Troubled Waters and the future of DST

[Mike23Ua]

I would like to remind you guys to please be nice and follow forum guidelines, don’t pick fights with other forum goers, this community is made up of lots of people who all equally (hopefully) share a passion for the Dont Starve franchise, and you guys need to understand and respect that as a Community composed of thousands of players that obviously we will not all share the same opinions.

My cry’s for harder difficulty in progressing through my world but lessened difficulty in fighting annoying totally optional bosses get at least 7 confused reacts a day, but I’m over the age of 20 and I don’t let people’s opinions sway me from My own.

Thing is.. you gotta know when to agree to disagree instead of just continuously calling folks out.

[camelCase]

47 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

I would like to remind you guys to please be nice and follow forum guidelines, don’t pick fights with other forum goers, this community is made up of lots of people who all equally (hopefully) share a passion for the Dont Starve franchise, and you guys need to understand and respect that as a Community composed of thousands of players that obviously we will not all share the same opinions.

My cry’s for harder difficulty in progressing through my world but lessened difficulty in fighting annoying totally optional bosses get at least 7 confused reacts a day, but I’m over the age of 20 and I don’t let people’s opinions sway me from My own.

Thing is.. you gotta know when to agree to disagree instead of just continuously calling folks out.

Yeah I'll hold my hands up to responding in kind when on-topic discussion was derailed in favor of point scoring and people just grudge reacting. I'd like to say I always tried to steer things back but I should've stopped it earlier. I'll remove my previous comment and some of my more inflammatory wording.

[Cr4zyFl4mes]

15 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

For me I don’t see it ending anytime before mid-2021 and I’ll tell you why- Klei still has to refresh 

Wilson, Wes, Wigfrid, Maxwell, Wolfgang, Wickerbottom, WX78, and Webber.

That is a Whopping 8 Characters who still need to be refreshed.
And that’s not even counting DLC Ports if they also choose to do those Walani, Wilbur, Woodlegs, Wilba, Wheeler, Wagstaff

Is there somewhere an official source they need to refresh these characters? I feel like Wolfgang's perks are good as they are, Wilson is supposed to be basic, isn't he? Maxwell is imo very fun and offers 3 distinct gameplay changers (shadows, infinite sanity and low hp) - only thing i don't understand about him are the shadow duelist. Wes is supposed to be this weak character and I don't think they will ever refresh him since we got the April fools Wes refresh. Wickerbottom? Why? And even though Wigfrid isn't very interesting, her diet combined with her perks and personality offer kinda interesting gameplay. The only characters I think NEED refresh are WX and Webber.

[Mike23Ua]

15 minutes ago, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

Is there somewhere an official source they need to refresh these characters? I feel like Wolfgang's perks are good as they are, Wilson is supposed to be basic, isn't he? Maxwell is imo very fun and offers 3 distinct gameplay changers (shadows, infinite sanity and low hp) - only thing i don't understand about him are the shadow duelist. Wes is supposed to be this weak character and I don't think they will ever refresh him since we got the April fools Wes refresh. Wickerbottom? Why? And even though Wigfrid isn't very interesting, her diet combined with her perks and personality offer kinda interesting gameplay. The only characters I think NEED refresh are WX and Webber.

I’ll look for the link later- but answering your question now, Console players don’t have Mods.. we can’t make our own unique characters with Workshop.. and the only way our game is going to be given fresh life- Is through these Return of Them updates and the Character refreshes.

When they updated Willow it gave her new Goals to do... you spend more time when playing as Willow NOW Collecting Spider Silks, Beefalo wools and Beard Hairs to Build and repair Bernie Dolls.. That is Willows specific THING Now.

You will Spend your time playing as Wendy playing around with her own personal version of the Single Player DS Divining Rod, to find lost things for Pipspook to create potions to apply to your Sisters Ghost. THAT is Wendy’s Thing Now...

Each Character has a Gimmick that ties directly to Them, and each Gimmick freshens up their gameplay and makes them feel unique and different from one another.

And CURRENTLY the only things Different about Wes, Wilson and Wolfgang are a couple Stats and Wilson’s ability to grow and shave beard hair.

They all will be given new features.... but hey if your not on a PS4 or Xbox and don’t like those new changes you can just reverse them back using mods, or alternatively if you ARE on PS4 or Xbox you can just buy and play the single player game to play them in their Pre-Rework days.

