Last Thoughts and Feedback on Eye of the Storm

[Hornete]

Hello fellow forumers! I thought i'd make this thread on my last thoughts and feedback on the Eye of the Storm beta, before it finally releases in 3 days time on Wednesday, I urge you put your thoughts and feedback here too! I'd love to take a read.

I generally really like the update! The moonstorm is a very unique late-game event that adds some some fresh air in the environmental/weather aspect of the game. The effects are really bloody awesome, and the new mutant birds are just fantastic, especially with their unique uses of giving out rotten eggs brings a really nice way to help with mass-crafting gunpowder in the late game. 

One big gripe I have for the event is it's only real use really is just to get the preparations for the Celestial Champion boss fight to begin, you can't actually craft any new items/tools/weapons with the charged moon shards and moon gleams you can find there, which is just a big waste of potential in my opinion. In general, i'd like to see more uses/crafts utilizing moon shards, after two years we only have two real uses for moon shards(Glass Cutter, Glass Axe) (There's also the turf, but that's just visual). Whilst nightmare fuel has 10s of crafts/structures utilising it! Especially with the many new ways of farming moon shards that we've gotten in Eye of the Storm(Celestial Champion's enlightenening snares, Charged Glassy Rocks, Moon dials dropping moon shards, etc) I'd really like to see some more uses for moon shards, sometime in the future.

I also wanted to talk about the charged moon shards, they only last for 90 seconds meaning you have to use bundling wrap in some way. I suppose this is fine since you probably will have killed Bee Queen by the time you start the moon storm, but in a sandbox game like Don't Starve, it feels a bit suffocating not being able to have other ways to keep the moon shards charged, I suppose you could telelocate yourself to the lunar island RIGHT away to get the charged moon shards to the Lunar Siphonator, but that's a very unreliable method.

I'd also like to talk about the Charged Glassy Rocks that spawn from moon lightning, these explode after a little bit and deal 30 damage to nearby entities. They're usually most destructive to walls which really stinks because that's just tedious and annoying. A couple solutions for this is to simply not let it damage walls, or my more favored idea, let us build a item upgrade that we can place on regular lightning rods(akin to the mast upgrades) that's able to attract moon lightning and nullify the spawning of charged glassy rocks! Could even have the neat little effect of charged moon shards breaking apart from the tip of the lightning rod when moon lightning strikes! That'd make a nice way to gather charged moon shards.

Last thing I wanted to talk about are how some characters are affected this update, mainly Woodie and Willow.

The moon storm event slightly stinks for Woodie because he's forced to transform every single night to a random form which just causes annoyance and tedium, a nice idea I heard is that Mushy Cake could be eaten to prevent wereforms? However it might be done, it would be nice to see a way to help deal with Woodie's transformations during the Moon storm.

Willow is in an even worse situation imo, because with enlightenment being such a widely used mechanic now, Bernie is sadly unable to help with Willow in the areas of the game that she's enlightened. The lunar islands, the lunar grotto, the moon storm, Alter's full nights are all areas of the game where Willow's main perk is essentially stripped away from her unable for her to use which is just really lame. I think the simplest change is to just let Bernie go big when Willow is enlightened. Surely he'll want to help her from any paranormal creatures right? Nightmares or Lunar creatures alike.

 

Spoiler

This was probably one of the most disappointing experiences in the beta for me 

That's all I wanted to say! I really hope to hear some of your guys input on this update before it releases, cheers!
 

Spoiler

Not related to the main topic, but I really wanted to share this trick me and my friend found where I was able to haunt the Celestial Champion and have a 25% chance to cancel it's current animation and force it into the melee attack 
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/827228146800525372/838092586550951956/2021-05-01_12-25-34_Trim.mp4

 

[Just-guy]

Maybe a song or some way to prevent Wigfrid from gaining sanity from attacking the Celestial Champion because she would easily get enlightened after fighting it in minutes and she can't eat Glommer's Goop or Mushrooms alone.

[CarlZalph]

The main thing I saw when it first came out was the too fast spinning storm overlay, made me queasy looking at it.  Not sure if that got changed to not be so strong.

The crown itself for how much effort was put into getting it feels a bit weird.  Light and sanity shouldn't be an issue at end game, so its most apparent boons are half-n-half.  I find most people who play long worlds do a lot of base building and creating things.  Perhaps it could reduce the time required for the wearer to gather/craft things or some recharging teleport ability to mark and recall a spot on the map.

