Remove Summer Smolder

[Yuuko]

tl/dr - Summer smolder doesn't bring anything good to the game.  Replace it with a non-constant dust storm.

There are different things in games that add challenge and identity to the game.  In Don't Starve we are presented with several clocks that constantly tick down on us as we play the game.  Starting with darkness and the day / light cycle players learn to build a torch, and later to build miner hats, lanterns, and other light sources to keep the darkness at bay.  In Winter the darkness time is increased requiring players to adapt to better light sources, or suffer huddled around their campfire wasting time, still consuming food...

Other challenges come such as sanity, combat, and even Giants.  Giants threaten our base and force us to be on guard during their seasons.  We must be ready to flee our base and engage in combat lest they destroy all we have worked for.  Giants are both a curse and a blessing, as besting these challenges provides us with rare loots that we can use to create even more effective gear.  Basically the world gives us challenges, ways to overcome them, and then rewards that allow us to be even better in the world for besting these challenges.  Even Frog Rain gives us the reward of a million little jerkys for dealing with them.

There is one challenge that stands alone as both unrelenting, and unrewarding.  Summer Smolder is a constant threat in summer to burn anything.  It can start from trees, butterflies, twigs, pine cones, ect.  It can even start from seeds dropped randomly by birds, and from world-regrowth tree samplings.  The punishment is harsh as great swaths of the world can be destroyed.  There is no reward for dealing with summer smolder, and no more efficient way of handling it.  We have 1 structure that becomes the defining point of our base design.  Every structure needs to be within it's reach, and we must constantly fuel them in paranoia of our base being entirely ruined...

OR - we build our base where there is no smolder.  Going underground during Summer or the Oasis.  I don't believe forcing players to simply avoid a large part of the game is an engaging feature.  There is no challenge or reward or incentive to deal with it, so it becomes a black spot on the map where you simply avoid it entirely...  Unlike dealing with the temperature where we can craft better clothes, our options for Summer Smolder are to design our entire base around Flingo-matics or build the entire base around avoiding it all together.  There is no engagement here.

With the re-vamp to the Oasis and the addition of the Ant-Lion we already have a better method of challenging the player during Summer anyway.  We hear a rumble alerting us to the Ant-Lion's punishment allowing us to react as best as possible for our situation.  We can also spend time fishing in the Oasis and returning a few times to feed the Ant-Lion presents, OR we can simply fight the Ant-Lion and be done with it for the Summer.  It gives us an engaging challenge that we can confront in different ways, with different rewards for how we act.

At this point in the game I feel we can simply be done with Summer Smolder.  Most skilled players simply avoid it entirely by playing underground or using the Oasis, which shows just how un-fun it is to deal with.  Granted, playing in the caves is fun - but in Summer it isn't by choice.  The caves give us their own challenge and reward without needing to be shoved down there for a season.

Summer Smolder is also incredibly uninteresting.  It's simply "Fire can happen at any time."  There is no anticipation to it coming, and no elation for overcoming the challenge.  It would be more interesting to have the Dust Storm as a temporary event across the top side world similar to Rain Storms in Spring.  This gives players an incentive to get the goggles even if they don't live in the Oasis, but also doesn't force them to wear the goggles full time like the Oasis does.  The Dust Storm would be very challenging in tandem with any other event such as the Ant-Lions tantrum or a Hound Attack, but would not be lethal on its own.  It gives a more varied experience in play where you may live through a Dust Storm + Ant-Lion or Dust Storm + Hound Attack as you hold everything together for the season compared to Summer Smolder where it is an ever-present, indirect threat that is never experienced as a challenge, only as a punishment.

At this point I think Summer Smolder just needs to be removed from the game.

(To anyone who says to turn it off in world gen:  This isn't about MY experience, it is about the game's experience.  I could turn it off in world gen, but instead I just play in the Oasis and Caves during the summer.  This perspective is not that Summer Smolder is too difficult, but more that it is completely uninteresting.  It doesn't give any fun to the game the way every other experience like Hound Attacks and Giant Spawns, Ruins, Full Moon, New Moon, Frog Rain - ect.  Everything else in the game can be fun, and challenging, where Summer Smolder is like if there was a Giant that you couldn't kill, but had to endlessly kite all season long...)

[marcjhune22]

summer smolder? don't stay too long in your base. explore or build some ice flinggos

[Quyzbuk]

If you don't want smoldering, turn it off, you have the option to do so at worldgen, what more needs to be said?

