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Usefulness of Certain Biomes?


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The game does a good job of making every biome useful for something but it feels like the balance of usefulness in a normal world is really awkward.

So, deserts provide bones, rocks, ore, tumbleweed, cactus. Plains has bees, berries, all the normal resources. Swamp has reeds, spiders, tentacles, merm. Spider forest has spiders, lesser normal resources, graves, pigs.

But the savannah, deciduous and mosaic are really left out?

 

Savannah has rabbits, spiders and beefalo, but the only many resource is grass. So, outside of acquiring grass a savannah biome in itself has no inherent resources players will want. And since grass can usually be found in the plains it matters even less.

Deciduous has birch, pigs, catcoons and mushrooms, with some lesser resources. But in the end players normally only go to the deciduous for Glommer or the King. Catcoons are good for meat and birch for trail mix, but both of those sources are obsolete compared to most others in easier places. The biome itself has virtually no resources that are valuable enough to encourage players to go there. Which is the big reason why generic Pig King bases are so unethical because the deciduous biome itself has no majorly useful materials for players to sustain themselves with.

Mosaic has rocks, and a graveyard. Personally hate the existence of this biome because outside of the graveyard; there is literally no beneficial resources for players to gather while they are there other then rocks. Which is what the rockland is meant to be for is the prime rock source, so the mosaic is basically a second rockland pretending it is something more; with a graveyard as attempted evidence.

 

It would be cool if they maybe "buffed" these biomes to give them better resources. Perhaps the savannah could have more rocks and rare gold veins to make it a soft-rockland, the deciduous could have significantly more mushrooms and inherent juicy berry bushes, and the Mosaic could have less rocks but more random resources. Just something to make these biomes more useful on their own since they currently feel like dead-zones in the world where there are only specific reasons to visit them, which often are unrelated to the resources of the biome itself.

Savannah would give players a more lenient access to rocks on-the-fly, players could visit the deciduous for the unique mushrooms and gather berries while there, and the mosaic would just have general useful things for players to gather.

 

Although it would also be useful if catcoons occasionally spawned in the plains, since they are a pretty generic mob yet they are confined to one biome where they are rarely interacted with.

Not in Suggestions & Feedback because this isn't a statement of a suggestion it is more of a question on whether people feel this is an issue.

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No offence, but this doesn't make much sense.

You talk about how the biomes don't have any usefulness, but then you go on to list all their (sometimes exclusive) resources and perks, proving that they are useful. 

11 minutes ago, Renegade_Doll said:

Savannah has rabbits, spiders and beefalo,

That's the two main reasons I would base in a Savannah. Not grass. Ever heard of a shovel? 

11 minutes ago, Renegade_Doll said:

The biome itself has virtually no resources that are valuable enough to encourage players to go there.

You just listed birch, pigs, catcoons, mushrooms, and Glommer and the King. These are all really useful. If I don't base in a Savannah, I base in this biome. What are you on about?

13 minutes ago, Renegade_Doll said:

Mosaic has rocks, and a graveyard. Personally hate the existence of this biome because outside of the graveyard; there is literally no beneficial resources for players to gather while they are there other then rocks. 

I don't think anyone hates it.

And yes, it's a dead biome, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. It's challenging, that's a good thing.

Also, you want a use for it? Here's one: if you wanna make sure nobody finds your base, a far corner of a Mosaic biome, away from the graveyards, is probably the best place for it. Like you said, apart from the graveyard, there's no resources to collect, so most people won't explore it. 

I think what you are trying to say, is that the other biomes are not as complex as the desert, which has sandstorms, a boss, volt goats, the oasis, lots of really neat stuff.

All the other biomes however still have their qualities, even if they are bit simpler. I see no reason for change. 

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I would like a "boost" for mosaic and rocky biome. I don't think that it's a problem if people don't base in these biomes, the problem is that there is little reason to come back, especially when rock are depleted. So something that will make people come back time to time will be enough for me.

 

Also, i have no prob with savanna or deciduous forest, i saw people making bases near pig king and it was perfectly fine.

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21 minutes ago, Renegade_Doll said:

Mosaic has rocks, and a graveyard. Personally hate the existence of this biome because outside of the graveyard; there is literally no beneficial resources for players to gather while they are there other then rocks. Which is what the rockland is meant to be for is the prime rock source, so the mosaic is basically a second rockland pretending it is something more; with a graveyard as attempted evidence.

