm it may survive and recover from injury however some locations like the lungs may cause respiratory failure, severing the a femoral artery in the thighs will lead to quick death from blood loss, and damaging the medulla oblangata causes instant death realistically, this means players need to know how to inflict wounds on the deerclops and have strategic options like crippling the deerclops first as a defensive move by damaging its knee caps or do a high risk high reward offensive move by targeting its heart (if the deerclops removes a spear that is lodged into its heart it will severely reduce its chance of survival, usually a blade that has penetrated you is better left alone as they can actually reduce bleeding) or even try to blind one of its eyes to impair its vision and heavily discourage it from continuing to attack you (the actions of enemies will depend on their emotional state and determination, an angry deerclops may be more aggressive but a depressed deerclops may easily give up because it isn't satisfied with how its life is going or doesn't have a sense of direction and meaning in life), of course there are factors in how the players and the deerclops even perform in combat, for example running speed should depend on the ratio of muscle mass in the legs to total body weight, and the upper-body strength affects performance in swinging, throwing, etc the physical factors will depend on how the body is maintained through diet and exercise, like eating more calories than you can burn will let you gain mass and eating less calories than you burn will make you lose mass, i think that these mechanics i've suggested will improve the experience of the game because of realism

[Sicko Hog]

what if you could ride the deerclops

[Maslak]

About that hiding. Bush hat and snurtle shell exist. You can hide when hounds are about to spawn, which will make them clueless. Personally I find it weird.

[Dorozco]

33 minutes ago, JellyUltra said:

what if you could ride the deerclops

forget the deerclops. i wanna ride the bee queen.

ifyouknowwhatimean.jpeg

[. . .]

@JohnWatson If my Wolfgang eats bacon and eggs everyday & sits at base will he become obese & die from heart attack instead of gaining big muscles?

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

@JohnWatson beating the idea that I wanted to have the game reflect reality a bit more? Nice, keep that trolling. Nothing like you described is anything remotely anywhere near like what I wanted at any point, but ok. Apparently suggesting even just a bit more immersion to this game is considered too tedious and over-complex.

On 12/10/2017 at 10:04 PM, Maslak said:

About that hiding. Bush hat and snurtle shell exist. You can hide when hounds are about to spawn, which will make them clueless. Personally I find it weird.

Weird in what sense?

[Maslak]

They are meant to be threat, sort of. You can just ignore it by hiding in hat/shell next to some mobs, bees being example.

[HamBatter]

It's like you're asking them to throw away what they've done when Klaus, Bee Queen, and Toadstool are fun fights in a cooperative setting.

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

@HamBatter if Klei were to do this then it would kind of be the case, but I think it would be an interesting change. If you read the entire first post of mine, I do mention that I don't expect Klei to ever do this, and that this is more of a question about whether players would be interested at all in this type of combat being prevalent, not everywhere, but in certain gameplay situations, involving at least some of the bosses.

The fights are more of an RPG experience than a survival one though, btw.