Feedback so far.

[SteamMonkey]

The  Altar crafting: 
Pros:
I enjoyed crafting the altar. It was fun finding the parts and exploring. 
The new Axe and weapon are fantastic, I'm sure they'll be tweaked but I like the concept of faster, less durable items with special use cases. 
Gathering the new materials is interesting. I think possibly you could speed up the time it takes to spawn the moon glass after using a bath bomb.

Cons/Suggestions:
I dislike non-prototype able crafting in general. Especially in this situation. Basically you have to craft a bunch of the new axes / weapons and take them home because you won't "main base" on the islands. It's just not practical. (This could obviously change, but cave access alone would keep me off the islands as my main area). As it stands, I probably won't use the new items after my first run to and from the island because it's not worth the time it takes to take the slow boat out, craft a bunch, and go back. The only way I can see it being useful in a long term situation is to make a boat covered in chests, spend an extended time on the islands mining up all the glass you can find and bombing all the springs you can find. Loading up the boat and taking your haul back to your main base. 
Suggestion: Make it so once you make these once they're added to the celestial tab when you use the Orb anywhere.
The bombing could take effect faster than it does, but it's minor complaint. 

The Boats:

Pros: 
I love the concept. Being able to do just a raft with a paddle or throw on the anchor, wheel, and mast. I love that we can build stuff on them like chests and what not. I think the prices are good. Expensive enough to be an investment real early in the game but not unreachable. 

Cons/suggestions:
Alot of my issues are most likely a non-point since it's so early in the beta. But, here goes... They're slow. Too slow. It's ok for the base model to be that slow but we need a way to make them faster.
Repairing isn't consistent and needs to be sorted. 
Suggestion: More variety would be great. Being able to armor the boats, make them faster, possibly larger? 

The new mobs/plants:
Pros: 
All the new mobs are great. I love the hounds, carrats, saladmandars, even the spiders are interesting. 
The new trees are pretty and I like the moth mechanic.
stonefruit is interesting, I like the coconut parallel and the 'shelf stable' aspect. 

Cons/Suggestions:
The saladmandars should have some sort of respawn mechanic. As it stands, on a long term server, they're gonna get wiped out fast most likely. The only real use they have is to fast forward to dragonfruit without plaing the seed/birb butt lottery.

Suggestion: Maybe make it so they drop a Saladmandar egg instead of leafy meat when they haven't 'bloomed' yet. Make that egg plantable and when it grows it hatches into a saladmandar. Make the bloomed versions have a % chance of dropping an egg as well as the dragonfruit. That would make them a sort of livestock for the game which I think would be a great addition to our normal farming routine. 
The Carrats are... interesting. I guess I'd like them to be renewable in some way as well but I know resource management is a thing. 
The Gestalts are just frustrating. Is it intended that we have no recourse against them? Even when fulling 'woke' you can't kill them it seems. 

The Islands themselves:
Pros: 
I like the look and feel in general, it's sorta barren but I understand that being a thing and I'm sure you'll add more 'life' to the island experience during the beta. 

Con/Suggestions:
Suggestion: Make some way to get into the caves from the islands. If I could do cave access, I could see myself making my main base on the islands
 

[Zeklo]

33 minutes ago, SteamMonkey said:

I think possibly you could speed up the time it takes to spawn the moon glass after using a bath bomb.

It can be instantaneous. They "freeze" during a fullmoon. Meaning you can get as much glass as you can by tossing & mining in the same spot before night ends.

[Rellimarual]

2 hours ago, SteamMonkey said:

The only way I can see it being useful in a long term situation is to make a boat covered in chests, spend an extended time on the islands mining up all the glass you can find and bombing all the springs you can find. Loading up the boat and taking your haul back to your main base. 

My impression is that this is meant to be a job for one or two players who split off from the team to go map the seas and bring back goods. It also fosters the option, on public servers with multiple bases, of some players living a nomad lifestyle and trading with players basing back on the mainland. 

I went through a phase of caves-only runs on public servers where after the first 5 days I never returned to the surface. I traded with the surface dwellers, moggles for items like tams and beefalo wool.

It was pretty fun, but finding players who got that fairly basic concept was not easy. There are so many possible ways to play this game to keep it interesting, but most gamers don’t have enough imagination or creativity to understand that and come up with new ideas or even join in with someone else’s. All they can think of to enrich the experience is speedruns and rushes or adding more bosses and more weapons/armor. It is kind of sad, tbh. 

[-Variant]

7 hours ago, SteamMonkey said:

The Gestalts are just frustrating. Is it intended that we have no recourse against them? Even when fulling 'woke' you can't kill them it seems. 

