DST Return of Them: Troubled Waters Now Available!

[bloopah]

10 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

I don’t want to put too much hope on you but, we should most likely get the May update beta Tommorow since that’ll be the second Thursday in the Month of May. (If not for sure the week after!) 

I don't want to expect an update this month. As JoeW said, they wanted to look at update timing to avoid another beta catastrophe like Taking Root.

[Yuuko]

5 hours ago, sylvia wander o said:

Salt boxes, stone fruit bushes, glass axes/cutters, malbatross watering can, barnacles, bull kelp, banana bushes, docks... And that's just me listing the things I think would be commonly considered "good enough" to take the risk, it's not even mentioning more subjective ones like sunken treasures, a surplus of leafy meat, salt itself, knobbly nuts, figs, ocean fishing and all it entails, lune trees, palmcone trees, anenemies, etc. There's a lot of cool stuff out there!

First off - fortunately we don't need to sail much for lunar island.  I can know where its at from map generation and boat straight there and back, so lets take all of that off the list.  A rock jaw or something else isn't going to spoil that trip.

Salt boxes < bundle wraps.  These are one of the last things on my list, rushing bee queen is so much easier then salt boxes.

Malbatross watering can - sure its better than the normal one, but the normal one isn't bad enough that I care.  I've literally never made this until there was a skin for it...  Ironically Malbatross, like rockjaws are one of the problems with ocean content.  Its not a fun boss, its drops aren't very useful.  Usually its a disturbance when I'm fishing and I just ditch it for another spawn.  Its also one of the reasons to just use a plain cookie boat which is another vote against it.  The actual sailing mechanics, raising and lowering sails, anchors, steering etc is all fun but with things like this its better to just use a blank cookie instead.

Barnacles - a great example of things that aren't worth the effort.

Moon Quay content is a tough one.  Docks are valuable so I eventually do this, but I'm cursing Klei ever step of the way.  It is literally the absolute worst thing in the game at the moment.  I dread interacting with the moon quay island like I dread cleaning hair out of the shower drain.  Nothing about the island feels fun in any way, take away the docks and I'd put that whole update in the dumpster.

I WISH sunken treasures were worth doing.  The process is one of the few things to do on the ocean that's actually fun, but the loot is so bad its like popping open a piñata and having nothing but stale chocolate and a clump of old hard candies stuck together.

Tall trees cut off the top 1/3 of the screen and the trunks block vertical areas.  They were fun at first, but I really don't like having them around.  Ironically there is an option to disable their shadow, but not the foliage overhang lol  The more I use these, the less I want them.  Figs are pretty worthless unless you're raising tall trees.

Ocean fishing is very high effort.  I wouldn't say the sharks add much risk of dying, but they do add a lot of risk of wasting time.  The rewards are barely passable.  The only ocean fish I see a use for are the hot / cold ones, but its so much effort to find and catch them that I just don't.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Shosuko

[Szczuku]

6 hours ago, sylvia wander o said:

barnacles

[Terra B Welch]

16 hours ago, Dextops said:

All this time and I’m still trying to figure out the point of rock jaws

Wurt;s new perk, raising old and dead threads from the grave.

[finn from human]

2 hours ago, Shosuko said:

Salt boxes < bundle wraps.

One is a boss drop that takes honeycombs, is clunky to label without mods, and takes a constant grass cost to keep bundled up, while the other is a structure you craft once from an easily-found biome and place it in your kitchen and can use by just opening it. Different contexts, different uses, different items!

2 hours ago, Shosuko said:

Malbatross watering can - sure its better than the normal one, but the normal one isn't bad enough that I care.  I've literally never made this until there was a skin for it...

That's fair. Personally I get annoyed having to refill watering cans constantly, and don't tend to base close to ponds, so it's an awesome upgrade for me.

2 hours ago, Shosuko said:

Barnacles - a great example of things that aren't worth the effort.

I suppose that one is subjective, but barnacle linguine is nothing to sneeze at. I find that I never have to manage my sanity even a little so long as I'm eating it, and in combination with a salt box the ingredients last an insane amount of time. I think even if you find sea weeds too much effort personally, you can't deny that the stats on that thing are really good.

I also like nigiri a lot because pierogies never feel good to cook (you have to use so so much hunger value food to make them...) but that one's SUPER super subjective, I know.

