Why new content will feel underwhelming untill Klei does something about the farms

[Szczuku]

Hello, new thread. Untill Klei does something to nerf existing farms, 85% of new content will feel useless and underwheling.

Just look at the existing RoT content- fishing. Yes, I know that it exists more as an in-game hobby but there's still a lot of time and effort put into it. There are new crockpot dishes which utilize ocean fish but why bother with them when you can just get everything from Bunyman farm? Their drops litteraly cover all of your needs. Meat for hunger, turn meat into eggs and you can make pierogi for health, dry the meat and your sanity's good. As long as you can farm 4 stacks of food every night no other source of food will be useful to the players.

Cookie cutters introduced us to a new helmet. Too bad that pigman farms exist which can give you 20 football helmets every 4 days. If you can afford the grass ofc.

The only way new content can beat existing farms is only if it's even more broken than these farms. This is not healthy for the game. Players should have a legit choice when picking what resources to use. Instead these resources only get used when player goes: ''I want a challange so I'll only use Cokkie cutter helmets and eat only fish"

I understand that there have to be items better than other items, of course they have to. But that doesn't mean that we can't have multiple items on the same level of usefulness in a legit playthrough.

The way these farms can be nerfed is by making it so that Bunnyman and Pigman don't attack each other when told to. And that werepigs can break fences to get to food. That way players would still be able to farm these creature but wouldn't be able to just mass produce items as if they were in a factory.

The problem is not that there's the most efficient way to do something, there always is. The probelm is that the gap between the most efficient way and other ways is too big.

If things stay the way they are then I'm sure that after RoT is done players will still use football helmets as their main armor and bunnyman farms as their main food source. Unless ofc an even more broken thing to farm gets added.

[Terra B Welch]

Of course it's going to be underwhelming to veterans who stick to one meta and refuse to budge from it.

This game is clearly made for the newbies who can't even survive first autumn, let alone first winter, to them these items may be a nice boon once they've gotten enough into it. Also we've yet to see what the celestial tribute has to offer too.

Honestly I'm sick of seeing veterans whine about this game being "too easy". Don't starve together is NOT a Hard game, it is a Dense game. Apart from the big time veterans, not everyone knows or sticks to the meta of pig + bunnyman farm. I'm sorry that you've already experienced everything the game has to offer and refuse to get out of your meta shell.

At most I agree about the cookie cutter cap, I feel it should at least have a thorns effect when it clearly states "one must be so sharply dressed" and is literally a spiky helmet, but that's my two cents.

In other words, I have to disagree for the most part.

 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

Coockie cutter shell should have more drop rate. Is a great helmet (i always try to use it due his durability)

But yeah, i never do autofarms because of how them breake the game.

If i want pig sking i farm monster meat or i kill the entire village but by my own. 

I dont want to change the way the atqck each other because of how fun is making wars.

Maybe klei should improve the IA and make so worth the new items that you cant ressist to farm them.

Like the glass cutter. You can easily farm hambat or dark swork but i like having a good weapon choice like it and more if it has a perk, like glass cutter with the shadows.

 

At the end the problem is the player, nobody say to you to make  auto bunnymen farm or auto pigs farm. If a player doesnt get boring of doing it in each world, good for him but i never do the same founts of food in my worlds.

 

For example with wendy i have a 500days world where i have 0 bunnymem farms, only 4 pig houses near of the base (and i have more pig skin that i will need). I survive with kelpt, monster meat and honey mostly and my supply bundle is always full

[Toros]

Cookie Cutter helmet is terrible.  Annoying to farm, only 70% resistance, durability is only 25% higher than football helmet, 35% wetness resist doesn’t synergize with any currently existing head or body armor.

Many head options provide 20% wetness protection, and an umbrella provides 90%.  There’s no combination where cookie cutter’s extra 15% protection isn’t either wasted or the total protection isn’t insufficient.

What exactly is “great” about it?

[Terra B Welch]

38 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

At the end the problem is the player, nobody say to you to make  auto bunnymen farm or auto pigs farm. If a player doesnt get boring of doing it in each world, good for him but i never do the same founts of food in my worlds.

