Now in testing - Reap what you Sow

[Frosty_Mentos]

18 minutes ago, Rinkusan said:

Isn't DS a complete project though? DST is a direct sequel to DS after all.

They DID say that it IS complete... I suppose.

[GlommerGoop64]

3 hours ago, Mantas said:

I kinda doubt they'll port that stuff to DS, since they're eyes are very focused on DST over DS... As sad as it sounds, I think DS is now an abandoned project. Though, who knows?

It isn't an abandoned project it's just that DST gains a lot more popularity for being a multi-player platform, it's just a sequel of the game. If it were abandoned project they wouldn't have added any updates or new DLCs to it years after it came out.

[user1464576869]

Me and my friend had a sit down to discuss this update and I wanted to throw in some of the cents that came out of that, for whatever it's worth.
 
The two main complaints she raised were for one; that the plants are ugly, which I agreed on, I think they look busy now, she's very concerned about being able to build and decorate your space and time with something pretty. And while I usually focus about the gaming or narratives I have to say that the aesthetics of Don't Starve has been for the most part a consistent pleasure, shipwrecked especially, and being spoiled by that I had to take a step back and see how these plants are quite an eyesore. There isn't much that differentiates weeds from food, everything has a busy cluttered spiky weed-like look to them. Highly unpleasant fields, especially for a garden. They make gardens look very dark, muddy, black. Especially in terms of a colour palette. However it is hard to say what makes it nasty, since you wouldn't exactly call a thorny rose garden ugly despite having the very same descriptors.
 
The other complaint was about being able to grow food in the winter. Which due to ice isn't a full concern on it's own. Basically we both agreed on that having to prepare storage for food or seeking new methods of getting sustenance (AKA hunting) makes for compelling seasons. The ease of getting ice for crockpot however is part of that same complaint. Of course, outright removing ice-fillers as is however would probably not be a well balanced solution, since the ease of having lots of food in wait allows for a freedom to move around and do actual work and progress throughout the game in all seasons, instead of spending all time on baby-sitting a death bar. Having that ease is an absolute necessity for the game's enjoyment at this point, but it ought to feel more earned than "ice growing nearby come get it darling", especially since ice grows in the one season food is assumed to be hard to come by. Ice is a factory of food, if only it was the player that had worked towards that factory instead. A kind of milestone progression.
 
My friend was also worried about the amount of complexity and what's the point of all effort. Grow food to eat food to grow food to eat food. Which boils down to why play the game at all. And in some parts I agree, other parts I see a need for this update. For basic food value, to ease the hunger, all this complexity is easily not worth it, and I'd rather do skip this whole strenuous ordeal. Food isn't an issue for us and greens were never on the options list before nor after this update. We both agreed on that, but she wasn't too aware of the garlic, dragonfruit and peppers and how useful as basically potions they are. Being able to finally farm them based on work rather than luck is a blessing. From that argument forward however she still insisted that what's the point of potions if there is no point to the bosses.
 
Now this is something that is no longer about just the update though. I find myself leaning back on the thought every now and then myself, but, while there aren't exactly zero reasons to fight a boss, there isn't much incentive for both of us to play with them in mind. She certainly have less patience for it than me at least. I think beating them could serve as some reward, but once that's done I admit it's hard to find reasons to stay around. She talks about the want for more decorations and building as reward, though I'm not sure where I lean. I'm not a fan of complete superficial decor. I'd like to have or pretend that there being some purpose to the spaces you lay out. But, as a result of a limited palette it just isn't as personal and pleasant as it is in other games where you can reshape the surroundings. Plain survival structures always end up in temporary orientations, permanently.
 
That's where we're at anyway.

[FloraGreen]

So I've noticed that making 3x3 farm plots is now close to pixel perfect, and fruit flies arrives to terrorize my plots every 10 seconds.

The farming systems was not worth using prior to this nerf but I found it somewhat enjoyable to work on completing the Gardeneer Hat, just from a completionist perspective, and saw it as a nice alternative for more stationary/chill players. Now, however, I do not even feel like completing the Gardeneer Hat with the few final plants that I am missing due to the system being so much worse compared to more or less any other food source in the game and it is sadly no exaggeration.