[Donke60]

 Summer smolder has been grandfathered in it would be very hard to change given how is already part of a past mechanic and didn't even get changed when it was introduced also I find that since you said skilled players can Can dodge it I find no point to change it I hate how winter always blocks the road. But I get by it I survive summer perfectly fine with not going underground I just use the time to not being your base and maybe just being near the anti-lion and collect supplies when      He decides to wake up though I do like the idea of dust storms 

[Yuuko]

7 hours ago, marcjhune22 said:

summer smolder? don't stay too long in your base. explore or build some ice flinggos

 

5 hours ago, Quyzbuk said:

If you don't want smoldering, turn it off, you have the option to do so at worldgen, what more needs to be said?

^^^ As stated - I know how to deal with Summer Smolder.  My point is that it is pointless, tedious, and adds nothing interesting to the game.  Did you even read my post or just decide to give some 1 line quip in response with the pre-conceived notion that ~I~ don't know how to deal with summer?  It isn't a challenge, or a game interaction, or in any way interesting.  It is a random F-U the player gets if they don't completely avoid it, by ignoring half of the game during Summer.

4 hours ago, Donke60 said:

 Summer smolder has been grandfathered in it would be very hard to change given how is already part of a past mechanic and didn't even get changed when it was introduced also I find that since you said skilled players can Can dodge it I find no point to change it I hate how winter always blocks the road. But I get by it I survive summer perfectly fine with not going underground I just use the time to not being your base and maybe just being near the anti-lion and collect supplies when      He decides to wake up though I do like the idea of dust storms 

While it was grandfathered in, I don't think it was a great idea when it was started in DS.  Further - with the addition of the Ant-Lion and a summer thing, and the dust storm... I see no reason to not just drop Smolder in favor of Dust Storm weather throughout the world (like rain in Spring.)

Just because it can be dealt with doesn't mean it is good, or adds anything to the game.  The game could have a Giant with infinite health spawn and follow you all Autumn smashing any structures you were near and eating all drops...  You could play around it, but would it add anything to the game?  No.

[MondayNight]

On 6/20/2017 at 9:34 PM, Shosuko said:

tl/dr - Summer smolder doesn't bring anything good to the game.  Replace it with a non-constant dust storm.

Doubt devs would even consider this when already the option to turn smoldering off is in place. Plus one has dust storm mechanic for Antlion desert, that's the raised diversity aspect right there - it makes harder to survive a hound attack if one doesn't yet have Desert Goggles (researched or actually made), granted only valid for desert. On the other hand periodic dust storms on entire map doesn't provide any challenge whatsoever in contrast to smoldering: after first summer with its Oasis lake fishing is only a matter of having a pair of goggles on you, no significant difference in regarding to say autumn as just the overheating mechanic would remain in place in this scenario. At least smoldering makes you cautious when navigating map or going into surface base if no flingo in place. In my view dust storms are even less interesting or challenging; I usually kill Lion in day 1 or 2 after first summer so no worries about that element (sinkholes and cave-ins) of the game. The incentive to get desert goggles is already there: to be able to navigate normally when appeasing or fighting Antlion/hounds attacks happen while staying in desert. A periodic dust storm won't make me want to get goggles if I don't already have them, would just make me base in caves where unappeased lion actually provides me with rocks and minerals from mining cave-ins' boulders - as is less dangerous being in caves vs rolling RNG for fashion and desert goggles while risking a hound attack in desert/all lands dust storm.

[Quyzbuk]

Please understand what I'm about to say is not meant as an insult.

 

I did read your post Shosuko, but if I'm being brutally honest here, it wastes a lot of words saying a whole lot of nothing. It's an optional layer of depth you can choose to have on or off, which is more than enough for this particular case. You base your argument entirely on the existence of ice flingos being a necessity, when in reality, just paying attention to your surroundings is more than enough to keep a base / section of the world safe. You have more ways than you had even in the original Don't Starve to extinguish fires and more time to do it. There are still some situations where it is a nice insurance policy, but people place far too much importance on them. As for smoldering out in the world, a great many things now regenerate in DST in contrast to the single player variant, odds are if it's an important resource, you'll be saving it, otherwise something like a forest you won't even bat an eye over, and you'll probably be far enough offscreen that it won't spread too much anyway.