 

For example with wendy i have a 500days world where i have 0 bunnymem farms, only 4 pig houses near of the base (and i have more pig skin that i will need). I survive with kelpt, monster meat and honey mostly and my supply bundle is always full

I can honestly agree with this, honestly sitting at a pig/bunnyman farm 24/7 gets boring and tedious after a while, I've literally stuck to farming spiders with abigail for a long time for food since monster meat can still provide eggs, getting meat/morsels/frog legs isn't hard either, so those end up being my bacon and eggs, I also find it preferable to switch to wigfrid and bulk craft battle helms now over farming pigs for tons of pig skin for football helmets.

Honestly the longer it takes for me to even bother with bunnymen the better I feel. I've even decided to just use healing salves to heal for the majority of fights in place instead of farming pierogi.

I like that DST is enjoyable, I feel Klei shouldn't ruin the enjoyability of DST just to cater to veterans who think the game is too easy due to being stuck on the meta.

[Szczuku]

38 minutes ago, Terra M Welch said:

Honestly I'm sick of seeing veterans whine about this game being "too easy"

Never said that the game is too easy. Just that there's a problem with existing farms.

3 minutes ago, Toros said:

Cookie Cutter helmet is terrible.

What exactly is “great” about it?

When did I say it was 'great'? That was my point- it's a decent helmet but football helmets are too easy to mass-produce for anyone to consider using Cookie cutter helmets. Also… who uses helmets when it rains? If it's raining I'm putting on an Eyebrella/Rain Hat

[bruhmoment23]

Just now, Szczuku said:

Never said that the game is too easy. Just that there's a problem with existing farms.

When did I say it was 'great'? That was my point- it's a decent helmet but football helmets are too easy to mass-produce for anyone to consider using Cookie cutter helmets. Also… who uses helmets when it rains? If it's raining I'm putting on an Eyebrella/Rain Hat

I think Toros was refering to Arubaro's post, quote :

36 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

Coockie cutter shell should have more drop rate. Is a great helmet (i always try to use it due his durability)

 

[Well-met]

Just buff all the worthless items and make ice a bad filler. Simple.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

16 minutes ago, bruhmoment23 said:

I think Toros was refering to Arubaro's post, quote :

 

Anyways i didnt said is great. I said i like it because has more durability so with one and bone armor you dont really need more than 1 helmet in a lot of time

And i think im the one who said "the game is easy" but i said "is becoming more easy" that means that now we have more ways to survive and more easy and powerfull recipes but i dont think nobody can say this game is easy

[Toros]

1 hour ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

Coockie cutter shell should have more drop rate. Is a great helmet (i always try to use it due his durability)

 

11 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

Anyways i didnt said is great. I said i like it because has more durability so with one and bone armor you dont really need more than 1 helmet in a lot of time.

I don’t know how to react to someone who is making bizarre claims and then within an hour says they didn’t make them in the same thread.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

13 minutes ago, Toros said:

 

I don’t know how to react to someone who is making bizarre claims and then within an hour says they didn’t make them in the same thread.

english is not my main language so sometimes i mess with synonyms.

 

Cockie cutter helmet is  a good helmet (idk why you think is terrible) but with the low % drop is not that great because is not worth to intencionally farm it

idk how to react to a lot of things in this forum

 

[Moonatik]

10 minutes ago, Szczuku said:

Never said that the game is too easy. Just that there's a problem with existing farms.

 

 

So we maybe need a good farm for fishes ? 

Is it really a problem ? If we ask a new player to make a 25 houses rabbit village near his base, how long will it take ? He will explore the entire island and will say "rabbits ? Are you sure ?".

Farms are not the problem if food is the problem. I have 50 gardens, we can have tons of seeds, tons of poop. Same here.

We miss one season: The DIET season ! Same as the nightmare season. Season without any life, any food source, where "don't starve" will make you feel afraid of empty fridge. 

And we'll get back to the same. When knowledge is here, the challenge is gone.

Nerf is not the solution here.

 

[me real life]

This is just the same problem as always: players refusing to take advantage of any content that isn't the meta. The problem isn't that some things are better than others, the problem is that DST is a sandbox game and yet people refuse to play in the sand for more than 10 minutes after any update before returning to the exact same gameplay that's simply worked for years. If a complaint can be summed up as "this content is bad because it's not the meta," then the problem is that you're following the meta so strongly, and you shouldn't want changes that would harm so many other people's gameplay just because you can't break away from that meta.

[Moonatik]

And we already talk about something in particular: Sea life. Sea base.

If Klei would give us the possibility to build a real ground for a sea base, then fishing and fighting cookies would be your main activity, why not ? 

We only need a new way to catch fishes, maaaaaass faaaarming fish. No I'm jokin. But some traps would be good.