What will you do now to follow up on the nerf to one of the worst food farming methods? - Nerf every single other food in the game to the point where they are on even grounds with this mess? It is an honest question, because I really want to know if you want to sink the ship or not.

[MondayNight]

1 hour ago, FloraGreen said:

So I've noticed that making 3x3 farm plots is now close to pixel perfect, and fruit flies arrives to terrorize my plots every 10 seconds.

The farming systems was not worth using prior to this nerf but I found it somewhat enjoyable to work on completing the Gardeneer Hat, just from a completionist perspective, and saw it as a nice alternative for more stationary/chill players. Now, however, I do not even feel like completing the Gardeneer Hat with the few final plants that I am missing due to the system being so much worse compared to more or less any other food source in the game and it is sadly no exaggeration.

What will you do now to follow up on the nerf to one of the worst food farming methods? - Nerf every single other food in the game to the point where they are on even grounds with this mess? It is an honest question, because I really want to know if you want to sink the ship or not.

Bunnymen got gerfed, Wicker received a certain nerf, Eggs & Birdcages also were smashed by the nerf bat. So one should expect further future nerfs. In a game called "Don't Starve" where advanced players.. thrived, was bound to happen that some certain people spammed forums times-and-again with requests for food nerfs (among many other "make the game a lot harder" demands). Wolf, Wicker and WX will most likely get "creative nerfs" when their reworks will eventually come. I believe even the new food sources like Stone Fruit Bushes will be nerfed in coming times. Adjusting your play-style with these happenings in mind is the best you can do - aside using buff mods that is, if playing on PC and fancying such stuff.

[Nordsunna9]

Google Translate: They should add a machine to water the plants, like the Ice Flingomatic. 

[viberr]

5 minutes ago, Nordsunna9 said:

Google Translate: They should add a machine to water the plants, like the Ice Flingomatic. 

so you're asking for a sprinkler? 

[pedregales]

Wow. Take a "break" for a few weeks and you find that they are adding the Gorge into the game!

I have yet to try the beta though. Everything I will say is based on the few videos and impromptu guides I have seen about the matter. So take everything I say with a grain of salt:

Spoiler

As I have said a few times before, I wanted to see a farming system similar to Gorge implemented into the game. So not a big surprise that I am liking what I am seeing overall. And from a first glance it does seem way cheaper than how it was before. However, I do think the overall system is a bit complex and convoluted for what I expected:

Watering. Understandable, but unnecessarily tedious (have played enough Harvest Moon to know how tedious this can be). I think plants shouldn't have differing drinking rates and you should only have to water once for full soil moisture instead of 4 times. Watering plants in this game should be as simple and non-tedious as possible considering it is not the core of the game.

Fertilizers/Nutrients & Compost. I believe it is simple enough, but a better way to approach this might be to divide them into manure (includes manure, guano and bucket' o poop), mineral (includes bone shards, ash and charcoal) and rot (includes rot, rotten egg and rotten/spoiled fish). Compost on it's own should be able to provide all 3 "nutrients", making it the best multi-purpose fertilizer. This way, getting the fertilizer/nutrient you need for each plant is way simpler than, for example, having to wait 3 days for the perfect super growth formula or half a day to 1 day for the compost.

Growth formula. I understand and like the concept of it (in how it works, I mean), but I think it over-complicates whatever plant that requires it for proper growth and almost forces players to combine plants to get giant crops from growth formula plants. I think it should be something optional that just accelerates plant growth and facilitates giant crops. Just like it's name suggest!

Birds. Now they give only 1 seed of the crop you feed them. I like the guarantee of the plant. But I think it would have been much better to make them drop 2 seeds from the crop you give them. This would make crops kind of self-sustainable without putting in the effort (for the people that want it that way), and even then you would need to sacrifice half your production to this bird-godlings in order to maintain this sustainability (e. g.: if you plant and produce 8 crops per harvest, to plant 8 crops again you need to feed 4 of your production to birds). And this is not considering that you have to keep the bird alive or be constantly catching new ones to take advantage of this method of obtaining seeds anyway.

Everything else I have not mentioned I believe needs no important change: weeds, lord of the fruit-flies, giant crops (which I love BTW!), season harvests, crop scale, etc.

So, that would be all. Roughly in 2-3 days I will be able to properly try the beta.