But ultimately.. they ALL need a Rework. Not to make them any better at X end game goal, but to make them more unique and fun to play as.

[Cr4zyFl4mes]

On 7/15/2020 at 8:03 PM, camelCase said:

I'd like to preface this topic by saying I absolutely think moving into the ocean was a valid move for DST. If I'm honest though, as much as I love Klei, I completely agree with most of the critics of the ocean content. I think it's unrewarding, unnecessary, and a huge missed opportunity for integrating more Shipwrecked content. The stone-fruit and glass cutters are the only things which work since they have use on the mainland but the Lunar island remains a temporary distraction at best, and devoid of content at worst.

There are much more rewards on Lunar, but most are kinda easy to get. To name some: Kelp (all year vegetable, no need to fertilize), Glass axe (for toadstool or for deforestation with honey spice), Anenemies (infinite traps), Moths (for the most cute and usable critter). "unrewarding" isn't the problem, the problem is it is unchallenging and as you said "temporary distraction" - one trip is often enough.

As for the ocean itself, I think the fishing will go somewhere. The ocean fishing (at least for me) is an interesting and more realistic mechanic than the pond fishing, and as such I like doing it. The variety is great (maybe a bit overwhelming), and there is already some use in it. The Scorching Sunfish And Ice Beam are exactly, what I imagined from it - I don't know if there is better portable solution to battling overheating and freezing (You only need 1 bundling wrap, 12 grass, 8 fishes and a tin fishing bin for 4-days trips in the summer/winter). Also, with the weighing of fishes, there are hints, the fishing will lead somewhere.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

1 hour ago, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

Is there somewhere an official source they need to refresh these characters? I feel like Wolfgang's perks are good as they are, Wilson is supposed to be basic, isn't he? Maxwell is imo very fun and offers 3 distinct gameplay changers (shadows, infinite sanity and low hp) - only thing i don't understand about him are the shadow duelist. Wes is supposed to be this weak character and I don't think they will ever refresh him since we got the April fools Wes refresh. Wickerbottom? Why? And even though Wigfrid isn't very interesting, her diet combined with her perks and personality offer kinda interesting gameplay. The only characters I think NEED refresh are WX and Webber.

in the streams that showed warly a dev said something like "with warlys food with wolfgang you can get an stupid amount of damage but he will be reworked anyways"

i dont know how to find the source 

[jpmrocks]

There's a lot of great stuff and a lot of stuff that needs work with Troubled Waters thus far.

Good:

- Lunar Island and it's great add-ons (lunar trees giving more wood, stone fruit, alternative routes for dragon fruit and gems, lunar moth pet, kelp)

- The Hermit and Associated stuff, like treasure hunting and trading

- Sea Weeds and Barnacles

- Ocean Travel and ship upgrades

- Salt Boxes

 

Bad:

- Fishing is really underwhelming (too many useless fish, only 5 fish are really worth anything. Some of the lures just dont work)

- Malbatross and Crab King are amazing fights, but with honestly bad rewards (malb sail and beak would be great if it there was more to it than just "fast", and the trident takes too much work to get for so little reward)

- Too much water with nothing to do. Travelling oceans is a snore fest

[TipherethB]

On 7/16/2020 at 3:26 PM, Mike23Ua said:

- SNIP -

Look... Honey, i'm tired of being the echo that returns the sound of your broken record, but haven't we already talked about this...?

> Porting DLCs would undermine the work of all the people who made said free mods (WITH KLEI'S PERMISSION)
> "They still have to purchase the addons!" yeah, and they have to buy the game too. You can't buy the DLC without the addons afaik, correct me if i'm wrong here.
> This literally makes the entire existance of classic DS pointless. The whole point of the dlcs was to make it so classic DS has something unique so people still come back to it even if DST exists.
> Klei already stated this won't happen
Look, I try my hardest to be patient with you, because I appreciate how active you are in these forums, but we've gone over this.. do the things I say just go in one ear and out the other? 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
As for the actual topic of the thread, I want to stay optimistic and say that we're still gonna have to wait quite a bit until RoT is done. The title of the update chain is very... daring, for lack of better terms. "THEM" are really important, as far as the Don't Starve lore goes. So i want to believe something big is probably coming. Perhaps the long awaited adventure mode? Probably not, but one can dream. I have no doubts that we'll be able to interact with the Throne at some point, just like we did in classic don't starve. I want to believe this will be even bigger than the previous update chain, A New Reign, and that when it's all said and done this will be content that won't be just "Oh, uh, it's there, I guess." and instead will be something substantial that everyone will be excited to do.

