Content Refresh vs. Character Refresh

[Kelloggs Dogfry]

While I have been enjoying the character refreshes and the pacing of the updates in general, someone got me thinking of a little bit of a new way Klei could spice up the pattern. While I eagerly await a Webber refresh, it could be interesting if for one month, instead of going to the next character after a content drop, if Klei took time to refresh archaic mechanics/content. For example, a refresh to farming, ancient guardian, summer, and/or the biome(s) in the caves (although they just need more content in general, kinda like summer, so that’s less of a refresh). Or this could be something that we move on to after the characters are refreshed? Thoughts?

[Well-met]

Aren't those called QoL updates?

[Hornete]

A lot if not all of the characters are in a pretty good position now. I wouldn't mind if they stopped character refreshes for a bit.

[Kelloggs Dogfry]

2 minutes ago, Well-met said:

Aren't those called QoL updates?

I would believe QoL to be more like what we received recently such as things about the main menu, and fixing things such as the marble armor recipe. It could be similar though, regardless the question stays the same! 

[Guest]

*others*

I like what klei is trying to go with their goals but its so goddamn mixed for me. new character/refresh, quality of life and sometimes return of them content.
 

Heres my suggestion: first focus on character refreshes and/or return of them, THEN i would recommend refreshing or changing many items,bosses and others so we can have a different play style then don't starve solo. after that i only would think of the events like forge and gorge at the moment.

we are over half 2020 and yet the return of them hasnt really booming that much and it's something klei has taken notice probably. and for those who say its just on development you cant make up that excuse me. not for me.

that's all folks and keep those confused reactions coming. pls dont

[Mike23Ua]

1 hour ago, Kelloggs Dogfry said:

While I have been enjoying the character refreshes and the pacing of the updates in general, someone got me thinking of a little bit of a new way Klei could spice up the pattern. While I eagerly await a Webber refresh, it could be interesting if for one month, instead of going to the next character after a content drop, if Klei took time to refresh archaic mechanics/content. For example, a refresh to farming, ancient guardian, summer, and/or the biome(s) in the caves (although they just need more content in general, kinda like summer, so that’s less of a refresh). Or this could be something that we move on to after the characters are refreshed? Thoughts?

The thing is.. people are used to playing the game the way it is NOW and if you change that.. your essentially changing the product they bought and enjoy playing..

While SOME of you want a refresh on making the game harder by default, I See it a different way.. I see those Newbie players ALREADY Struggling Enough with the game as it is... so to Overhaul that and add new content making it worse is going to do nothing in the terms of making the game anymore enjoyable to Them..

Which is why I want something else.. Maybe a New Mode, or some personal difficulty balancing sliders that effect YOU and ONLY YOU.. 

stuff that will make YOUR game more difficult with new content that will NOT effect a new players experience. I mean honestly look at ALL of the Return of them Content updates so far.. you had to actively SEARCH for that content by building a boat and Sailing there... (minus the Skittersquid which are peaceful anyway until you attack them) 

Klei did not say okay let’s throw some Shattered Spider fissures onto the main islands and have those crawl out of holes to attack players. NO you have to actually be experienced enough with the game to build a boat and actively go seek that strange new island out for yourself...

Which allows casual players to still enjoy the game as it has always been.. meanwhile YOU are on Lunar Island dealing with Spiders who now share Deerclops AoE attack. Klei knows what they’re doing and I don’t think they’ll just suddenly decide to make the whole game harder on those people who already struggle with it more then enough.

 

[Bellium]

15 minutes ago, emin61 said:

*others*

I like what klei is trying to go with their goals but its so goddamn mixed for me. new character/refresh, quality of life and sometimes return of them content.
 

Heres my suggestion: first focus on character refreshes and/or return of them, THEN i would recommend refreshing or changing many items,bosses and others so we can have a different play style then don't starve solo. after that i only would think of the events like forge and gorge at the moment.

we are over half 2020 and yet the return of them hasnt really booming that much and it's something klei has taken notice probably. and for those who say its just on development you cant make up that excuse me. not for me.

that's all folks and keep those confused reactions coming. pls dont

To be fair, development takes a lot of time and many stages, so I imagine working on Character refreshes and RoT at the same time is just the more efficient way to do it, "Too many cooks spoils the meatballs" kinda stuff.