[Frosty_Mentos]

6 hours ago, Cosheeta said:

The two main complaints she raised were for one; that the plants are ugly, which I agreed on, I think they look busy now, she's very concerned about being able to build and decorate your space and time with something pretty. And while I usually focus about the gaming or narratives I have to say that the aesthetics of Don't Starve has been for the most part a consistent pleasure, shipwrecked especially, and being spoiled by that I had to take a step back and see how these plants are quite an eyesore. There isn't much that differentiates weeds from food, everything has a busy cluttered spiky weed-like look to them. Highly unpleasant fields, especially for a garden. They make gardens look very dark, muddy, black. Especially in terms of a colour palette. However it is hard to say what makes it nasty, since you wouldn't exactly call a thorny rose garden ugly despite having the very same descriptors.

I completely agree, as a megabase builder I'm all in for getting plants that would fit for aesthetic and decor, so I wish for at least the update to deliver if not prettier crops then cultivation of such plants like:
--growing nicer or spookier thorn bushes that would act as a slowing mildly damaging barriers and would look menacing in general
--pretty flowers that butterflies or bees would interact to with, maybe some emitting glow at night as a polination result, maybe mainly when cultivating captive bees it would make the flowers bloom and make them prettier --- also on that note maybe it's a way on making rose thorn bushes from normal spiky ones. The things you build and creatures interacting with those things make the game livelier
--potted flowers or threes to grow tiny trees and plants, making miniature trees and maybe creating decorative bushes similar like in hamlet but to be able to use the shears to design them in several shapes
--my previously mentioned - marble shrubs are very underrated and they need more use cause they are ugly as hell and I wish you could polish them and do similar thing I've mentioned latter in customizing them

 

 

6 hours ago, Cosheeta said:

The other complaint was about being able to grow food in the winter. Which due to ice isn't a full concern on it's own. Basically we both agreed on that having to prepare storage for food or seeking new methods of getting sustenance (AKA hunting) makes for compelling seasons. The ease of getting ice for crockpot however is part of that same complaint. Of course, outright removing ice-fillers as is however would probably not be a well balanced solution, since the ease of having lots of food in wait allows for a freedom to move around and do actual work and progress throughout the game in all seasons, instead of spending all time on baby-sitting a death bar. Having that ease is an absolute necessity for the game's enjoyment at this point, but it ought to feel more earned than "ice growing nearby come get it darling", especially since ice grows in the one season food is assumed to be hard to come by. Ice is a factory of food, if only it was the player that had worked towards that factory instead. A kind of milestone progression.

I can also agree on this point, I think it's ridiculous that you can grow food on a season that's supposed to be challenging and the fact is that food is supposed to be difficult to obtain during this season. Nothing is supposed to grow unless there's gonna be added a lategame sort of "hot house" kinda thing to replace that. There's practically no point in doing anything in winter besides sit in base and just... farm potatoes, I feel like it's becoming slightly too much of a problem in DST that food is becoming WAAAY too abundant, considering that rocky bushes, sea weed also are a culprit at making the game too easy since they TOO grow in winter. We can pretend that they are "late game" foods or not... but with the new farming update, bundling wraps if easily obtained from killing first Klaus, salt boxes to keep ingredients super fresh - there's no actual "don't starve" in Don't Starve at this point. We're getting too many available options in getting easy food and so forth the "uncompromising survival" will end up in becoming as, what one of my friends call the game as "Animal Crossing." I think we don't want DST to become that, do we..?
So, as an idea I agree and say:
--nerf bull kelp and stone fruit slowing down their growth greatly in winter.(?) I mean, it's not necessary but it's an idea.
--no more winter farming, cause, clearly... we should not be able to do that unless you make us work hard to achieve such a feat. Or at least make those crops like potatoes grow for a much longer time(?) other plants should be dormant/frozen/dead if have grown it's plant during winter if planted.

 

7 hours ago, Cosheeta said:

My friend was also worried about the amount of complexity and what's the point of all effort. Grow food to eat food to grow food to eat food. Which boils down to why play the game at all. And in some parts I agree, other parts I see a need for this update. For basic food value, to ease the hunger, all this complexity is easily not worth it, and I'd rather do skip this whole strenuous ordeal. Food isn't an issue for us and greens were never on the options list before nor after this update. We both agreed on that, but she wasn't too aware of the garlic, dragonfruit and peppers and how useful as basically potions they are. Being able to finally farm them based on work rather than luck is a blessing. From that argument forward however she still insisted that what's the point of potions if there is no point to the bosses.