I... Agree that as of right now, the updates have been quite small and underwhelming, with the exception of SsSs which is one of the first major "setting up" updates, other than the obvious first update. I'm willing to chalk this up to the fact that there's a pandemic going on outside and that has hurt development time. It's not impossible. And while I think it's okay for the community to be disappointed with the update speeds and the sometimes lacking content, I don't entirely think saying that "With each successive update to ocean content I'm less and less convinced they will eventually all come together to provide something more than the sum of its parts."  As, optimistically considering the negative impacts of the pandemic, it's still too early to say that. I wasn't around during a new reign to know how long the update chain was and how substantial each update has, but as of right now, I enjoy all of the ANR content that was added and none of it feels like it's wasting space, and I actively try to do a lot of it (i.e shadow pieces) and I want to believe that it'll be the same for The Return of Them, and if the chain has more than 10 total updates, over the span of like.. two years? I'm personally okay with that. We also have to consider that they're working on brand-new characters *AND* character refreshes at the same time as the RoT content.

At least that's what I think. I try to be optimistic about these updates and cut Klei some slack because they have been one of the better developers out there, and they've earned my trust in their competence, and I'd be willing to bet that they've planned ahead, and the pandemic simply slowed them down.

[Mike23Ua]

It is wrong on so many levels to say that I can’t ever have content compatibility with something I paid money for.. because Klei allowed PC people the freedom to use that content for 100% free.

I find it VERY ironic that you would say that by giving me DLC compatibility in DST it undermines the Value of DS when people on PC get to enjoy content I PAID FOR For Free... And BECAUSE they let people on PC use it Free I can’t have said content compatible with the Multiplayer version of my game.

Does that sound fair at all to you?

I don’t know if you haven’t noticed yet but most the things that ARE Mods, are being sold as DLC characters & cosmetics now.

Wasn’t there a Mod for Abigails once upon a time ago?? I think it’s safe to say that just because Klei LETS you do it for FREE does not mean that they won’t eventually take said content and make it part of the game.

And Also YES you can totally buy DLC Add-Ons for games on an Xbox console without having to own the game itself... I’ve done it many times before when a DLC for a game I plan to buy later goes on a sale that’s too good to pass up.

Can I PLAY the DLC? No of course not.. but I can buy it and then buy the game or games that run it later.

[Hornete]

7 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

PC get to enjoy content I PAID FOR For Free...

You paid for the Shipwrecked and Hamlet DLCs on Don't Starve. Not Dont Starve Together.

[Mike23Ua]

4 minutes ago, Hornete said:

You paid for the Shipwrecked and Hamlet DLCs on Don't Starve. Not Dont Starve Together.

Yes your right I did, but my point still stands that how the heck is it that if content I paid money for become compatible with DST, it would kill sales of DS Solo? ...

You guys already said there are FREE Mods that let you access this type of stuff. So the Sales are ALREADY dead...

End of Story, there’s nothing you can say that can dispute against that fact.

[TipherethB]

2 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

It is wrong on so many levels to say that I can’t ever have content compatibility with something I paid money for.. because Klei allowed PC people the freedom to use that content for 100% free.

I find it VERY ironic that you would say that by giving me DLC compatibility in DST it undermines the Value of DS when people on PC get to enjoy content I PAID FOR For Free... And BECAUSE they let people on PC use it Free I can’t have said content compatible with the Multiplayer version of my game.

Does that sound fair at all to you?

I don’t know if you haven’t noticed yet but most the things that ARE Mods, are being sold as DLC characters & cosmetics now.

Wasn’t there a Mod for Abigails once upon a time ago?? I think it’s safe to say that just because Klei LETS you do it for FREE does not mean that they won’t eventually take said content and make it part of the game.