2 hours ago, Shosuko said:

Moon Quay content is a tough one.  Docks are valuable so I eventually do this, but I'm cursing Klei ever step of the way.  It is literally the absolute worst thing in the game at the moment.  I dread interacting with the moon quay island like I dread cleaning hair out of the shower drain.  Nothing about the island feels fun in any way, take away the docks and I'd put that whole update in the dumpster.

Makes me sad to hear I don't know your specific problems with it as you didn't state them, but in case you don't know (I don't think it's common knowledge) I'd like to mention that the monkeys stay in their houses during the winter just like merms, which is usually when I grab whatever I can scrounge up before coming back with bananas.

2 hours ago, Shosuko said:

I WISH sunken treasures were worth doing.  The process is one of the few things to do on the ocean that's actually fun, but the loot is so bad its like popping open a piñata and having nothing but stale chocolate and a clump of old hard candies stuck together.

I find the grab bag of resources really nice, especially as someone who tends towards newer content over older ones and would rather not engage with mactusk, caves, etc. I can totally understand how they don't feel worth it from other people's perspective, though. It's one of those things where I'm fine with it now and think it's worth it, but wouldn't say no to a buff because hey that's just extra loot for the stuff I already like.

2 hours ago, Shosuko said:

Tall trees cut off the top 1/3 of the screen and the trunks block vertical areas.  They were fun at first, but I really don't like having them around.  Ironically there is an option to disable their shadow, but not the foliage overhang lol  The more I use these, the less I want them.  Figs are pretty worthless unless you're raising tall trees.

Sad to hear that about figs, although I've heard people don't tend to like them all that much figatoni is a lot like linguine for me where it's a food I can eat as my main meals and I just won't even notice that sanity is a stat that exists anymore.

2 hours ago, Shosuko said:

Ocean fishing is very high effort.  I wouldn't say the sharks add much risk of dying, but they do add a lot of risk of wasting time.  The rewards are barely passable.  The only ocean fish I see a use for are the hot / cold ones, but its so much effort to find and catch them that I just don't.

I would argue ocean fishing has a decently high initial cost (that being befriending Pearl until so sells stupefying lures), but once you're set up it's a ton of food that costs you nothing but a bit of time. Additionally we've got ocean trawlers now to speed up the process!

All in all I think my initial statement about ocean content that's worth it is fair, and comes from a place of me and pretty much my whole friend group engaging with it constantly. Of course it won't be perfect for everybody, just like how a lot of people don't engage with the caves, but I think just looking at the content and weighing it with other options makes it clear the content is worth dealing with a shark or two.

Edited May 11, 2023 by sylvia wander o

[Yuuko]

3 hours ago, sylvia wander o said:

 

Makes me sad to hear I don't know your specific problems with it as you didn't state them, but in case you don't know (I don't think it's common knowledge) I'd like to mention that the monkeys stay in their houses during the winter just like merms, which is usually when I grab whatever I can scrounge up before coming back with bananas.

 

Yes, I know how to interact with the island as little as possible to get the docks blueprint and some palmcones.  My problem isn't that something is / isn't useful, its that something is / isn't engaging, or rewarding.  Sharks are an example of content that turns off engagement.  When you see a shark its not a unique opportunity to do something, b/c if you're fishing the shark will eat your fish or attack you.  Both are a lose situation.  If the shark eats your fish, you don't get fish.  If the shark attacks you, the fish swim away while you deal with the shark.  In this case the "right" thing to do is to avoid it.  Just paddle away from the shark and do something else.  Same with monkey pirates.  If you get a pirate raid you either get your boat looted and they leave, or you fight them off and you get cursed - and they probably also still stole a bunch of crap too.  The "right" thing to do is to launch from a boat as close to the island as possible so you avoid any raids, and do it in winter when you avoid all monkeys on the island...  See the pattern?  The "right" thing to do is to avoid interaction.

Avoiding new content is a bad outcome, usually means the content design is bad.  We should *want* to interact with new stuff, we should be excited for new challenges etc.  We should want a challenge of pirate monkey raids, and a chance to skillfully express our abilities as players.  That isn't what we got.

Compare this to hound waves - we get elemental hounds, fire and ice.  Ice hounds pose an extra risk, if they die near you then you get a freeze effect.  You have a little resistance, but if you kill multiple ice hounds too quickly you will get frozen and take more damage.  The "right" thing to do is to pace out how often you kill them so that you don't suffer being frozen (or light a camp fire, etc.)  Similarly fire hounds burst into flames when they die, so the "right" thing to do is to kite them away from anything you don't want on fire and kill them there (or have items to put out fire, etc.)  Both hounds also have reduced health to help offset the extra challenge they bring.