Well, the farm complexity and effort you need to put in is a bit too high to do it on your own, wishing there were sprinklers and maybe higher tier ways of tilling the ground... maybe there should be a way to incorporate moleworms into the whole tilling instead of using hoes? If Klei ever decides to do that, I'd hope we'd only need to till the ground just to grow flowers than the actual veggies. At least when we work our way towards some sort of contraption that'd do that for us then there'd feel like there's progress, otherwise I feel like this is too much constant labor for nothing and I don't need to do more than just sit by the farm and keep feeding myself off it. If they add automatization then we'd only need to apply nutrients and that'd feel much nicer to progress ingame. Well... if there's gonna be none of that stuff I suppose I can just kidnap hire a bunch of Wormwoods and start my soviet camps farming communities to make food for me.

 

 

7 hours ago, Cosheeta said:

Now this is something that is no longer about just the update though. I find myself leaning back on the thought every now and then myself, but, while there aren't exactly zero reasons to fight a boss, there isn't much incentive for both of us to play with them in mind. She certainly have less patience for it than me at least. I think beating them could serve as some reward, but once that's done I admit it's hard to find reasons to stay around. She talks about the want for more decorations and building as reward, though I'm not sure where I lean. I'm not a fan of complete superficial decor. I'd like to have or pretend that there being some purpose to the spaces you lay out. But, as a result of a limited palette it just isn't as personal and pleasant as it is in other games where you can reshape the surroundings. Plain survival structures always end up in temporary orientations, permanently.

Yea, I still wish there were more ways to decor my base and have a wider palette of things I can build, reshape and create. I'm still hoping for more base building content to mess around with and maybe the boss loot would have more purposes when killing them. Like...
-scales are great for scaled chests, but scaled flooring is too ugly and terrible to look at and not like anyone uses it much.
-Abundance of deerclops eyeballs is annoying since Klaus is a thing, but I suppose I can just try farming ruins more often for houndiuses(?)
-Bee queen's existence itself is annoying, she doesn't give anything useful apart now the bundling wrap blueprint. Simp for her all ya want, but I ain't a fan of collecting her beans. They're irrelevant when there's better foods in the game, unless it's just to avoid dying from freezing as such inconveniences. Her hat? - barely protects, reversing sanity from loss to gain from scary/evil things is nice, but you don't really need that to be used often besides unless sitting in ruins near one of it's lights or something to regen sanity... it's pointless! Not used often either. Bundling wraps - it feels controversial, but they are busted AF that they can preserve food forever. I suppose it serves as lategame purpose, but I don't have a lot to talk about but that it's at least one convenience of carrying more stuff.
-Toadstool - COMPLETELY USELESS!! Those lamps don't stay lit forever and the amount of time either glowcap spores or lightbulbs in mushlight either or - they don't last long enough and need TOO MUCH EFFORT!! I can say, Klei, that nobody uses those things apart for few cases, but most people just use mods that would extend the light to, I dunno, to prolly forever? Fighting this super tanky boss is a fun and challenging concept of it's own, but god damn, he gives the most useless items in the game.
-Ancient Guardian - not exciting, they end up being cheesed by most players 99% at the time I'd bet. Either by using graves or pillars and small gaps of land. Maybe take inspiration from Uncompromising Mode team on how he breaks the pillars and his fighting mechanics to spice things up a bit. 

-King Crab - eeehhhh he's a whole other can of worms that I've not fully explored, but I feel like from what people've said there's not a lot of ways to fight him when using different gems - he either gonna be unreasonably hard or just annoying to beat. Flingos, bees, sea weeds ftw I suppose. Still tho, he doesn't really offer anything exciting, unless he's supposed to be like the Ancient Guardian, though I feel like when there's a lot of skill and teamplay required in the game, you'd expect for much more interesting loot instead of a bunch of bells, it's totem and the blueprint for strident :B useful, but not exciting. At least toss in some glass stuff or something xD Or some of those treasure chests around after beating him. We can at least compare him to as if he's Klaus 2.0 in a way. Thule/glass items and all. Maybe glass armor, eh?...