And Also YES you can totally buy DLC Add-Ons for games on an Xbox console without having to own the game itself... I’ve done it many times before when a DLC for a game I plan to buy later goes on a sale that’s too good to pass up.

Can I PLAY the DLC? No of course not.. but I can buy it and then buy the game or games that run it later.

The Abigail mod only made it so abigail followed you if she got too far away. It didn't do even a third of what the rework did. 

It isn't wrong to tell you "Hey, uh, the developers don't have the responsibility or the job to make it so that the old stuff works with the new stuff." Nintendo Switch can't run Nintendo 3ds games. And I can't look at them and say "BUT I WANT TO PLAY POKÉMON SUN AND MOON!!!", because a new console is there for new things.

Everyone who's gonna play the mod has purchased DST. they aren't play it for free. Not only that, the mods are FAR from the experience of actual shipwrecked. If you played the mods, you'd know a lot of them are glitchy, and still heavy works in progress. Because they're fan-made. The people working on them are non-profit. 

Dude, do you seriously have no respect for the ammount of work people put into those? You claim to be a 20 year old man, so you surely understand how much work and dedication goes into making that stuff, and you're upset because you don't have access to it due to the console you have? Klei doesn't owe you mod content, dude. 

The only reason WHY it's allowed is because Klei, has, already, stated, IT WON'T HAPPEN. They allow people to make mods for it on DST, because THEY won't do it. BECAUSE THEY DON'T WANT A SPLIT FANBASE. no matter in what way you say it, there is very little profit to be made from porting the DLCs over to DST, and there's already fanprojects which have years and years of work put into them, and Klei is a developer that can respect the years of work that THEY THEMSELVES approved of. 

The abigail mod was a patch up for the big wendy problem with abigail's AI. it was a thing that HAD to be fixed. It's not something like adding shipwrecked DLC that does NOT need to be done, and that you yourself said you can already access with the power of singleplayer. Of course it would be fun to play hamlet/shipwrecked with friends, but it's too much work, work which could be better spent making ACTUAL NEW CONTENT for the game.

Please. Do you not have empathy for the mod developers? Do you not care for the fact that doing something like this would slow progress of new features even further?

Ain't replyin further on THIS thread because this is hella off-topic. Directly message me on the forums if you really want to make an argument for yourself or make a thread for it. 

My sincere apologies to everyone else in this thread who had to read this. Mike, I value your presence a lot, but come on. You can't expect Klei to invalidate years of voluntary work because you want them to bring dlcs to DST. no one is taking away your rights to play it. You own it. And you CAN play it. It's more trouble than it's worth. 

Now please, if you must reply, do it in DMs. this thread has gone off-topic enough.

[Hornete]

1 minute ago, Mike23Ua said:

 

You guys already said there are FREE Mods that let you access this type of stuff. So the Sales are ALREADY dead...

Not really. The Mods are very unfinished, one of them is a huge soup of random gorge, forge, hamlet, and shipwrecked stuff and very buggy and crashes a lot. The other one is very unfinished and wont be worked on for a while.

[Mike23Ua]

Your thinking about the WRONG Abigail Mod.. I’m talking very specifically about the one that changed the color of the flower on her head, the same one I paid money for when I bought Wendy’s Belongings when they refreshed her back in March.

Something YOU had for FREE was made official content I could buy.. and that’s my whole point with this entire topic of

“If they did that it would kill Solo DS”

Correct me if I’m wrong- But there was also a mod for Beards too wasn’t there?

(Also... how can any of this possibly be off-topic when the OP themselves talked about how much more lively Shipwrecked boats & Ocean Content feels than Return of Thems?)

[camelCase]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking mods and integrating them into games, they're a great indication of what the community wants. Rimword did this, and not only compensated the modders, they gave one of them a job.

How geometric placement hasn't been integrated yet is really beyond me.

[Mike23Ua]

40 minutes ago, camelCase said:

There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking mods and integrating them into games, they're a great indication of what the community wants. Rimword did this, and not only compensated the modders, they gave one of them a job.

How geometric placement hasn't been integrated yet is really beyond me.

Mods aren’t in Klei’s Responsibility to provide to us though, like they have no control over rather or not Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo allows them.. because the ONLY people denying us Console players the right to use mods ISNT Klei... it’s Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo.

Having said that- there are work arounds for this situation, such as Ark Survival Evolved adding player created mods to the game as free dlc for everyone.