This is intended, as you're not supposed to base on the island that's killing and mutating everything.

They're trying to enlighten you, and trying to put you into a never ending blissful rest.

 

I second your points on the mobs respawning, it'd be rather nice.

 

7 hours ago, SteamMonkey said:

birb butt lottery.

You've only yourself to blame when you see these opening world wide. (¬‿¬)

[KING POTATO X]

I enjoy DST, I enjoy it very much. It's my favorite game, in fact. I like the lunar island concept and love the boats. The thing is, I don't like the lunar island content. It doesn't fit with the style of the game (In my opinion) and feels too exotic. I'd be happy to offer suggestions.

 

 

Also, the horror hounds are too macabre.

[Well-met]

Non-prototype makes sense. It gives incentive to visit the island more often.

[SteamMonkey]

36 minutes ago, Hell-met said:

Non-prototype makes sense. It gives incentive to visit the island more often.

The items should be the incentive, not the fact that you can't make em without going back. As it stands, the items you're making at the altar are only kinda worth the trip. The Axe is great but the fact that you have to stockpile em for it to be worth it and the boats are so slow, its almost a better use of time to just chop with a normal golden axe. For the time spent to get 'to' the islands and back, the items either need to last longer or be craftable off island once you've made the trip. 

[Well-met]

4 minutes ago, SteamMonkey said:

The items should be the incentive, not the fact that you can't make em without going back. As it stands, the items you're making at the altar are only kinda worth the trip. The Axe is great but the fact that you have to stockpile em for it to be worth it and the boats are so slow, its almost a better use of time to just chop with a normal golden axe. For the time spent to get 'to' the islands and back, the items either need to last longer or be craftable off island once you've made the trip. 

You have to get back for the items. It's mutually inclusive. It's exactly the same deal as the Ruins gear.

At any rate, have you considered this is an early beta and there'll be more worthwhile items added in eventually?

[SteamMonkey]

22 minutes ago, Hell-met said:

You have to get back for the items. It's mutually inclusive. It's exactly the same deal as the Ruins gear.

At any rate, have you considered this is an early beta and there'll be more worthwhile items added in eventually?

Most of the ruins items are well worth the trip. In regards to considering it being beta, yes... that's exactly why I'm providing the feedback I am. Because it's a beta and those are my feelings based on gameplay as it stands. This is the time to give feedback. 

[Well-met]

14 minutes ago, SteamMonkey said:

Most of the ruins items are well worth the trip. In regards to considering it being beta, yes... that's exactly why I'm providing the feedback I am. Because it's a beta and those are my feelings based on gameplay as it stands. This is the time to give feedback. 

I'm pretty sure Klei is well aware the trip isn't up to meta standards just yet. They even said so themselves.

[ShadowDuelist]

12 hours ago, SteamMonkey said:

The Gestalts are just frustrating. Is it intended that we have no recourse against them? Even when fulling 'woke' you can't kill them it seems. 

Just remain insane and they won't bother you. You can stay "insane" by holding a dark sword, equipping a night armor, or if you got to FW tier, equip the bone helmet.

Bone helmet on the islands is probably the easiest way to go around, since shadows don't spawn and no matter where you stay your sanity won't raise with it. Nightmare amulet also works but its durability drains so fast that its probably not worth it.

 

[SteamMonkey]

40 minutes ago, Hell-met said:

I'm pretty sure Klei is well aware the trip isn't up to meta standards just yet. They even said so themselves.

Well... umm.. thanks for the feedback on my feedback? 

 

30 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

Just remain insane and they won't bother you. You can stay "insane" by holding a dark sword, equipping a night armor, or if you got to FW tier, equip the bone helmet.

Bone helmet on the islands is probably the easiest way to go around, since shadows don't spawn and no matter where you stay your sanity won't raise with it. Nightmare amulet also works but its durability drains so fast that its probably not worth it.

 

Yeah, I guess later in the beta we'll have a better idea of where in the content string the islands are gonna land. I rushed to them so bone helmets weren't an option and I came to the same conclusion you did about the amulet. I considered using the sword/armor but I also wanted to experience the gestalts and get a feel for it. When I did put myself to insane (mostly by eating shrooms) I still got targeted by them, just not nearly as much. They are an annoyance to small hazard. It's far from a deal breaker and there are a lot of things in this game that are obviously there to just be a hinderance/annoyance and I'm generally ok with that. I guess I was kind of hoping that at maxed "woke" I'd be able to at least fight em