 

Also I voted for a mix of both but I kind of want them to just go about updating summer and farming the most, farming just feels kind of pointless compared to any other food source, and summer I just never want to leave base in fear of everything burning down

[Yuuko]

1 hour ago, Kelloggs Dogfry said:

While I have been enjoying the character refreshes and the pacing of the updates in general, someone got me thinking of a little bit of a new way Klei could spice up the pattern. While I eagerly await a Webber refresh, it could be interesting if for one month, instead of going to the next character after a content drop, if Klei took time to refresh archaic mechanics/content. For example, a refresh to farming, ancient guardian, summer, and/or the biome(s) in the caves (although they just need more content in general, kinda like summer, so that’s less of a refresh). Or this could be something that we move on to after the characters are refreshed? Thoughts?

You make it sound like redesigning the balance of seasons, caves and surface, or boss fights is a simple thing they could just "do in a month."

I hope Klei doesn't think "hey, this month lets just randomly change some stuff in summer b/c lolz"

Unless something in RoT changes these things I'd rather Klei focused on character reworks and RoT content.  After RoT content if they want to do a "Whole New World" update where they change many elements as part of a cohesive core-game rework then sure.  But lets not pretend something like that can, or should be done as a trivial "let's put off our scheduled workload to just mess with x for a month"

[Kelloggs Dogfry]

18 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

You make it sound like redesigning the balance of seasons, caves and surface, or boss fights is a simple thing they could just "do in a month."

I would actually argue that if they just focused on one thing such as farms or just ancient guardian, I think they could pull that off in a month or a little bit over that. Now, something like summer would probably be more of a multiple month update I could agree there, because it is broad and is just completely void of content atm and needs a lot of help. The refresh aspect of summer would probably just be a touch up on wildfires and etc to modernize the mechanic a bit, but yeah it needs a full rework tbh.
 

But otherwise I get what you’re saying. Just keep in mind that we do not know what their scheduled workload looks like unless they directly tell us things so who is to say things are not more up in the air? All we know is that they are working on character refreshes, they are working on RoT. We can make assumptions about those and other things like events, but at this current moment, we can only confirm a new RoT update is coming next. 

[Yuuko]

11 minutes ago, Kelloggs Dogfry said:

I would actually argue that if they just focused on one thing such as farms or just ancient guardian, I think they could pull that off in a month or a little bit over that. Now, something like summer would probably be more of a multiple month update I could agree there, because that is just completely void of content atm and needs a lot of help. The refresh aspect of summer would probably just be a touch up on wildfires and etc to modernize the mechanic a bit. 

Focus on farms and do what?  Do what with ancient guardian?  These aren't isolated systems.  If farming is changed now it needs to be in keeping with everything they are doing going forward.  This is no different from reworking a character.  It requires identifying how that character identifies and relates to the world.  Its not a simple task.

11 minutes ago, Kelloggs Dogfry said:

But otherwise I get what you’re saying. Just keep in mind that we do not know what their scheduled workload looks like unless they directly tell us things so who is to say things are not more up in the air? All we know is that they are working on refreshes, they are working on RoT. We can make assumptions about those and other things like events, but at this current moment, we can only confirm a new RoT update is coming next. 

What we do know is they are already slowed down from covid.  They've told us some patches may not be on schedule.  It doesn't sound like they are in a place to put things on hold and change focus for a month to a completely unrelated item.  Besides, what needs to change about Ancient Guardian anyway?  You keep saying his name, but idk what you think the problem even is?

[Kelloggs Dogfry]

16 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

Focus on farms and do what?  Do what with ancient guardian?  

I don’t have the answer as to how farms should be changed, but it is a largely shared opinion by informed players that farms function horribly compared to every other food source in the game. 
Ancient Guardian is supposed to be a ruins (“end game”) type boss, and functions as a glorified seasonal giant that most people decide they would rather fight through an exploit. I understand the need for simpler bosses such as seasonal giants, but ancient guardian really doesn’t meet their quota for involved bosses. 

 

16 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

What we do know is they are already slowed down from covid.  They've told us some patches may not be on schedule.  It doesn't sound like they are in a place to put things on hold and change focus for a month to a completely unrelated item.

I don’t believe I or anyone suggested stop what they are doing and do this now, it’s more along the lines of assuming they don’t have everything exactly mapped out but rather they just have concepts (ex: September char refresh, October: RoT) but nothing actually set in stone with what changes they make, it could be potentially cool to see a focus on a game element other than the characters getting a refresh. But if they already have things for sure in the works, such as the confirmed troubled waters update and maybe they’ve already begun work on a char refresh for the month after, yeah for sure don’t stop working on that. 
However, just to further point out their flexibility, they did delay an update because they thought it needed more time and did do a small QoL update in its stead. 