 

The point is, there are plenty of ways to deal with it directly, and an equally healthy number of ways to make it a non-issue, which is why I deferred to the simplest solution since it is the most effective and direct one here: You don't like it? Turn it off.

[Yuuko]

"Turn it off" is not a rebuttal.  If you can only say "turn it off" then you are essentially conceding my point.

People don't play through summer, they avoid it.  What good is a feature if it essentially turns half of the game off for a season?

I'm not asking how to handle summer, or complaining because it's too hard.  I'm saying it turns half the game off, gives no interaction, no challenge / reward.  It does nothing for the game, and adds nothing to the game.

If you don't believe me, try turning it around.  Just because it's there, and has been there, doesn't mean it's good.

If summer smolder wasn't in the game - why should it be added?

[marcjhune22]

59 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

People don't play through summer, they avoid it.  What good is a feature if it essentially turns half of the game off for a season?

Am I the only one who play through summer? I don't avoid it. Go to caves? nah. That takes the fun out of the game. 
Smoldering is not quite a nuisance. Try shipwrecked with those raining dragoon eggs that literally wrecks everything near you in the dry season

[Donke60]

7 minutes ago, marcjhune22 said:

Am I the only one who play through summer? I don't avoid it. Go to caves? nah. That takes the fun out of the game. 
Smoldering is not quite a nuisance. Try shipwrecked with those raining dragoon eggs that literally wrecks everything near you in the dry season

Thank you 

[Donke60]

Oh not to mention the volcanic ash clouds that block your vision 

[Yuuko]

Yet still none of those comments say anything about what good Summer Smolder does for the game...

[marcjhune22]

23 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

Yet still none of those comments say anything about what good Summer Smolder does for the game...

Don't get me wrong but this is a survival game. Not everything in the game has to be beneficial to the player one way or the another. It adds difficulty to the summer season. 

[Yuuko]

My question was "what good does Summer Smolder do for the game."  Not for the player. Darkness, freezing, overheating, starving, going insane, these things all do great things for the game.  They set the player on a path towards progression and mastery over these elements.  They are all interacted with, through different methods of lighting, crock pot recipes vs what food is available, heat rocks and seasonal clothes, ect...

Summer Smolder is unique in that it isn't overcome, or defeated.  You just avoid it by going into the caves, or living in the Oasis.

Worse - this is DST - someone could join a game in Summer and ruin EVERYONE'S progress without them even knowing...  Not even griefing, but just by running through the top side base in summer the base could become ruined.

What does Summer Smolder do for the game that makes it interesting or fun?  Nothing.  You don't play with it, or interact with it the way you do any of the other challenges.  It is an outlier that delivers quiet and harsh punishment that is avoided by ignoring half the world for the season.

[marcjhune22]

28 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

My question was "what good does Summer Smolder do for the game."  Not for the player. Darkness, freezing, overheating, starving, going insane, these things all do great things for the game.  They set the player on a path towards progression and mastery over these elements.  They are all interacted with, through different methods of lighting, crock pot recipes vs what food is available, heat rocks and seasonal clothes, ect...

Summer Smolder is unique in that it isn't overcome, or defeated.  You just avoid it by going into the caves, or living in the Oasis.

Worse - this is DST - someone could join a game in Summer and ruin EVERYONE'S progress without them even knowing...  Not even griefing, but just by running through the top side base in summer the base could become ruined.

What does Summer Smolder do for the game that makes it interesting or fun?  Nothing.  You don't play with it, or interact with it the way you do any of the other challenges.  It is an outlier that delivers quiet and harsh punishment that is avoided by ignoring half the world for the season.

Let me highlight my answer for your question

56 minutes ago, marcjhune22 said:

Don't get me wrong but this is a survival game. Not everything in the game has to be beneficial to the player one way or the another. It adds difficulty to the summer season. 

This is turning to a discussion with that edgyr*** on youtube. Everybody has their on play styles, yet the only solution that you are always saying to avoid summer smolder are going to caves and living in the oasis. So someone suddenly joins? You made your server open to public right? Naturally somebody will join your game. And if somebody does join and it is summer, you have to coordinate with that new player to not set the base smoldering. They are many ways to defeat summer smoldering, remember your particular predicament on applies in cooperative mode, so be cooperative! If the others are not cooperative, kick them, ban them.   