So we could imagine spending one or two seasons between your sea base and 3 or 4 little islands where you'd have to do stuff or whatever.

Life on sea.

[Well-met]

7 minutes ago, Sunset Skye said:

This is just the same problem as always: players refusing to take advantage of any content that isn't the meta. The problem isn't that some things are better than others, the problem is that DST is a sandbox game and yet people refuse to play in the sand for more than 10 minutes after any update before returning to the exact same gameplay that's simply worked for years. If a complaint can be summed up as "this content is bad because it's not the meta," then the problem is that you're following the meta so strongly, and you shouldn't want changes that would harm so many other people's gameplay just because you can't break away from that meta.

The point of a videogame is to use the best tools and ways at your disposal to perform better and tackle on bigger challenges.

saying "dont do it" is not an acceptable counter argument. Everyone goes for the shortest route.

I could play DST with one arm attached to my back, it doesn't improve the game design any better.

[Szczuku]

I really don't understand the"'it'll hurt other people's gameplay" argument. Didn't reworking Woodie hurt some woodie mains' gameplay? Didn't adding Antlion and it's forced sinkholes hurt many new player's (since they're such a good argument agains anything) gameplay?

Making it so that you have to work a little bit harder for example actually fighting pigs would make people complain here for about 3 days maybe 5. And after that everything would be back to normal.

Of course trying to change something that's already in the game will make some people (the ones that dislike change so much) mad, but they'll get over it. 

You're all acting as if dst had never angered some players with a new update.

[Toros]

4 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

english is not my main language so sometimes i mess with synonyms.

 

Cockie cutter helmet is  a good helmet (idk why you think is terrible) but with the low % drop is not that great because is not worth to intencionally farm it

idk how to react to a lot of things in this forum

 

70% protection is substantially worse than log suit or football helmet protection, and both of those are easier to acquire than cookie cutter shells.  For example, if you take 100 damage with a cookie cutter helmet, you'll lose 30 health.  In a football helmet, you'd only lose 20 health.  That's 50% more damage than the standard head armor.  For Wilson, that means that using cookie helms he could survive 500 incoming damage.  With a Log suit/football helm he could survive 750 incoming damage.

It's not good because it is more work to acquire and much less effective than more available, better options.

3 hours ago, Sunset Skye said:

This is just the same problem as always: players refusing to take advantage of any content that isn't the meta. The problem isn't that some things are better than others, the problem is that DST is a sandbox game and yet people refuse to play in the sand for more than 10 minutes after any update before returning to the exact same gameplay that's simply worked for years. If a complaint can be summed up as "this content is bad because it's not the meta," then the problem is that you're following the meta so strongly, and you shouldn't want changes that would harm so many other people's gameplay just because you can't break away from that meta.

Meta content is meta because it is the most convenient way to play.  Having passive food generation that once set up sustains hunger indefinitely and isn't seasonally dependent saves enormous amounts of time that can be spent doing anything else.  Farms have been an ignored source of food for a long time (unless you're playing as/with Wickerbottom) because they are inconvenient and ineffective for that purpose.

It's not that people have the attitude of "I refuse to play in the sand" and more that people try a mechanic like Fishing and immediately realize it's not an effective way to get food for the time invested.

Blaming large populations for adapting to the current game theory is a self-defeating way to go about things.  If you want aggregate behavior to change, you need to change the underlying cost/benefit.

[Moonatik]

4 minutes ago, Szczuku said:

 

Making it so that you have to work a little bit harder for example actually fighting pigs would make people complain here for about 3 days maybe 5. And after that everything would be back to normal.

 

You're right on that. But I can imagine a way to avoid the fight. As many of us don't know what to do with many theeths we have, we could simply put many traps and the result will be the same.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

8 minutes ago, Toros said:

70% protection is substantially worse than log suit or football helmet protection, and both of those are easier to acquire than cookie cutter shells.  For example, if you take 100 damage with a cookie cutter helmet, you'll lose 30 health.  In a football helmet, you'd only lose 20 health.  That's 50% more damage than the standard head armor.  For Wilson, that means that using cookie helms he could survive 500 incoming damage.  With a Log suit/cookie cutter helm he could survive 750 incoming damage.