Meteor showers usually appear within the Mosiac biome, no? In the wiki it says Rockylands, but not seldom they seem to appear near the Mosiac biome. I like that quite alot. I have set up many bases near the meteor area if there also were other interesting things nearby.

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Just now, Captain_Rage said:

Meteor showers usually appear within the Mosiac biome, no? In the wiki it says Rockylands, but not seldom they seem to appear near the Mosiac biome. I like that quite alot. I have set up many bases near the meteor area if there also were other interesting things nearby.

Yes usually the meteor field is in a mini-rockland often attached or inside of the Mosaic; have seen it appear inside other biomes like the plains though. 

Although as far as I have seen the meteor field mostly only generates moonrock, and the occasional boulder(?) which are not really major reasons to revisit the field unless you specifically are grinding for moonrocks.

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The mosaic is the biome you hit up first on day one to stock up on gold, rocks and flint and to dig a grave or two. In my experience it also often has one or two good wormholes. Wormholes more than almost anything else determine where I base, so I have occasionally based in mosaic, although the meteors make that tricky.

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15 minutes ago, Lumina said:

I would like a "boost" for mosaic and rocky biome. I don't think that it's a problem if people don't base in these biomes, the problem is that there is little reason to come back, especially when rock are depleted. So something that will make people come back time to time will be enough for me.

 

Also, i have no prob with savanna or deciduous forest, i saw people making bases near pig king and it was perfectly fine.

Pig King bases thrive by ferrying in resources from the outside world though, the deciduous biome itself provides little supplies just like the savannah. If you base in the plains for example, you can run around the vicinity and gather useful supplies. In the deciduous there are barely any other then catcoons. Which is the thing is that, places like the swamp and desert give players incentive to revisit the biome over and over because the natural resources of that area are useful. But the savannah and deciduous are only worthwhile for the mobs and points of interest that usually show up in them.

4 minutes ago, Rellimarual said:

The mosaic is the biome you hit up first on day one to stock up on gold, rocks and flint and to dig a grave or two.

That is pretty much it for most players. They dig the graves and gather early rock then never go back, since people usually default to going to the rockland afterwards when they find it. The Mosaic is just as good, save for lack of ice, but that is its main function is just a second rockland with a graveyard and maybe a meteor field. Which does not contribute much to the world as a whole.

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It's not a problem usually if you don't have ton of resource around your base, you can dig some and make farm and have enough food and basic resource (twigs, grass, logs). What is important after that is things that you can't move easily (or at all). Like beefalo, tentacles, pig king, pigs, cave entrance, this sort of stuff.

 

Savanna provide some (rabbit, beefalo), deciduous some (pig king, pigs, catcoons, and even mushrooms), so they are ok for a base. Rocky biome doesn't provide anything special, maybe tallbird but they are annoying, and rock but when they are depleted there is no reason to come/stay.

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14 minutes ago, Renegade_Doll said:

Which is the thing is that, places like the swamp and desert give players incentive to revisit the biome over and over because the natural resources of that area are useful. But the savannah and deciduous are only worthwhile for the mobs and points of interest that usually show up in them.

....So?

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The savannah and deciduous are only worthwhile for the mobs and points of interest. The swamp is only worth it for the reeds and tentacles, the former of which isn't even that desireable unless you have a Wickerbottom on the team. Savanna is good for the mobs (the rabbits are REQUIRED to progress the game for crying out loud) and the huge amounts of grass (which you WILL need in at least 2 stacks if you want to do some worthwhile stuff). Mosaic in my opinion is just kinda boring.

Deciduous is great because of the multitude of common easy to get resources. Easy gold from PK as long as you dig out some graves from the Mosaic (probably the only good thing about that biome :?), easy meat from the Catcoons, easy pigskin AND meat AND poop with werehogs (which you can make a LOT of with the always-generating pig village), easy HP and filler with the birchnuts.. it's the definition of easy and simple without being all in one super powerful.

The one thing i agree with in this thread is that rockylands need to be improved - perhaps after a while they could grow gold-veined Petrified Trees much like Lumpy Evergreens repopulate? I know we already have Petrified Forests, but the stone trees don't give any gold AFAIK. Maybe the gold stone tree regrowth would begin when a larger patch of rocks in the rockyland is gone, so it'd spawn gold petrified trees periodically with a 4-5 day wait time until it's ripe for collecting and 3 extra days on top of that until it drops 1-2 gold.