[Donke60]

I would also like to point out if summer smolder went away and was replaced with these dust storms it would even give me more of a reason to go underground Because the dust storms or worse than smolder if I'm fighting and it smolders I can move the fight I can't really do that with a dust storm that also takes up ahead slot which means I'll probably be weaker and armor and that also means that I can't use a campfire or a cold fire so that I can continue fighting I would have to stop  mediately this would also be very bad for new players who do not know summer hazards because this would stop them in their tracks wow duststorm might not do damage to base you can always rebuild a base in my  opinion I rather rebuild a base then die to a summer hazard or a dust storm because our life is more important if you build a make a big house with a lot of resources than you know you're going to need a flingo  that is the price you pay for having a big bass or wanting to keep your big bass.  A dust storm if you have the right supplies wouldn't be bad but for new players or if something breaks or if you're fighting it just makes a lot worse and you can always dodge summer smolder by not coming to a base when it's daytime

 

[Yuuko]

I was gonna drop it, since you aren't a developer, and haven't posted any real argument so really I shouldn't care - BUT I am going to do this:  I am going to play a few games turning summer smolder off.  I postulate that I will find the game much more fun, and no less dangerous for it.  A key sign that the feature is needlessly limiting without adding anything to the game.

Both of you have a simple position of "It's there, don't change it."  This is a suggestions forum, the argument "b/c that's how it is" is meaningless here.  Further - summer smolder is a complete outlier in how it does not engage the player, or add anything to the game.  It doesn't even add danger as much as it simply forces you into the caves for the season.

I do agree that the Dust Storm may be a bit much on the world - but with the ant-lion already being a seasonal "kill or satisfy" with the sinkholes and rocks I don't think the Dust Storm is even needed.  Summer is already difficult with overheating, faster spoilage, wilting plants, fire hounds, and then the ant-lion that I feel summer smolder is needlessly excessive, and pointless.

[Donke60]

That just means @Quyzbuk was right 

[Yuuko]

1 hour ago, Donke60 said:

That just means @Quyzbuk was right 

As a "Suggestions and Feedback" forum, no - he isn't.  The answer is never "You can just turn it off."  It is a suggestion and feedback.  Not because I find summer smolder difficult, but because I find it needlessly tedious and highly restricting while offering no player engagement.

This is something Klei should actually - really - genuinely - consider.  It is a part of the game that adds little, if any to the game by way of challenge and player engagement.  It would not be missed if it were removed.  If it weren't part of the game and you had to argue why it should be added you would find you have no argument - which is as good a reason as any to take something out as any.

None of you are providing any reason for summer smolder to be in game - and none of you are developers of Klei.  I'm not asking for a mod, or asking for help.  I'm giving my suggestion and my feedback.

[Donke60]

12 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

As a "Suggestions and Feedback" forum, no - he isn't.  The answer is never "You can just turn it off."  It is a suggestion and feedback.  Not because I find summer smolder difficult, but because I find it needlessly tedious and highly restricting while offering no player engagemen

 His suggestion was to turn it off and with Player engagement neither does the storms it just inconveniences and makes it difficult in a different part of the game

 

[Donke60]

@ImDaMisterL

[Quyzbuk]

@Shosuko

Let's analyze what you just said most recently above.

29 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

As a "Suggestions and Feedback" forum, no - he isn't.  The answer is never "You can just turn it off."  It is a suggestion and feedback.  Not because I find summer smolder difficult, but because I find it needlessly tedious and highly restricting while offering no player engagement.

You keep falling back on this argument, yet you keep offering nothing to fix it, make it more interesting, make it different, etc etc.

Do you see why everyone keeps telling you to just turn it off yet? You aren't offering suggestions, you are just giving feedback. This is your personal opinion and preference on a part of the game, one that you can disable at any point that you please. You are wasting so much time arguing that because you don't like something, that it shouldn't exist for anyone, but nobody is agreeing with you. Why do you think that is?

[splorange]

[Sicko Hog]

[LuxuryHeart]

On 6/20/2017 at 1:34 PM, Shosuko said:

tl/dr - Summer smolder doesn't bring anything good to the game.  Replace it with a non-constant dust storm.

There are different things in games that add challenge and identity to the game.  In Don't Starve we are presented with several clocks that constantly tick down on us as we play the game.  Starting with darkness and the day / light cycle players learn to build a torch, and later to build miner hats, lanterns, and other light sources to keep the darkness at bay.  In Winter the darkness time is increased requiring players to adapt to better light sources, or suffer huddled around their campfire wasting time, still consuming food...