Enough of my 4 AM rant, sleep time, I think.

[JonJensen]

With more of attention on crops, will you be updating some recipes?

 

I notice that Wickerbottom was "nerfed", much to the chagrin of those who seem to want to cheese their way through the game.

 

So, how about nerfing pierogi?  Most pierogi are made with potatoes and cheese, so why not make it potatoes, dairy, meat, and eggs?  That and meatballs seem to be the go-to for so many players that they don't allow themselves the enjoyment of slaughtering frogs for froggle bunwiches (or enjoying more ocean content, for that matter)...

[QuartzBeam]

23 minutes ago, JonJensen said:

With more of attention on crops, will you be updating some recipes?

 

I notice that Wickerbottom was "nerfed", much to the chagrin of those who seem to want to cheese their way through the game.

 

So, how about nerfing pierogi?  Most pierogi are made with potatoes and cheese, so why not make it potatoes, dairy, meat, and eggs?  That and meatballs seem to be the go-to for so many players that they don't allow themselves the enjoyment of slaughtering frogs for froggle bunwiches (or enjoying more ocean content, for that matter)...

Wickerbottom went from being "ridiculously powerful" to being "very powerful".

How is that comparable to turning pierogies into a food that you would only ever make for the purpose of completing your cook book?

Also, you might be overestimating how often meatballs are used after the early game.

[Well-met]

14 hours ago, FloraGreen said:

The farming systems was not worth using prior to this nerf

lol 100 veggies in one harvest is apparently not worth using

[JonJensen]

3 hours ago, QuartzBeam said:

...you might be overestimating how often meatballs are used after the early game.

Only because they subsist on pierogi! :P

 

[X-lem]

If you do make a garden sprinkler, the Spittlefish should be an ingredient. There needs to be more reasons to explore the ocean and this would help contribute to that.

[wigfrids hat]

7 minutes ago, X-lem said:

If you do make a garden sprinkler, the Spittlefish should be an ingredient. There needs to be more reasons to explore the ocean and this would help contribute to that.

that would be pretty cool~

[CaptainTexas]

I hope Wormwood doesn't get hit too hard in this update.

[ZTheNecromancer]

9 minutes ago, CaptainTexas said:

I hope Wormwood doesn't get hit too hard in this update.

Howdy, fellow Texan. 

Wormwood was actually buffed in this update, I don't know the full details though.

[user1464576869]

16 hours ago, Mantas said:

there's no actual "don't starve" in Don't Starve at this point. We're getting too many available options in getting easy food and so forth the "uncompromising survival" will end up in becoming as, what one of my friends call the game as "Animal Crossing." I think we don't want DST to become that, do we..?

It's funny to me. Whenever I think of how Animal Crossing or DST both could be improved I always end up pointing back at each of those two to set examples. I like the uncompromised survival, it is incredibly engaging to explore the early unknown wilderness with nothing to fend off foes but quick thinking and tactical manoeuvrers, but this goes back to a discussion I had on the forum before about how DST has moved away from survival into conquest philosophy, one being an endless gauntlet for living and the other is similar though in the endgame it grants the ability to get on top of all issues and change from fighting to maintaining. I concluded that discussion with conquest probably being the ideal one to stick with at this point. And that DST has a confusing mid-identity were it can't decide if it wants conquest to be a realised thing, yet keep introducing such infrastructure for players to utilize all while still implementing and encouraging the harsh annoyances of the "uncompromising survival" parts it used to have to hunt you down endlessly. So building bases is possible, having food storage and farms is possible, but if you keep your hands off the keyboard for a minute then antlion will wreck it, loose focus on the fire and darkness gives instant death, or nightmares and hounds will chomp you up with only seconds to react, wildfires will ruin anything you build, giants too, sinkholes, moles, pigs, spiders and all. Incredibly strenuous to be 100% vigilant at all times. Can't go for a glass of water.
 
I'm not sure how to further express it, but if DST could embrace the conquest design and implement certain ways to reduce the early uncompromising annoyances, the instantaneous-ness of death. Local infrastructure that is difficult to attain but simpler to maintain, and not something that is 90% time consuming. Where you can have built spaces that are like animal crossing; the one thing were you can actually leave the game on, for at least a single minute. And the survival is outside that base for whenever you make grand travels.
 