TL;DR: the biomes are fine.

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2 minutes ago, Palecwsmalec1 said:

The savannah and deciduous are only worthwhile for the mobs and points of interest. The swamp is only worth it for the reeds and tentacles, the former of which isn't even that desireable unless you have a Wickerbottom on the team. Savanna is good for the mobs (the rabbits are REQUIRED to progress the game for crying out loud) and the huge amounts of grass (which you WILL need in at least 2 stacks if you want to do some worthwhile stuff). Mosaic in my opinion is just kinda boring.

Deciduous is great because of the multitude of common easy to get resources. Easy gold from PK as long as you dig out some graves from the Mosaic (probably the only good thing about that biome :?), easy meat from the Catcoons, easy pigskin AND meat AND poop with werehogs (which you can make a LOT of with the always-generating pig village), easy HP and filler with the birchnuts.. it's the definition of easy and simple without being all in one super powerful.

The one thing i agree with in this thread is that rockylands need to be improved - perhaps after a while they could grow gold-veined Petrified Trees much like Lumpy Evergreens repopulate? I know we already have Petrified Forests, but the stone trees don't give any gold AFAIK. Maybe the gold stone tree regrowth would begin when a larger patch of rocks in the rockyland is gone, so it'd spawn gold petrified trees periodically with a 4-5 day wait time until it's ripe for collecting and 3 extra days on top of that until it drops 1-2 gold.

TL;DR: the biomes are fine.

I always thought the Volt goats were better suited for the rocky biomes than the desert. They could hop on Boulders like Mountain goats.

 

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1 hour ago, Renegade_Doll said:

Although as far as I have seen the meteor field mostly only generates moonrock, and the occasional boulder(?) which are not really major reasons to revisit the field unless you specifically are grinding for moonrocks.

I think you have that a bit backwards. You're gonna find a lot more normal rocks around there then moonrocks.

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2 hours ago, TheKingofSquirrels said:

Also, you want a use for it? Here's one: if you wanna make sure nobody finds your base, a far corner of a Mosaic biome, away from the graveyards, is probably the best place for it. Like you said, apart from the graveyard, there's no resources to collect, so most people won't explore it.

TBH the mosaic/surrounding area is one of the few places that I tend to explore every inch of because it tends to have a lot of good early game stuff xD
...and the rock den, and wormholes.
Maybe not the best base location most of the time, but one of the most worthwhile areas early on. Rocks and flint lying on the ground, gold all over the graveyard, along with trinkets to trade with PK, and usually a life giving amulet or two...

 

2 hours ago, Lumina said:

I would like a "boost" for mosaic and rocky biome. I don't think that it's a problem if people don't base in these biomes, the problem is that there is little reason to come back, especially when rock are depleted.

I feel like the default frequency of meteor rains should be boosted or the ratios changed. I mean, yea, you can change the setting...but that doesn't matter much when most hosts never even look at the settings.
The meteor area/the surroundings would be more appealing to go back to if it were more plentiful in rock renewability and moonrocks...particularly given how many uses have been added for those. They're spread pretty thin. I personally haven't seen 1 moonrock wall on any of the public servers I've gone to since the other moonrock structures have been added, and that was done quite some time ago. (And I play on nothing but public servers.)

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50 minutes ago, Pyr0mrcow said:

I personally haven't seen 1 moonrock wall on any of the public servers I've gone to since the other moonrock structures have been added, and that was done quite some time ago. (And I play on nothing but public servers.)

Moonrock walls are ridiculously expensive, 12 pieces of moonrocks give you just 4 wall pieces iirc. So moonrock walls are just luxury decorations. Boosting moonrock's spawn on mosaic won't change much, unless it would be like 10 times more common, which seems silly. You need a lot of pighouses around moonbase to farm moonrock. You need lots of full moon nights to have some wall built. Or many vargs.

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4 hours ago, Renegade_Doll said:

The game does a good job of making every biome useful for something but it feels like the balance of usefulness in a normal world is really awkward.

So, deserts provide bones, rocks, ore, tumbleweed, cactus. Plains has bees, berries, all the normal resources. Swamp has reeds, spiders, tentacles, merm. Spider forest has spiders, lesser normal resources, graves, pigs.

But the savannah, deciduous and mosaic are really left out?

 

Savannah has rabbits, spiders and beefalo, but the only many resource is grass. So, outside of acquiring grass a savannah biome in itself has no inherent resources players will want. And since grass can usually be found in the plains it matters even less.