Mods that people outside of their own development team created, that they simply stole and added to their game.

(I’m pretty sure there’s some terms of use agreement that you signed that gives them every right to edit, modify and use mods you created in any manor that THEY choose to do so and all while without providing the mod creators any form of compensation.)

the creators of Ragnarok, The Center, Valguero & Crystal Isles for Ark did not get paid when they added those into the game- I mean at most they may of mentioned their names on a forum post somewhere but outside of THAT.. the content the mod creators created now belongs to the company who have given said mod away as free dlc content.

We will NEVER get full mod support on PS4 & Xbox One... but hopefully we can get some of the most highly popular PC mods in a future QoL update as free content for Everyone.

We will just have to be patient and wait and see what the future holds.

But for now I think we can all agree that the ocean content in DST is mostly empty and has a few more updates to go before it ever feels like it’s NOT still in “Beta”

[Squirrel12]

For me, the biggest issue is the boat combat...Since the boat were added, we've been waiting for canons and combat that requires co-operation (one player steers the boat, another shoots canons, another repairs, etc).

Nope, instead what we have is a platform where people hit things...

And with every update, they seem to dig themselves deeper into a hole. 

[Mike23Ua]

20 minutes ago, Squirrel12 said:

For me, the biggest issue is the boat combat...Since the boat were added, we've been waiting for canons and combat that requires co-operation (one player steers the boat, another shoots canons, another repairs, etc).

Nope, instead what we have is a platform where people hit things...

And with every update, they seem to dig themselves deeper into a hole. 

That would make the game DEMAND multiplayer when many people (myself included) play completely Alone or with only 2-3 friends.

Literally the ONLY way I see that ever working is if you could “Hire” Pigman or Merms or some other new NPC Mob to Man your ship stations for you.

Yes... yes I’m totally stealing this Idea from Atlas, where you can play multiplayer... but if you enjoy doing your thing Solo, you can also hire NPC’s to help man your ship so you don’t HAVE to rely on having other players

[Squirrel12]

12 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

That would make the game DEMAND multiplayer when many people (myself included) play completely Alone or with only 2-3 friends.

Literally the ONLY way I see that ever working is if you could “Hire” Pigman or Merms or some other new NPC Mob to Man your ship stations for you.

Yes... yes I’m totally stealing this Idea from Atlas, where you can play multiplayer... but if you enjoy doing your thing Solo, you can also hire NPC’s to help man your ship so you don’t HAVE to rely on having other players

It's a multiplayer game though...

[Mike23Ua]

5 hours ago, Squirrel12 said:

It's a multiplayer game though...

A multiplayer game with the option of still totally playing offline.. >.>

[QuartzBeam]

On 7/17/2020 at 2:39 AM, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

Is there somewhere an official source they need to refresh these characters? I feel like Wolfgang's perks are good as they are, Wilson is supposed to be basic, isn't he? Maxwell is imo very fun and offers 3 distinct gameplay changers (shadows, infinite sanity and low hp) - only thing i don't understand about him are the shadow duelist. Wes is supposed to be this weak character and I don't think they will ever refresh him since we got the April fools Wes refresh. Wickerbottom? Why? And even though Wigfrid isn't very interesting, her diet combined with her perks and personality offer kinda interesting gameplay. The only characters I think NEED refresh are WX and Webber.

Around the time of the Hamlet beta, when Wilba got her werepig curse and Wormwood was introduced, the devs had said that they had realized they could make characters much more interesting than they had been in the past. So there's been a paradigm shift on how Klei designs their characters, which is easily evident if you compare the characters added in Hamlet and DST over the last year with the characters added before that, especially the pre-RoG DS characters.

 

So far, Klei has prioritized characters who were generally viewed as underwhelming to refresh, hence a lot of people seem to consider "refresh" as synonymous with "buff". But, really, refreshes are an attempt to take the old characters and bring them in line with this new design paradigm, by breathing more personality into them and giving them more varied playstyles.

 

Because, frankly, most of the old characters are one-note as heck and don't exactly shake up your gameplay all that much: Wolfgang deals more damage with more hunger, Wes is a Wilson with worse stats (who arguably fails to provide much of a challenge and is mostly popular for his meme potential), WX-78 ends up being a Wilson with better stats and Webber is a Spider Hat on legs. Wickerbottom is sort of an exception, but her "playstyle" is basically 5 random perks in a trench coat.