 

Rest of it was pretty great.  Theme wise/aesthetics.  Even the blue that never really occurred in DS' style made its big introduction all through here.  Animations looked smooth.

[QuartzBeam]

The lack of late game moon glass craftables is really perplexing. We go through this long and often tedious quest line, we awaken a freaking Lovecraftian deity and our reward for this whole ordeal is the ability to make... glass axes and glass cutters on the go? Really? You introduce an extraterrestrial, organic glass and that is the most interesting use you could think for it? Not even... I dunno... that rain summoning item we've all been waiting for since Troubled Waters? Or maybe some way to move stuff like reeds and cacti, which would actually make this entire expansion worthwhile.

Oh and speaking of crafting, Ancient Stonework (the archives turf) is still uncraftable and Anenemies are still unrenewable, so that's nice too.

[Knowbodie]

5 hours ago, Hornete said:

I'd really like to see some more uses for moon shards, sometime in the future.

Using the power of creativity, here's some ideas for Klei to hopefully implement:

-A Spyglass (similar to Shipwrecked) made out of moon glass since it not only seems logical, but it promotes more exploration in the ocean or makes some of it a little easier. Bonus points if there was a special spyglass using an enlightened crown shard that would have increased viewing range and worked in caves or the dark (possibly refillable or infinite durability, idk).

-Moon Glass Ammo for Walter which can put targets to sleep, or function like the cursed rounds/enlightened crown to summon mini gestalts that deal extra damage to the target.

-Some sort of Moon Glass Armor (probably made from charged moonglass or moongleam) that protects you based on the percentage of your sanity/enlightenment, probably at a cap of 95% damage reduction all the way to 0% if you're insane. It would be really strong against certain mobs that lack a sanity drain (such as pigs) but grow weak against high sanity draining creatures (unless paired with a bee queen crown). It loses less durability the lower the protection because of lowered absorption.

-Moon Glass Staff: A staff similar to the ice and fire staff, except it deals ranged damage based on Sanity percentage. The staff has the same damage as a blow dart (100, but reduces based on sanity level), and consumes sanity on each use. The bonus perk is that if a target is hit by the projectile, the target will gain a decent sanity aura for a short duration and has a chance to mutate creatures if applicable.

-Moon Glass Amulet: A special amulet that functions similar to the Brain of Thought, but it only allows you to craft a single item that is "socketed" into it like a cratered moonrock. Once socketed, the item can't be removed, but the socketed item can be crafted again from any location, with each craft lowering the durability of the amulet. This solves issues like lack of usability for certain items and can allow you to bring the crafting recipes from the celestial tab into the caves. Maybe as a bonus on full moons, the amulet lets you craft any recipe from any station, essentially acting like the default Brain of Thought. Or, the full moon bonus could be that it lets you craft without losing durability on the amulet.

Either that or the amulet acts as an "invisibility" shield, which just prevents mobs from gaining aggro onto you. It would basically be a mobile bush hat but with limited duration.

[HeatAndRun]

The eye of the storm update is actually significantly decent - quite interesting permanent full moon event, plus new raid boss that is highly relevant to lore. The update itself is nice, but the overall RoT update feels a little bit incomplete. Since the RoT started on May 2019, many items and crafts are added to base game, still most of them were ambiguous and situational.

What we really need is powerful, unique, revolutionary game-changing items and gadgets we can craft!

In my humble opinion, ever since the Willow rework, the devs seems to be unnecessarily afraid of introducing overpowered items or characters. Weather pain, ham bat, dark sword, deconstruction staff, star-caller's staff, bone armor & helm and Wickerbottom's books, those items are sooo powerful and game changing. Yet they didn't break the game, in fact they actually made the game funnier and enjoyable. So I think the devs can be more confident about introducing new powerful items into the game!

(Personally I hope there'll be more unique crab king loots, additional usage for broken shells, more diverse celestial items and more ocean contents.)

[ArubaroBeefalo]

we need more recipes. All these works, fights and travels feels empty if we get the same crafting tier from the easier altar instead of getting more for each altar connected to the point of getting the 3 tiers in the orb after defeating the champion

ck still feeling without a reasonable loot after all of this because his unique loot is an useless altar that doesnt do anything until you get 3 in total. And after that you only unlock a fight with a niche crown and the ability of crafting glass cutters and axes when before i could bring bundles, shadow chester, or simply filling the boat with quick drop with stuff and not going back until i need more

 

and, as others said, we have 2 new materials with no uses outside of summoning the champion which is a waste and have little sense (the champion itself drops infused glass)

[lakhnish]

I hope whatever they do on launch day adds more to the game, particularly to the boss loot. It's been 2 years yet it feels like the update only just came out.

