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How would you "fix" the lunar island?


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So to get to the point, the Lunar Island to some has been.....underwhelming. The few grievances that I have seen against going there for anything besides 'cause is the a) The items available there don't impact the game well enough to justify the trip/there is alternative that is much easier to get compared to stuff on the main land b) There is no danger/reward to incentive you going there, like going to the Oasis Desert to kill Antlion and c) There is no reason to make repeat trips. With these grievances in mind, I would like the community to discuss how the devs can alter the lunar island to be more desirable to go to. Here is mine for example:

Remove the Lunar Orb and make the items be in the Celestial Tab from the Celestial Alter

The one simple way of making the lunar island desirable would be give the lunar orb recipes to the celestial alter because it would solve the big problem for the character swapping progress and fix some of the problems with the lunar island.

Reason #1: Adding a massive reward to the Lunar Island

So it's no secret that swapping characters is pretty powerful, game breaking even. It provides you with the power to have these wide arrange of advantages to pick to and swap from with no negative consequences (besides the materials) and can be used to make things that were never intended for a single player like Were beaver and Catapults or Bernie and Abigail, it just provides so many perks to pick and choose from that it's inevitable that it would be broken. If that power were to be moved to the Lunar Island, it would gain a huge incentive to travel over there because Character swapping is that good. It would not fix the other problems of the tools being underwhelming or Stone Fruit being op as hell, but it would make it so that it would advantageous to all players regardless of skill level and progress in the game.

Reason #2: Giving a reason to return to the island

Today's current lunar trip consists of a goose landing there, the human taking as many bushes as they can carry, and then the goose running home, rarely to return. This type of trip makes the island a more one and done scenario instead of a place to go to. Adding the items to the Lunar Island would force the player to back to the island because of one reason, idols. Idols don't stack and have to be carried to use the portal, due to the nature of these idols being consumed at a rate that would eventually deplete them, making you go back. This would force players to back every once in a while to restock on idols to keep using the portal. This maybe a slight d**k move, but it would make it so that the lunar island is never a one and done trip and more of a reoccurring event that happens every once in a while, sort of like the aporkalpyse calendar. 

Reason #3: Make Character Swapping more difficult then just stumbling upon the right item, but not so difficult that it requires a ton of resources for one swap

The character swapping process sort of has to been in the game forever now, as they provide a way for new players to spice up their world without making a new one, and provide single player people to actually have a diverse range of characters in their world without having to use those social skills.  This being said, the character swapping as it stands is much too easy for the power it brings. Moving the recipes for character swapping to the lunar island would be the perfect mix of being difficult, but not to difficult. Getting to the Lunar Island maybe tough, but if the player really wants to go there, they will get there soon enough. The lunar island doesn't require you to fight some big boss or have to brave dangerous mobs just to reach so it gives new players chance, however navigating the sea and making the alter is a big enough challenge that it would give some players a tough time. It just provides that perfect balance of being easy enough for easy player to access if they try hard enough but not easy enough that they can't reach the mechanic without some work, in my opinion.

 

Again this thread is about some way to fix the lunar island so give your ideas and methods of making the island better, and use my idea above as more of a general idea of how these ideas should be made. Thanks to all that read and hope you have a good night/day/afternoon/evening/space magic time period your are in.

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1 minute ago, Sinister_Fang said:

This content is still in the middle of being developed, so I think it's too early to say it needs to be "fixed".

Now with that being said, I'm not opposed to the idea of merging the two celestial tabs together. It always felt like the orb should have been apart of the altar.

While it is still in development, there still can't be little QoL changes along the way too. There is also the fact that establishing this now instead of later would make it so that they could make other items as worthwhile as the Celestial Alter and the Portal Build Thingy.

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I refuse to actually comment on the Lunar Island, because it’s not the island I’m worried about being “Fixed” it’s the Ocean itself.. it’s too peaceful.

Just play Shipwrecked DLC to get a better understanding of what I am talking about first you have the Sea (Which is What the entirety of DST is currently..) Then you have the DEEP SEA (the water is a Darker Color and This is the area most hostile mobs that want you dead are)

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I think addressing the current state of the lunar island allows us to get a sense of direction and to provide critique and opinion alike as valuable feedback. So, even though the lunar island is subject to change, addressing the current state allows us to express opinion about direction.

I agree wholly with the OP. There is little reason to stay there for a long stretch of time or even make a base there. (No nightmares is nice [negligible and sometimes can be considered a downside], but you are also a massive distance away from other resources making the lunar island not a good base spot.)

As for staying there a while, hopefully there will be a boss that is native to the land that we have to fight on that soil or at least another reason to stay there a little longer than 2-3 days your whole playthrough. Maybe if glass cutters were slightly better I would see myself going back. The problem is they are about on par with dark swords instead of better than dark swords. Their vs shadows perk doesn't make the fight end any sooner, but just makes the weapon last longer which doesn't contribute much to the weapon if you are going to amass a bunch of them anyways. 

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I don't think there is any real problem with the lunar island.  There are a lot of places I don't really need to return to, so the island is not unique in this.  I'm pretty confident they will eventually add a lunar island boss which gives us about as much reason to return there as we have to return to dfly, bee queen, klaus sack, antlion ect...