Other challenges come such as sanity, combat, and even Giants.  Giants threaten our base and force us to be on guard during their seasons.  We must be ready to flee our base and engage in combat lest they destroy all we have worked for.  Giants are both a curse and a blessing, as besting these challenges provides us with rare loots that we can use to create even more effective gear.  Basically the world gives us challenges, ways to overcome them, and then rewards that allow us to be even better in the world for besting these challenges.  Even Frog Rain gives us the reward of a million little jerkys for dealing with them.

There is one challenge that stands alone as both unrelenting, and unrewarding.  Summer Smolder is a constant threat in summer to burn anything.  It can start from trees, butterflies, twigs, pine cones, ect.  It can even start from seeds dropped randomly by birds, and from world-regrowth tree samplings.  The punishment is harsh as great swaths of the world can be destroyed.  There is no reward for dealing with summer smolder, and no more efficient way of handling it.  We have 1 structure that becomes the defining point of our base design.  Every structure needs to be within it's reach, and we must constantly fuel them in paranoia of our base being entirely ruined...

OR - we build our base where there is no smolder.  Going underground during Summer or the Oasis.  I don't believe forcing players to simply avoid a large part of the game is an engaging feature.  There is no challenge or reward or incentive to deal with it, so it becomes a black spot on the map where you simply avoid it entirely...  Unlike dealing with the temperature where we can craft better clothes, our options for Summer Smolder are to design our entire base around Flingo-matics or build the entire base around avoiding it all together.  There is no engagement here.

With the re-vamp to the Oasis and the addition of the Ant-Lion we already have a better method of challenging the player during Summer anyway.  We hear a rumble alerting us to the Ant-Lion's punishment allowing us to react as best as possible for our situation.  We can also spend time fishing in the Oasis and returning a few times to feed the Ant-Lion presents, OR we can simply fight the Ant-Lion and be done with it for the Summer.  It gives us an engaging challenge that we can confront in different ways, with different rewards for how we act.

At this point in the game I feel we can simply be done with Summer Smolder.  Most skilled players simply avoid it entirely by playing underground or using the Oasis, which shows just how un-fun it is to deal with.  Granted, playing in the caves is fun - but in Summer it isn't by choice.  The caves give us their own challenge and reward without needing to be shoved down there for a season.

Summer Smolder is also incredibly uninteresting.  It's simply "Fire can happen at any time."  There is no anticipation to it coming, and no elation for overcoming the challenge.  It would be more interesting to have the Dust Storm as a temporary event across the top side world similar to Rain Storms in Spring.  This gives players an incentive to get the goggles even if they don't live in the Oasis, but also doesn't force them to wear the goggles full time like the Oasis does.  The Dust Storm would be very challenging in tandem with any other event such as the Ant-Lions tantrum or a Hound Attack, but would not be lethal on its own.  It gives a more varied experience in play where you may live through a Dust Storm + Ant-Lion or Dust Storm + Hound Attack as you hold everything together for the season compared to Summer Smolder where it is an ever-present, indirect threat that is never experienced as a challenge, only as a punishment.

At this point I think Summer Smolder just needs to be removed from the game.

(To anyone who says to turn it off in world gen:  This isn't about MY experience, it is about the game's experience.  I could turn it off in world gen, but instead I just play in the Oasis and Caves during the summer.  This perspective is not that Summer Smolder is too difficult, but more that it is completely uninteresting.  It doesn't give any fun to the game the way every other experience like Hound Attacks and Giant Spawns, Ruins, Full Moon, New Moon, Frog Rain - ect.  Everything else in the game can be fun, and challenging, where Summer Smolder is like if there was a Giant that you couldn't kill, but had to endlessly kite all season long...)

I honestly agree with you in your argument.  Summer Smolder is hard for no reason, and with no reward.  I literally just go in the caves because I can't be bothered with ice flingos, and I don't want my base catching on fire due to the smolder.  

I mean, Winter and Spring are both annoying, but they aren't as bad as summer.  Winter isn't even that hard, it just requires warmer clothes and you get a lot of ice, Tam o' Shanters, and a walking cane.  Spring just needs an umbrella and straw hat to get by, and you get a lot of frogs and fruit (they grow faster during this season).  The Summer is hard, you need a lot of resources (gears for flingos and fuel for it), while giving you little reward.

Since people avoid it so much, why not just remove it?