Ancient Guardian is another good example.  The original design was so bad that many people just did the pillar cheese.  They didn't do it because pillar cheese was fun, but because it reduced the interaction.  People didn't want to interact with it because the design was far too punishing and unpredictable.  The rework makes it a more predictable fight that is high on engagement so players usually want to do this fight.  Its not something to avoid anymore.

This is content which allows players to engage with it, and overcome it through skillful and creative game play.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Shosuko

[Mike23Ua]

There’s nothing skillful nor creative about a complete beginner player joining your ongoing worlds and attacking a Red Hound in the middle of your important structures because they “Think” they’re helping you.. only to make things worse.

This can be summed up for ALOT of Multiplayer interactions in DST, A Wendy Player Sees pirates incoming, turns Abby Aggro to help as that’s what Abby is designed to do.. all of a sudden everyone on the boat gets a Monkey curse & more trinkets than they know what to do with in their inventory.

a player sees you in danger while fighting a clockwork bishop, rushes that way to help- gets one shot to death & becomes a spooky ghost.

You build a boat, you sail said boat.. you accidentally smash into Seaweeds and get demolished in the process.

Same with Water Logged, you attempt to sail through, accidentally hit something, wake up a bunch of sleeping water glider spiders.

”Skill” or lack of a better term for it in DST comes almost Exclusively from how much knowledge you’ve obtained about what to do/not to do.

And I don’t think every single mob needs Uber useful loot either, some mobs exist just to make the biomes feel more lived within and that’s perfectly okay.

If you dislike the challenge that Rockjaws provide or don’t find it to be a challenge at all- that’s more of a personal “you” problem than anything else..

I don’t like spider queens, I find their drops to be highly HIGHLY Useless, and they aren’t worth all the effort in fighting them.. but if you ignore them long enough they eventually downgrade back to a tier 1 spider den.

And I just summed up the entirety of DST in a Nutshell: You can engage with something, or completely avoid it.

[Yuuko]

2 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

There’s nothing skillful nor creative about a complete beginner player

uh huh...

[ButterStuffed]

5 hours ago, Shosuko said:

Salt boxes < bundle wraps.  These are one of the last things on my list, rushing bee queen is so much easier then salt boxes.

Is this hyperbole or is there really a method to kill Beequeen that is somehow easier than finding and collecting salt?

[firoborn]

35 minutes ago, ButterStuffed said:

Is this hyperbole or is there really a method to kill Beequeen that is somehow easier than finding and collecting salt?

Wendy or the twins your choice 

Edited May 11, 2023 by firoborn

[Yuuko]

45 minutes ago, ButterStuffed said:

Is this hyperbole or is there really a method to kill Beequeen that is somehow easier than finding and collecting salt?

As @firoborn said, wendy or twins.  Also pan flutes with a damage boosted character, and fire trap still works.

She's not great like some other bosses, but she's manageable and her rewards are just that good that its worth putting up with her.

Most importantly I'll reiterate - the value of a bundlewrap far surpasses a salt box.  For basic food stuffs anything that rots in the fridge would rot in the ice box, its a problem of overabundance not spoilage rates.  For things where the issue is spoilage rates the salt box doesn't really help.  It won't let my Warly dishes last longer, or save moon storm items, etc.

[bloopah]

Just now, Shosuko said:

As @firoborn said, wendy or twins.  Also pan flutes with a damage boosted character, and fire trap still works.

She's not great like some other bosses, but she's manageable and her rewards are just that good that its worth putting up with her.

Most importantly I'll reiterate - the value of a bundlewrap far surpasses a salt box.  For basic food stuffs anything that rots in the fridge would rot in the ice box, its a problem of overabundance not spoilage rates.  For things where the issue is spoilage rates the salt box doesn't really help.  It won't let my Warly dishes last longer, or save moon storm items, etc.

But again: is this really easier than collecting some Salt?

[Yuuko]

12 minutes ago, bloopah said:

But again: is this really easier than collecting some Salt?