Lureplant farming with Wicker is a great reason to use the lunar biome.  Not only does the lunar turf block eye plants allowing you to easily carpet out the areas you don't want the eyes to grow, but going insane from reading books is completely negated.  Its better than swapping to maxwell to read books.

That is all said just in response to reading your title and intro.  As for your suggestions I like it a lot.  The celestial orb is such an awkward object in the game if they took everything it did and instead added it to the celestial altar I think it'd be much better.  Also I wouldn't have to wait 1-2 years for that !@#$ orb to fall from the sky <_<  I've had to wait until day 90 before just for it to fall, be mined, and gg.  I'd much rather go through the effort of moving the 3 pieces of the altar together, that is a much more preferable and engaging cost to access swapping characters than just waiting for a rock to fall from the sky...  and waiting... and waiting...

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If we're talking about the content in general, I think the glass cutter needs a buff. It's meant to be a weapon to combat shadows, however it's really not as good as a dark sword or hambat. The hambat has unlimited durability, and the dark sword passively drains sanity to make farming fuel easier. Not to mention you're also gathering the main ingredient for dark swords as you use them against shadows. If it could deal more damage to shadows, then it might be worth considering. But as of now, it's outdone by items that already exist, and are more accessible.

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I like the current celestial orb as a base decoration so I'd be sad to see it no longer appear at all, but the practical non-crafting use I put it to is that its position is always visible on the map, to everyone, whether or not it's in a character's inventory. That makes it a great "Hey, look over here!" beacon no matter what everyone else is doing or whether they know how to use a compass or have enough gold to make one. I don't think any other items do that - moonlenses don't work as map markers in inventory - so if the celestial orb was patched out, or made into an upgrade for the lunar island altar in the style of the Ancient Pseudoscience Station, it would be nice to have some kind of fancy moonlens or something you could do the same thing with.

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Just now, Cosheeta said:

The what in the there's a roadmap now? Oh damn, there really is something I missed.

Is this secret a jape though? Are we jesting?

Sadly, it would be a secret I don't know about, I had found some crazy lines in the first picture w/ Wilson/Wolfgang/Wendy with GIMP  but nothing specific about plans/future content. However the existence of the picture is a clue they hadn't finished the ROT updates yet.

Yes the roadmap 2020 replaced the 2019 one. 

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tbh if the content is going to be so good/op, I'd add a boss (possibly a few gestalts possessing a few rocks to make a Moon Golem) which as long as it exists nothing can be done to the island, as well as it'd teleport to the players entering the island. Ya know, there is a small difference between the ruins being that far away with some obstacles in the way and constant darkness and making a boat and sailing for a few minutes

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11 hours ago, CameoAppearance said:

That makes it a great "Hey, look over here!" beacon no matter what everyone else is doing...

More often than not that means just a big "Here is base, come and burn it!" to griefers. Yeah, I very-well-know the "we shouldn't center our ideas on the griefers' existence" argument yet the core-of-matter is just that: on public servers the most (but on any type of servers really) you want to weed out trolls/leechers/noobs and such if wanting your base to.. you know, keep existing. Thus is no coincidence on most log-running servers Moon Orb is either walled behind 2-3 rows of Moon Walls at Spawn Gate or on a boat in middle of nowhere-Ocean. Game is first and foremost a Survival so "Where base?!" only signals to me the one who utters it right after popping in world either doesn't care about this aspect and/or only wants to leisure in base at your expense most-often-than-not. Prove you can survive, can carry your own weight and find base on your own - or make yourself one mini if so desire and deem necessary. Thus a solid "No!" for the great "Hey, look over here!" from me.

 

Otherwise yes, OP's main discussion points - make Moon Isles an attraction with high risks / high rewards (perhaps in form of a boss and/or some special Moon Cave with very interesting loot table), give a reason to recurrently go back to Lunar islands (maybe make Stone Fruit Bushes un-rootable and only multiply them via already-existing Sproutings) plus make character-swapping dependent on Celestial Altar (process of making Moon Idols only available via said Celestial Altar, and scrap or give other function to Celestial Orb) - are valid and even dare-I-say necessary in making Moon trips rather mandatory and more exciting; also Ocean needs to be a bit more dangerous and more dynamic, with changes depending on Seasons - add waves mechanic, winds etc.

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6 hours ago, CameoAppearance said:

I like the current celestial orb as a base decoration so I'd be sad to see it no longer appear at all, but the practical non-crafting use I put it to is that its position is always visible on the map, to everyone, whether or not it's in a character's inventory. That makes it a great "Hey, look over here!" beacon no matter what everyone else is doing or whether they know how to use a compass or have enough gold to make one. I don't think any other items do that - moonlenses don't work as map markers in inventory - so if the celestial orb was patched out, or made into an upgrade for the lunar island altar in the style of the Ancient Pseudoscience Station, it would be nice to have some kind of fancy moonlens or something you could do the same thing with.

That's not my use for it as a solo player, but couldn't you use the moonlense and just drop it when you need to signal?  Also isn't there a flare now?  idk as solo player I'm not sure how those work really :\ 

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2 hours ago, Desblat said:

TRIGGERED

Great... now the internet is going to explode with Japanese anime vegetable girl drawings all over EVERYWHERE! and it will probably skyrocket into popularity that it gets its own TV Series.

(In a world where Spongebob can exist.. I’m pretty sure Anime Vegetable women can’t be too far from the realm of existence)

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