 

And the rest certainly have issues that need addressing. Even for a basic character, Wilson is pretty much overshadowed by every other character, because "major pros, minor cons" is often better than "minor pros, no cons". Wigfrid is often regarded as a beginner-friendly Wolfgang that falls off in the end game. And Maxwell has trouble controlling his shadow puppets... or finding a use for his duelists. Not saying these 3 need some huge, sweeping changes, but they could all certainly use some little more oomph.

 

Finally, there's little reason to assume that every refresh to come will turn the character on their head. Both Warly and Wendy have remained true to their theme, but now they are more fleshed out and engaging. Winona, too, is just as engaging as she ever was. So, Willow (who went from Pyromaniac to Teddy Bearer) and Woodie (who went from "Lyc"anthrope to Shapeshifter) are probably outliers, since Klei has always seemed to struggle to find a multiplayer-friendly implementation of their original themes.

[Mike23Ua]

As someone who has ALWAYS Main’d playing as Wendy I believe the thought of how little or how much Wendy has changed is a 100% completely biased opinion.

Pre-Rework Wendy meant wandering through a Swamp at ANY TIME usually meant you would be spending time in this biome completely without Abigail cause that dumb A.I. Of hers done ran off and got itself killed.

now where the MAJOR Changes to Wendy come in is her con of dealing less damage is negated altogether and she now actually deals MORE damage due to Abigails Bestowment petal buff.

And the most obvious of Wendy’s changes is having her very own personal version of single player Don’t Starves Divining Rod.

I find this ironic as hell that the one feature I missed the most from solo DS ends up becoming a core part of gameplay as the character who was ALREADY my Favorite.

But I can see where some people aren’t going to fancy playing “find the lost objects” as a core part of Wendy’s gameplay.. so for Some people WENDY changed just as much (if not more..) Than WOODIE.

So can we all just put the completely biased character rework opinions aside and agree that the ACTUAL goal of every rework so far has been to give each character fun new fresh gameplay making them EACH stand out, be totally unique and different from one another, and provide them with new craftable items.

And if we need to dispute that fact-

Willow got Craftable Bernie dolls.

Wendy got craftable Sisturn.

Woodie got Craftable Transformation idols.

Warly got new cooking gear.

 

There IS An overall theme here besides just “Buff underwhelming characters” 

While I’m sure Klei is prioritizing the underwhelming ones first... they are STILL getting new gameplay mechanics &/or craftable items.

[JJ0264]

Walani shall have pool noodles!!!

[Corn.Sandwich]

Page 2 of 4 of the topic at this time, and I just can't continue reading without chipping in. 

Look, I'm not a hardcore programmer but I actually do it sometimes for fun. The way the game works now and how all items and mobs only have four to six or so sprite facings for play, if they didn't do a pancake they would have to make 3D models of everything to pull off actual boats that actually look like ships.

Think of it like this, ok? In SW it doesn't matter that there's only so many character and object facing sprites for the boat mechanics because you still move and behave on the water the same as you do on land, generally speaking. The mechanics of RoT CANNOT support anything other then the "pancake" platform because then you would have a giant sprite of a ship moving forward up to something dumb like 30° off from direct bow. Plus, the whole thing would have to rotate to look proper, including the structures. Which means a crap-tone of code would have to be added so that the facing/sprites of just one structure changes as the structure rotates instead of just the camera rotating around the structure. Now, that isn't actually allot of code to add especially when Klei has that code attached to every MOB. However, the game works on about six sprite patterns to determine facing with all the animations. Some animations definitely look 3D, but honestly after looking at the game size and recommended machine specs there is no way that their is a single 3D object in the game. What's actually hard is the code to make a rotating platform that agrees with all current and future structures/objects is a worthy few Mb of code in itself. It's one thing to have the game simply slide a pancake across the map with fixed objects on it, it's a completely different beast to have all the math running PERFECTLY so that all the crap you put on the boat, stays in the same place on the boat, while the boat is rotating. Those fixed objects are no longer fixed. Not to mention at that point you aren't just talking about structures staying put but also items. I'd say it wouldn't be so much a coding issue, but definitely a RAM issue with all the math, calls, and holders just to make ONE ship work perfectly with all that going on with only, say, a chest on the deck.