Well again - reiterating - I don't feel salt box is very valuable anyway.  Warly's dishes, moon storm events, and other things where there is scarcity + spoilage the salt box doesn't really help.  For those things I'd really want bundle wraps anyway.  Food isn't scarce.  When a stack of meats go bad in my fridge I'm not starving lol

But yeah - its easier.  I usually try to hit up bee queen in first autumn or winter.  Bundle wraps and jelly beans are pretty high priority for me most games, and I'm already exploring around her anyway just come back and finish her when I'm ready.

Getting out on the ocean is a whole commitment, and I've spend days out there without finding the thing I'm after.  Days spent where I can't do anything except paddle along.  Days where I finally find what I want, and have to deal with a shark showing up, or malbatross, or whatever it is.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Shosuko

[Mike23Ua]

11 minutes ago, bloopah said:

But again: is this really easier than collecting some Salt?

Easier is Subjective to the players skill level. I suppose that the elitest experts will tell you killing a multiplayer focused boss with incredibly high health values and several “phases” of the fight is easier than building a boat and paddling out to deal with a few cookie cutters to bring back salt for Salt Boxes.

While obviously the item that doesn’t spoil at all will be superior to slower spoilage rates- I don’t think it warrants fighting a boss over, MORESO since getting this particular recipe in solo DS was as Easy as just hitting enough beehives for the craft schematic to drop out of.

there is however an easy to get alternative which is Gift Wrap from the WintersFeast event, if you toggle this event to on you can obtain Bundle Wraps for Free, alongside a slew of other items like gems of various colors or walking canes.

[00petar00]

Firstly, there are better ways to go about it, like making a new thread and writing about all of the ocean problems you might have instead of reviving this thread.

The ocean has never been interesting enough to me to explore, and I don't have the patience for it either.

Saltbox, or most of the ocean items, aren't that good compared to what you can get on land. It is easier for newer players to just watch Bee Queen fight on youtube and kill her instead of building salt boxes that don't have that much value to begin with. As @Shosukosaid, why would you need a salt box when an ice box is already decent and the only issue you may have is spoilage time that only bundling wrap can solve?

I think that Klei made the mistake of thinking that ocean content wouldn't require that much of their development time, and they have a lot more on their plate that they can focus on, and now they have to choose. Whether to continue with the main storyline content, side quest/filler updates, quality of life, caves, or ocean.

Caves and ocean are not desirable to explore, and that contributes to the reason for them not to be the main focus of an update, as not many players would be excited about it because caves and oceans are really lacking and there needs to be much more to them. What could turn this around is a yearly roadmap focused entirely on either caves or oceans.

 

Edited May 12, 2023 by 00petar00

[Baark0]

mods dont lock this thread lets keep the necro going

Edited May 11, 2023 by Baark0

[Ulisesvolador]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

I don’t think it warrants fighting a boss over, MORESO since getting this particular recipe in solo DS was as Easy as just hitting enough beehives killing enough bees/killer bees for the craft schematic to drop out of.

Friendly reminder that Bundling Wraps are originally from DST.

[ButterStuffed]

2 hours ago, firoborn said:

Wendy or the twins your choice 

The Wendy/Abigail method I know about, but I haven't seen a method using the twins.

Please elaborate on how that works.

[firoborn]

1 minute ago, ButterStuffed said:

The Wendy/Abigail method I know about, but I haven't seen a method using the twins.

Please elaborate on how that works.

just bait the twins into fighting beequeen they can be spawned anywhere and they always do AoE so is easy to make them fight each other obviously this strat works best on winter when the nights are the longest, during the day you can do chip damage with fire or kill her if she is low enough 

[Yuuko]

3 hours ago, Shosuko said:

Well again - reiterating - I don't feel salt box is very valuable anyway.  Warly's dishes, moon storm events, and other things where there is scarcity + spoilage the salt box doesn't really help.  For those things I'd really want bundle wraps anyway.  Food isn't scarce.  When a stack of meats go bad in my fridge I'm not starving lol

But yeah - its easier.  I usually try to hit up bee queen in first autumn or winter.  Bundle wraps and jelly beans are pretty high priority for me most games, and I'm already exploring around her anyway just come back and finish her when I'm ready.

Getting out on the ocean is a whole commitment, and I've spend days out there without finding the thing I'm after.  Days spent where I can't do anything except paddle along.  Days where I finally find what I want, and have to deal with a shark showing up, or malbatross, or whatever it is.

Wanted to throw out there - literally just wasted 3 days paddling around to find cutter fish for Pearl's house.  Finally found them - a shark spawned and jumped on my boat lol

I definitely did not spend 3-4 days fighting bqueen, but that's how long it took to get 10 cutter shells.  I did pick up the salt while I was there.