[Mike23Ua]

Alternate game modes, harder difficulty options, distant far away harder biomes.. you do not just suddenly change the beginning islands of the game to make a new player to the franchises life any more of hell then it already is for them.

[Kelloggs Dogfry]

4 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Alternate game modes, harder difficulty options, distant far away harder biomes.. you do not just suddenly change the beginning islands of the game to make a new player to the franchises life any more of hell then it already is for them.

My friend that isn’t the point of the suggestion. There are archaic mechanics/elements that need refreshes. This isn’t about making the game harder.

[X-lem]

I think Webber needs a refresh. Beyond that though I would rather see content updates.

[JJ0264]

well it's nice that Walter (last new character) is done and we can finish the rest of the cast

most to least interested

Maxwell

Wigfrid

Webber

Wx-78

Wickerbottom

Wilson

Wolfgang

[Mike23Ua]

52 minutes ago, JJ0264 said:

well it's nice that Walter (last new character) is done and we can finish the rest of the cast

most to least interested

Maxwell

Wigfrid

Webber

Wx-78

Wickerbottom

Wilson

Wolfgang

I don’t think we’ve seen the end of new characters, or for that matter ports of DLC Characters. Warly arrived from Shipwrecked, Wormwood arrived from Hamlet.

I fully expect the rest of them to make the transition into DST at some point, maybe not now, but certainly by 2021.. trying to play single player DS just feels so outdated, old.. no Belongings skins, no cosmetic skins, and no one to play with... Hamlet just released this week on Xbox One and its a sad lonely experience that I WISH could be enjoyed with at least one other person.. 

There are mods for this, as well as mods for playing as the rest of the DLC cast- Walani, Wilbur, Woodlegs, Wilba, Wheeler & Wagstaff.. but console players can’t use Mods, and the only way IM going to get that content is either by begging Klei till they finally feel generous enough to make that content official or by buying a PC and using those mods.

I ALSO don’t think we’ve seen the end of entirely brand new characters either... I want to see Charlie as a playable character (there’s a mod for that too..) and a playable Tanky Rock Lobster- That is slow moving but can take more damage, when it takes damage free rocks fall out of his body for his teammates and he can move faster... due to not being so heavy in Rock, However he also won’t have that extra protection of being heavily armored either.

When I first saw “Pearl” I originally thought that was exactly what she would be.. 

AND Going by Klei’s Track Record with Solo DS it also makes sense-

Vanilla DS has two secret unlockable characters, Wes And Maxwell.. one is obtained in Chapter 3 of Story by doing a certain thing, (trying to keep this as spoiler free as possible) And the other is obtained in the Epilogue to Adventures Mode Ch 5.

Reign Of Giants has one additional unlockable character Webber, Obtained by finding a thing and putting it into a thing.. (again spoiler free as possible)

Shipwrecked has two secret unlockable characters Wilbur and Woodlegs Wilbur is obtained by finding a thing and taking it back to him, Woodlegs is unlocked by finding several things and placing them into a thing.

Hamlet has one additional secret unlockable character Wilba obtained by talking to a thing, fighting a thing, taking a thing back to place.

But where is DSTs???? When am I going to Unlock Charlie by beating the games so far non-existent Campaign Mode? Why can’t I unlock Pearl as playable after completing all her tasks? 

@Klei- The Game is afoot.

[thegreatJash]

Refresh maybe two or three a year, and I'm cool with that. 

I look forward to content more because character reworks don't apply to me very much, since my main's not getting reworked (Wortox). 

However, it'seems always nice to see someone get reworked, because it's something new and different that I might play around with for a couple days or so. 

Honestly, as long as it's good content, bring it.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

On 6/17/2020 at 7:50 PM, emin61 said:

*others*

I like what klei is trying to go with their goals but its so goddamn mixed for me. new character/refresh, quality of life and sometimes return of them content.
 

Heres my suggestion: first focus on character refreshes and/or return of them, THEN i would recommend refreshing or changing many items,bosses and others so we can have a different play style then don't starve solo. after that i only would think of the events like forge and gorge at the moment.

we are over half 2020 and yet the return of them hasnt really booming that much and it's something klei has taken notice probably. and for those who say its just on development you cant make up that excuse me. not for me.

that's all folks and keep those confused reactions coming. pls dont

covid mess the updates. Klei said that they will make this kind of updates because is easier to them in this situation meanwhile the big updates from RoT should wait a little 

for that the QoL came instead of other kind of update