 

who said the opposite? is not worth but if i farm salt and by the way i get shells i will wear the helmet.

helmet has 70% proteccion but log suit has 80%, if you wear both you get 80% damage reduction but you will consume the sells helmet durability

and i wont facetank mobs so i dont care getting hit harder if i only get hit few times

[Szczuku]

24 minutes ago, Moonatik said:

You're right on that. But I can imagine a way to avoid the fight. As many of us don't know what to do with many theeths we have, we could simply put many traps and the result will be the same.

Actually it's not. You'd have to go out of your way to craft, reset and restock the tooth traps. This is better than having to jsut feed 4 pigman and attack the one that can't escape in time.

The problem is not that there's the most efficient way to do something, there always is. The problem is that the gap between the most efficient way and other ways is too big. That's what I'm trying to get across

[Moonatik]

Maybe more time for rabbit respawn ? But I could build 10 more houses.

Fishing is a serious problem. I like the idea to live on the sea for a while. But it needs a lot of work, updates, to make the sea and his gifts good as we have now since few years by staying on the main island.

As summer could force you to go to cave, maybe we need something which could force us to go to the sea and stay overthere for at least a season.

Adding the ocean was a terrible good idea, which needs now more terrible good ideas. If it just the beginning, I don't know what to say. I wish Klei could speak about it in a roadmap, about the vision they have on a long term with the sea and all his possibilities.

[OMGkawaiiAngel]

I want most stuff to be challenging, I never ever use bunnymen farms, the last time I got so bored... I now prefer to hunt for meat and invest my time into farming dragonfruit instead.

[Toros]

29 minutes ago, Szczuku said:

Actually it's not. You'd have to go out of your way to craft, reset and restock the tooth traps. This is better than having to jsut feed 4 pigman and attack the one that can't escape in time.

The problem is not that there's the most efficient way to do something, there always is. The problem is that the gap between the most efficient way and other ways is too big. That's what I'm trying to get across

I strongly agree with the effectiveness gap being a big part of the issue.

To compare 3 food sources, we have

1) Bunnyman farm

2) Bee boxes

3) Advanced farms

The immediate thing to notice is that 1 is season-independent since it works through winter, while 2 and 3 stop working.

Per day, 1 also produces the most food per building, provides the materials to expand, and provides meat and veggies.  There’s no real downside to them at all.

Even the second most popular food source, Berry bushes, are self-sustaining and also provide meat and berries.

2 minutes ago, Moonatik said:

Maybe more time for rabbit respawn ? But I could build 10 more houses.

Fishing is a serious problem. I like the idea to live on the sea for a while. But it needs a lot of work, updates, to make the sea and his gifts good as we have now since few years by staying on the main island.

As summer could force you to go to cave, maybe we need something which could force us to go to the sea and stay overthere for at least a season.

Adding the ocean was a terrible good idea, which needs now more terrible good ideas. If it just the beginning, I don't know what to say. I wish Klei could speak about it in a roadmap, about the vision they have on a long term with the sea and all his possibilities.

The ocean mechanics have improved dramatically since being introduced and in terms of content there’s actually quite a bit now with a lot of potential.

The winch also has a lot of potential I don’t think we’ve fully explored yet.

[shadowDigga]

Nerfing something is a good way to make an update that came with the nerf instantly hated no matter how many good things come with it, because people who played before that update remember how things used to be.

It's better to buff new stuff to the level of old stuff, e.g. reduce the gap you mentioned by increasing usefulness of lower tier while leaving higher tier untouched. For example, while pig skins are easier to obtain than cookie cutter shells, pig skins are harder to be farmed by characters hated by pigs and pig houses can be destroyed by players on purpose (e.g. griefing). Cookie cutters come from invisible spawners that can't be destroyed by players (be it griefing or accident) and can be fought by anyone with equal chances. So basically cookie cutter cap should be buffed to football helm level in terms of difficulty of obtaining one. If, let's say, you were able to get enough cookie cutter shells to make 6-7 helms with durability worth of 10 football helmets as byproduct of clearing 2 salt clusters, then you'd definitely be less likely spending time solely farming pig skin to make football helmets. Here we go, no need to make obtaining pig skin harder when it's also used to make other stuff like umbrellas and hambats.

[Szczuku]

21 minutes ago, shadowDigga said:

Nerfing something is a good way to make an update that came with the nerf instantly hated no matter how many good things come with it, because people who played before that update remember how things used to be.

 

1 hour ago, Szczuku said:

Making it so that you have to work a little bit harder for example actually fighting pigs would make people complain here for about 3 days maybe 5. And after that everything would be back to normal.