DST Ocean Feedback

[StrangeX]

The addition of the lunar islands was a nice touch to the game, but i'm still on the fence about how sea exploration and sea combat is fun and entertaining. My critique is based solely on playing alone, and I mention this because this might be a reason I find the ocean in DST so frustrating.

The ships are clunky to navigate due to it's speed and size, and easy to damage with the numerous basalt that clutter the ocean. Damage taken by the boat can be considered annoying to fix since it takes four pieces of wood and proper mousing over to perform the action. As your ship gets more damaged or more cluttered, it becomes harder to mouse over the spouts. there is a huge resource scale to start exploration and time investment to explore the ocean due to the basalt and likelihood of running out of resources.

With combat, the main tactic of the game is to kite and swipe at your enemy/enemies. When on a ship, you almost forced to tank damage when facing numerous enemies and is impossible to kite boat damage since navigation is so slow. Combined with the difficulty in repairing the ship, you are forced to spend much of your time fixing the ship. Often times, the enemy has already begun creating more water spouts on your ship.

I like the addition of more creatures to the vast and mostly empty world of the ocean, but like the antlion, i feel some creatures just make the experience less enjoyable (ex. I'm look at you, cookie cutters) and offer little to no reward to make that experience enjoyable (ex. getting the salt). Keep up the good work, Klei, and continue to improve the game. I hope in the future seafaring and the mobs that inhabit the ocean offer a rewarding and game enriching experience that adds nicely to the land and cave features. I know the sea is still being worked on and it's not perfect yet, but these are my views on the July 2020 state of the ocean.

[Sub-Maxwell]

I think there’s a lot more potential with Pearl’s bottled messages. I think they should reveal certain biomes and points of interest, making exploration much less taxing. Finding Crab King is not fun, plain and simple. Looking for bottles to find his location? That’s more like it (he should also get a map icon once found but that’s another issue). Other than that, I personally love most of the ocean content they’ve added. I’m still waiting for “Them” to return, and for the celestial tribute to gain some more functionality. Other islands and tropical biomes would be cool too, as I’m a big fan of Shipwrecked.

[StrangeX]

When it comes to the crab king, yes, finding and fighting him at the moment offers little reward besides the nonfunctional celestial tribute and some shell bells(???? I find those items just cutter my inventory, why include them and why make him drop so many?). That will change as Klei adds purpose to the new altar and lore about this supposed king, Pearl, and the lunar creatures.

With regards to the Troubled Waters Update, I hate the wavy jones. They are an annoyance that appears fast and in numerous quantities. They mess with the boat and, even worse, reopen old ship wounds. I find their only reason for existence is to make a already frustrating experience even more unbearable. This new mob falls into the same category as the antlion, lunar spiders, cookie cutters, and cave monkeys. The category of insufferable that actively go out of their way to make life harder.

[Ohan]

the fact that they're not done with the ocean yet aside, i think its really clear and worth remembering that the ocean was added on top of a practically completed game. everything you need can be found on the land and in the caves. so knowing that i think its gonna be really really hard for klei to add anything to the ocean that isnt just wholly optional/superfluous. Like the barnacles for example im curious to know who's actually gonna go out of their way to collect them when you have SO many food sources on land/in the caves. the barnacles are neat and i love the sea weeds but yeah...

the fact that unlike shipwrecked the DST land is still one large connected pangea adds to the optional nature of boating in general. if the biomes were separated into islands you'd have a reason to sail and collect barnacles etc between islands. but i feel like that would change DST so much.. though it would kinda make sense that the chunk of moon that dropped from the sky shattered the landmass into islands.. 

anyway that being said i think the salt box is one really nice example of new content that succeeds in really enriching the existing gameplay in a meaningful way though i wouldnt have said no to a nice little salt lake biome within the rocky biome on land like we had in the gorge instead lol as a source for salt 

 

[StrangeX]

In terms of game play, there is already so much to do and while I agree that DST is practically a completed game, the story is far from over. While the ocean and everything in it seems optional and not important, I see the potential for that aspect to become part of the main story. The lunar islands are slowly building upon some rivalry between darkness and the moon. While we have yet to learn everything about the darkness and the oceans are incomplete, it doesn't mean the game play or current state of game progress can't be changed. I can only see new game progression being added with the arrival of the moon into the game. 

If Klei wants to build the lunar aspect of the DST world as another entity or force that affects the characters, I'm all for it. I will be watching how they implement these new sections of game play. They might decide to change the moon altar from the base game and how it works. Perhaps in future updates the lunar islands are completely locked off until you complete a ritual to call the moon down. Perhaps lunar items are required to progress with the caves. Klei has certainly opened a new realm of possibilities and the oceans have room to grow.

Of course, with the addition of new features or changes in current features, it would be the responsibility of the player to voice what they think about the game and how things are implemented. The addition of salt may be a good or bad thing, but that is up to the player to decide. One can like the addition of new structures and another can hate it since the juice might not be worth the squeeze.