It's difficult because I don't reckon any of that is possible due to how claustrophobic an island is. It only takes a day at most to reach all edges. If you have a base you're rarely going to feel stranded in the wild. There is no situation possible for a "journey to the west" kind of excitement. Like getting through biomes act as an imposing challenge, when they only span ten tiles or so. DST could have done well with different world meta altogether. Islands outside the island, infinite travel. But I digress.
 
What I meant was just, Animal Crossing needs some stakes and DST could do with some chilling out // aaaand be smarter in how it wants to properly challenge/engage the player again. Starving is what makes it exciting, and still is one of many things that makes the game a pure nuisance when you want to start doing the actual conquest. Bases are the downfall of engagement, ideally the one place food is never to be an issue due to "factories", but due to the small scope of the map a base is always only ever a couple of steps away. And the rough-around-the-edges rudimentary engagement of instant death no matter where you are around any corner is what kills the base building. For me, at least.
 
It becomes a bit catch 22 with the ideas on how to solve it, I know I've made a lot of arguments that makes sitting around a base even easier than ever but, I do hate sitting around having to maintain a base. It's all theoretical anyway, if the map was way larger so that leaving a base actually meant to prepare for in game weeks without infinite food then, that'd be it. We don't have that now I guess.

[EyeLemon]

I'm having so much fun with new farms! 
Also, I have to say, getting a razor skin after all these free beard skins is kinda hilarious

[Frosty_Mentos]

@Cosheeta Yea, I agree. Not gonna lie, to topple on the fact - I've added a certain mod that extends my map size by 2x the huge. And oh boy, traveling sure takes a while, besides that, I realized that the game doesn't have that many challenges when walking through many and many and many biomes as you said, it's mostly just walking through it all.

On the other note, I DO wish that smoldering was dealt with easier with some flingo range upgrades or idk something along the lines. Hounds were always a nuisance, there needs to be less of them while being at base... They become nothing more than annoying while in there, though they do oppose some challenge when being away from any traps ngl... 

[Tapirus]

I would like keep the old farms along with the new, so people will choose which one fit better with their own play style.

[Smarf]

On 12/4/2020 at 3:40 AM, JonJensen said:

With more of attention on crops, will you be updating some recipes?

 

I notice that Wickerbottom was "nerfed", much to the chagrin of those who seem to want to cheese their way through the game.

 

So, how about nerfing pierogi?  Most pierogi are made with potatoes and cheese, so why not make it potatoes, dairy, meat, and eggs?  That and meatballs seem to be the go-to for so many players that they don't allow themselves the enjoyment of slaughtering frogs for froggle bunwiches (or enjoying more ocean content, for that matter)...

I don’t understand what you mean when you say “wickerbottom cheeses the game.” Picking grass and twigs is a small aspect of this survival game. 
 

Adding dairy to the pierogi recipe seems pretty brutal. Dairy is one of the hardest to acquire ingredient in the game. I’m open to a meatball nerf. Maybe, adjust the recipe so you can’t use 3 ice.

 

I've really enjoyed ocean content so far. If I’m being honest tho, I have a very harder time differentiating the different ocean biomes. Hopefully, more stuff will be added to make it easier. 

 

[jpmrocks]

4 hours ago, Tapirus said:

I would like keep the old farms along with the new, so people will choose which one fit better with their own play style.

You can treat new farms like old ones, you just wont easily get seeds back.

[keterok]

I don't know if this only applies to beta, but in the new beta version this happened: we decided to farm Autumn trees with the help of Bearger, and earlier he always normally demolished trees both by attack and by the way he walks on them and we have all drop from trees this way. But now I noticed this: when Bearger blows a tree with an attack - logs drop normally. But if he runs or walks into the trees, the trees leaves no logs! 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

16 hours ago, keterok said:

I don't know if this only applies to beta, but in the new beta version this happened: we decided to farm Autumn trees with the help of Bearger, and earlier he always normally demolished trees both by attack and by the way he walks on them and we have all drop from trees this way. But now I noticed this: when Bearger blows a tree with an attack - logs drop normally. But if he runs or walks into the trees, the trees leaves no logs! 

That happend to me with poison birchnuts. They didnt drop any living log