[Dragonboooorn]

5 hours ago, ButterStuffed said:

Is this hyperbole or is there really a method to kill Beequeen that is somehow easier than finding and collecting salt?

Id kill any boss at any time over touching ocean content

[ButterStuffed]

8 hours ago, Dragonboooorn said:

Id kill any boss at any time over touching ocean content

To be clear, I couldn’t care less about this discussion about the ocean. Genuinely I was only interested in this beequeen killing method that is supposedly easier than finding salt.

Edited May 12, 2023 by ButterStuffed

[Theukon-dos]

6 hours ago, ButterStuffed said:

Is this hyperbole or is there really a method to kill Beequeen that is somehow easier than finding and collecting salt?

Still probably "harder", but I've found this to be a very good way to fight Bee Queen without a massive investment in pan flutes

 

[Memetan]

OMG, what is this? You are just changing the topic over and over in a post from the 2020. Anyway, I'm going to try to tell my opinion.

The point of Rockjaws are giving us a threat in the ocean and ambience (the sound of one approaching is so cool), and I like that the fight is taking in the boats instead of the sea depending on range weapons to kill something. I like the idea of make them drop flint, but people that get mad because it doesn't drop any new drop doesn't make sense, We have a lot of mobs that's just drops same loot as others, Vargling drops the same loot as a varg, all spiders drop the same loot as the normal one but more dangerous, and so on...

Wax paper vs Salt Box.... Saltbox wins 100%. For the saltbox you have to make a boat, go to a salt formation, kill little mobs and mine salt (well and get a blue gem but still easy), and now you have a better icebox with a some restrictions in your base available for all people. In the other side, for Wax paper you have to fight a rough boss to get a blueprint for one player to make the paper with a material (Beewax) that you can't farm so easily, So yea, if you play DST as a rogelike-bossrun the wax paper is for you.

Waterlogged is the best biome in the sea, no explanation need it.

The Moon Quay has an AWESOME loot, and it gets rid of the awful boat bridges.

The Sunken Chests are not awesome, but I can farm gems and thulecite without going to the hell that is ruins. But I think all the boat and fishing stuff should be removed from his drops list, so we can farm the goodies more easily.

Malbatros is a boss that you encounter sailing in the sea that drops items that help you to sail in the sea (and also the best watering can). I think it's simple to understand.

About fishing, I have to say that I fished a lot until the ocean Trawler came and did it for me off-screen. They put a lot of effort in to it, but now is not wort it, unless they decide to make all ocean fishes drop its own meat that can be used for different recipes and as material for new items.

I love sailing because I can travel with all the structures and items I need without backpack need it. Still, sea stacks suck, and I hope they replace them with currents like @Hornete mod.

Edited May 12, 2023 by Memetan

[Vinja]

12 hours ago, ButterStuffed said:

To be clear, I couldn’t care less about this discussion about the ocean. Genuinely I was only interested in this beequeen killing method that is supposedly easier than finding salt.

I mean if you wanna look at it in this oddly framed way then sure, if I were to speed run salt on day 1 and someone else were to speed run bee queen from day 1 at the same time I could beat them 100 out of 100 times but no one plays the game that way. Beating bee queen is undeniably harder than finding salt.

Refrigerators, while not as good as salt boxes for preserving ingredients, are much easier to me simply because you’ll find clockworks as you explore the map and killing one or looting gears isn’t challenging and doesn’t require going out of my way, and refrigerators are good enough for most players. Also salt boxes can’t hold dishes, only ingredients so you’ll need a refrigerator anyway. 
 

Therefore, to me the question isn’t which one is easier, it’s “Should I bother with a salt box?” and unless I’m going to Lunar prior to killing queen bee and I also happen to find salt on my way to lunar, the answer tends to be no. 
 

The jump in Utility from Salt box to bundle wraps is astronomically higher than the jump from refrigerator to salt box. I love the salt box and it has some really great skins but to me anyway it’s not enough of a difference to be worth going out of my way for, and I think that’s pretty much where the salt box stands for a lot of players and is what I think @Shosuko might have meant when he said it’s easier.

 Anyway, as far as easy bee queen methods go, a couple I haven’t seen listed here are maxwells method that only requires some sanity food and a bit of nightmare fuel which is a pretty low bar. 
 

Also Winona catapults are busted for bee queen lol.