Deciduous has birch, pigs, catcoons and mushrooms, with some lesser resources. But in the end players normally only go to the deciduous for Glommer or the King. Catcoons are good for meat and birch for trail mix, but both of those sources are obsolete compared to most others in easier places. The biome itself has virtually no resources that are valuable enough to encourage players to go there. Which is the big reason why generic Pig King bases are so unethical because the deciduous biome itself has no majorly useful materials for players to sustain themselves with.

Mosaic has rocks, and a graveyard. Personally hate the existence of this biome because outside of the graveyard; there is literally no beneficial resources for players to gather while they are there other then rocks. Which is what the rockland is meant to be for is the prime rock source, so the mosaic is basically a second rockland pretending it is something more; with a graveyard as attempted evidence.

 

It would be cool if they maybe "buffed" these biomes to give them better resources. Perhaps the savannah could have more rocks and rare gold veins to make it a soft-rockland, the deciduous could have significantly more mushrooms and inherent juicy berry bushes, and the Mosaic could have less rocks but more random resources. Just something to make these biomes more useful on their own since they currently feel like dead-zones in the world where there are only specific reasons to visit them, which often are unrelated to the resources of the biome itself.

Savannah would give players a more lenient access to rocks on-the-fly, players could visit the deciduous for the unique mushrooms and gather berries while there, and the mosaic would just have general useful things for players to gather.

 

Although it would also be useful if catcoons occasionally spawned in the plains, since they are a pretty generic mob yet they are confined to one biome where they are rarely interacted with.

Not in Suggestions & Feedback because this isn't a statement of a suggestion it is more of a question on whether people feel this is an issue.

I generally camp by the portal (so newcomers don't ask "Were iz bas?!"  If I don't camp there, then I generally try to be close to a Savannah with Beefalo.  Sure the Savannah only really has rabbits (which I don't hunt), grass, and beefalo, but the use they each give is huge.  Beefalo gives poop, clothes (wool and horns), and protection from mobs.  They are VERY useful to me, and I generally get multiple uses out of them.  Grass is very important, and I like to stock up on a lot of grass.  Sure the plains give grass, but not as much as the Savannah biome.  

The Deciduous is one of my favorite biomes.  I like the good supply of stuff you can get.  Meat (pigs and catcoons) and tails (catcoons), pig skins (pigs), birch nuts (birch trees), mushrooms, gold (pig king and occasional boulder), and glommer.  I say that the Deciduous biome is a huge plus and benefit.  I generally set up a lesser base there.  

The mosaic biome is great for graveyards since you get jewels, a chance of gears, and items to trade for gold.  Though I generally don't set up a base there.  

It's okay to have areas that aren't as useful or areas where you wouldn't set up a base.  Not every area is going to be as useful as the other.  

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13 minutes ago, LuxuryHeart said:

I generally camp by the portal (so newcomers don't ask "Were iz bas?!"  If I don't camp there, then I generally try to be close to a Savannah with Beefalo.  Sure the Savannah only really has rabbits (which I don't hunt), grass, and beefalo, but the use they each give is huge.  Beefalo gives poop, clothes (wool and horns), and protection from mobs.  They are VERY useful to me, and I generally get multiple uses out of them.

Indeed. If you find a decently sized herd and shave it a few times you'll get a hefty amount of wool, which is a very good fuel source (equivalent to logs). Perfect for the firepit and maintaining your iceflingomatics. (Invest in a firepit near the herd, build a chest and place a razor inside. Come back every now and then during the night for shaving. 10 adult Beefaloes x 3 Wool = alot of easy stackable fuel, which regenerates after a few days and is quick to gather.)

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2 hours ago, LuxuryHeart said:

I generally camp by the portal (so newcomers don't ask "Were iz bas?!"  If I don't camp there, then I generally try to be close to a Savannah with Beefalo.  Sure the Savannah only really has rabbits (which I don't hunt), grass, and beefalo, but the use they each give is huge.  Beefalo gives poop, clothes (wool and horns), and protection from mobs.  They are VERY useful to me, and I generally get multiple uses out of them.  Grass is very important, and I like to stock up on a lot of grass.  Sure the plains give grass, but not as much as the Savannah biome.  