Now that I've gotten that frustration out, I shall share what I think is coming. I think that should Klei have any inclination to making a ship looking "boat" in the future, they will have to go full 3D models instead of 2D sprites. I really like the idea, but I don't see it happening. The game is already made, so all the real work is just re-aninating everything, but half the community would throw a fit if the look completely changed because then the feel would change a bit too. I think it would look great especially if they did what Borderlands did with their models to make the "3D comic book" effect, but I digress. What I think Klei is trying to refine on the pancake is a semi-portable base. As in you can currently have all the must haves on the pancake, maybe a couple extra things, and move it all about freely and it's actually kinda fun to do so. Something that I think is likely to see and expect with the "boat" being what it is and where it's going is that we may never have any major changes to the pancake except for variation in size, material, and HP of different kits. However, I think later we may see a grandius change in world spawn. I think at some point the game will be programed to generate two major land masses and some moderate to small tropical island bioms. Think of why we don't have portals yet, just random wormholes that hurt your sanity if you jump two quickly. If you could just slap a structure down at one base, and another down at a different base, why would you ever have to pass threw the swamp that all the merms spawn in to get where you need to go ever again? Why would you ever dig and plant a grass and twig farm? You'd just skimp by until late game so you can jump in a portal at your main hub and land in an area where what you are looking for is plentiful, or just skip straight to a Moose-Goose or Antlion spawn to skip travel time and risk. You'd never worry about if you have enough time to make it around this random length of water to get where you need to go before dark, or if one of those spider dens is going to spawn a Spider Queen when you don't want it. You don't play Don't Starve to just walk around and gather and build items to fight bosses. If that was why you played it, then you'd be playing a 2D top-down Minecraft. You play Don't Starve because how demanding it is to stay alive and how easy it is to die, let alone kill something. Even a measly spider can kill you in just a few attacks if you don't have any armour, let alone healing items. Everything about the game is ment to be a challenge. Therefore, as a late game compromise, you have a platform to put all of your chests and iceboxes on of you choose to do so. I think the problem with the boat kit is that players are not using it properly yet, even though that instance of "properly" is based on speculated Klei planning for future content and game behavior.

To finally wrap this up and bring it back to the original post, I think we won't see that many changes to the boat, unfortunately. However, I think that we will see changes to land spawn patterns that will make creating a boat full of chests main stream as having multiple basses is fine, but having several modules across several coasts where you just park the boat and gather and do what needs done then get back on the boat make sense. I can see this being a popular thing if worlds tended to spawn in a huge S or C shape with water gaps in terrain to make the world feel huge and problematic to traverse, but quickly accessible by water even if the boat is much slower then walking. That being said, I don't see the boat life becoming the only life in gameplay. I think it will only function as a mobile module to other stationary modules to make a complete base in different locations that you use to navigate across a lake in about a half day instead of a day or more walking around. I think what we will see is a cargo-pancake will make sense but won't be the end all solution to anything. It will be a matter of convenience to the generated map except for content that can only be accessed by crossing water. So, I think what we can expect before RoT ends is some big world spawn changes and a couple more sail upgrades. Personally I already like using the boat as where I store common materials and food and just having hubs for cooking and farming and another spot for keeping all the gems and such, but as of now the community is right. This kinda pointless and kinda risky. About the only benefit is that while traveling across water you might stop and fish for food at any given point. Again, I do think what is going to happen is that somehow water will get bigger while land doesn't really feel effected, but it would still be possible for land to spawn as it does now.

I hope this freaking article kinda steers some things in a direction that would make Devs happy with expectations. Sorry for the long rant.

[TemporarySolutn]

On 7/15/2020 at 2:03 PM, camelCase said:

I think it's unrewarding, unnecessary, and a huge missed opportunity for integrating more Shipwrecked content. The stone-fruit and glass cutters are the only things which work since they have use on the mainland but the Lunar island remains a temporary distraction at best, and devoid of content at worst.

Mood, I'm always like "I mean I want to find the lunar island but I mean I really don't have any reason too" I end up sabotaging myself making a extra lil base boat rather then using it for not dying