There have been some good things that have come out with the RoT updates, but for an update that has construction tape to it, I was expecting more (even while trying to keep expectations low), especially with all the effort it takes to do everything, .

I personally look more forward to just 24/7 full moons since I think it has a lot more utility than the actual boss loot too 

[QuartzBeam]

1 hour ago, lakhnish said:

I hope whatever they do on launch day adds more to the game, particularly to the boss loot. It's been 2 years yet it feels like the update only just came out.

There have been some good things that have come out with the RoT updates, but for an update that has construction tape to it, I was expecting more (even while trying to keep expectations low), especially with all the effort it takes to do everything, .

I personally look more forward to just 24/7 full moons since I think it has a lot more utility than the actual boss loot too 

Yeah, that's been the recurring problem with RoT, hasn't it?

Every single update has sparked the exact same discussion:

"The rewards for the new content are underwhelming for all the trouble you have to go through to get them."

"Well, maybe, but I'm sure it'll be very worthwhile when the expansion is completed and it'll all make sense. Blah blah blah."

And, lo and behold, the final update comes out and it turns out that, no, it doesn't all make sense in the end.

[Pumking7]

I have been hoping all this time that we would be able to force lunar mutations at some point like the lunar brew from Halloween, maybe indirectly such as when mobs are placed or affected by lunar storms. This would add a growing sense of lunacy in the world and allowing us to renew lunar creatures without having to switch to Halloween. (for I feel bad doing an event which only has a set time limit)

I am fine with renewed totally normal trees being locked behind Halloween since they are more decoration/living logs can be gathered in many different ways. However with the moon being such a big focus for the past 2 years, I am surprised the ability to mutate mobs has been locked away behind Hallowed Nights.

[Mike23Ua]

Honestly? I just want the Moon Storm to do more weird S*** to the Overworld.

Here are a few ideas pulled from DS Single Player- Mushrooms can become Mush Trees on Full Moon, Obsidian Pillars can rupture the lands making travel require the use of said mushrooms to raise & lower ones sanity.

I would like it to have wide spread changes on the creatures/plant life of the constant.. 

On Lunar Island Carrots become walking little Carrat Rats... Surely more weird freaky stuff like THAT should be happening right?

More craftables will always feel “Meh” to me.. but a storm that happens and massively alters biomes? Sign me up.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

20 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

On Lunar Island Carrots become walking little Carrat Rats

this actually should be a thing while the moonstorm is active in a place with carrots

[Mike23Ua]

30 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

this actually should be a thing while the moonstorm is active in a place with carrots

It’s not enough.. mandrakes pulled from the ground are still just Mandrakes annoying harmless Pokémon looking things that follow you around going Meep, meep, meep! 
 

with Lunar Island it made sense that only the things on that island would be mutated- but now that same energy is rolling across the land like a casual thunderstorm it should effect way more then just carrots or a few spiders.

[HowlVoid]

I feel so disappointed in the fact that Wormwood got 0 new mutated plants to play with. 

No new friends... So sad.

Would love moon versions of treeguards and poison birchnuts trees that he can befriend. Something, anything, please Klei.  

[Cassielu]

The animation of crystals falling from the sky and shining still looks unfinished...I care a little bit about it.

[Well-met]

The charged rocks explode and harm your base because that's literally what people have been asking for. They wanted global threats and Klei gave it to them.

also I know we hope they put more on launch day but you all know how it's going to be.

[Hornete]

21 minutes ago, Well-met said:

The charged rocks explode and harm your base because that's literally what people have been asking for. They wanted global threats and Klei gave it to them.

There is a big difference between real global threats, and unnecessarily destroying walls.

I don't think anyone wants walls, which are used as decor most of the time, to just randomly be attacked/destroyed because "muh uncompromising!"

Edit: And even so, I honestly don't mind them destroying walls, just give us a way to deal with it nicely at the least, like most other dangers/mechanics in the game.

[Bird Up]

Return of them concluded with me still wondering who is them lol

[Well-met]

Is there any different item or mechanic from the beta for the release?

[lakhnish]

6 hours ago, Well-met said:

Is there any different item or mechanic from the beta for the release?

No, only bug fixes and new skins.