The Deciduous is one of my favorite biomes.  I like the good supply of stuff you can get.  Meat (pigs and catcoons) and tails (catcoons), pig skins (pigs), birch nuts (birch trees), mushrooms, gold (pig king and occasional boulder), and glommer.  I say that the Deciduous biome is a huge plus and benefit.  I generally set up a lesser base there.  

The mosaic biome is great for graveyards since you get jewels, a chance of gears, and items to trade for gold.  Though I generally don't set up a base there.  

It's okay to have areas that aren't as useful or areas where you wouldn't set up a base.  Not every area is going to be as useful as the other.  

You are mostly just repeating what my original post says, but putting a positive spin on the exact same facts. The savannah itself serves no purpose except grass, the mosaic serves no purpose except for rocks, the deciduous serves literally no purpose. The only benefit to the savannah and deciduous at all is the creatures in them.

Plains already has grass, rockland and desert already has rocks; and the resources found in the deciduous are so subjective they are genuinely not worth gathering unless you are already there to interact with one of the points of interest.

 

The point is, the world is smaller then it actually is because certain biomes give players little incentive to interact with them and thus players do not even visit or interact that part of the world, they only ever go there because that is where Beefalo or the King happen to be. Players have reason to interact with the desert, swamp, plains and rockland multiple times.

Players do not even interact with the deciduous once they simply go there because that is where the King, Glommer and Klaus are. They only go to the savannah for grass, rarely for rabbits, or for the Beefalo. And they only go to the mosaic once for the graveyard and early gold; then often just default to using the rockland as a source of rocks. None of these three biomes themselves serve as valuable parts of the world. they are the grey areas people only ever need to go to for very specific reasons.

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I'll speak a little about deciduous biome

 Yep, it has Pig King and Glommer statue. It also contains mushrooms, usually having a spot or two that have much more then the rest. Same with berry bushes. Berry bushes are movable, but mushrooms - not. Besides mushrooms there are also hollow stumps and pond. Hollow stumps can be found only in deciduous again, because they got removed from oasis biome after "Against the grain" update.
 Deciduous forest can give you some other resources, too. Pig houses can be a source of pig skin, boards and cut stone. Fireflies are not even half as common as they do in deciduous. If you need to catch many of them - deciduous is the place to go.

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I only agree with the Savannah biome being bland. The biome is only useful for digging up some rabbits to make a Prestihatitator, and everything else it offers can be found elsewhere. Yes, it has beefalos which are unique to the biome, but they can be relocated and they're really only good for getting meat and winter gear on your first year. Even the biome's turf is useless as it can't be crafted into anything and eyeplants still spread to it. Overall, the Savannah biome is not great for building on either long-term or short-term.

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On the Mosaic biome, the only other useful thing you can get from that biome are the free Cobblestone Turfs you can get from there.

It might not be much depending on how your world gen is, but the Cobblestone Turfs are still pretty useful if you plan on building roads around your base and etc (and it doesn't cost any resources to get them either, just bring you Pitchfork). 

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8 hours ago, Renegade_Doll said:

You are mostly just repeating what my original post says, but putting a positive spin on the exact same facts. The savannah itself serves no purpose except grass, the mosaic serves no purpose except for rocks, the deciduous serves literally no purpose. The only benefit to the savannah and deciduous at all is the creatures in them.

Swamp serves litterally no purpose if you remove the creatures in them, you just go to harvest some reeds and you're done. Plains serves literally no purpose if you remove the creatures in them, you just go harvest some resources and you're done.

You could do that for pretty much every biome. Sure, if you don't count half the things inside the biome the biome is useless.

The only one not affected would be desert because you can't move cactus and tumbleweed.

 

You could disagree with people, but listed to them, don't remove part of what they said to make like you are right. Deciduous biome have plenty of mushrooms and berries bushes, making it totally ok for a base. Not "serves literally no purpose". You don't like it ? Ok. You feel like a biome is obviously better ? Ok. It's understandable. But when people explain why it's ok for them, then you must accept that for some people, it's ok. Meaning that there is no need to change theses biome entirely.

 

Especially when people are agreeing that two biomes are really lacking, mosaic and rocky (at least i feel like there is a consensus here)

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...with the presence of multiple deserts (or one huge desert, as I keep seeing happen), a meteor field, and the caves, it does feel like the rockylands are redundant. Like rock concentrations could be added to the other surface locations and the rockylands wouldn't be missed, other than their turf. That could be fixed by reusing the turf in said concentrated rock areas.

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