Autumn is boring

[Atkvin]

I've been loving the discussion on Summer in the recent Wildfires thread between players on how to improve the mechanic and season as a whole - but was wondering if anything could be done for dull ol' Autumn in the corner while we were at it.

Each season has something unique to it - including Summer, even if its challenge comes with little fun or rewards. Each season except Autumn.

Obviously this is because a standard server and experience begins with Autumn, and the devs hold off on terrorizing weather when players begin to explore and settle into a new world. But past the first year, that argument holds no water and the only thing that changes is more hounds and the easily ignorable appearance of Bearger.

Some people might really like the simplicity of Autumn! It's a nice respite to work unimpeded by seasonal phenomena at last. But I feel like there can be a balance struck to give the starting season a fresh, engaging experience past the first year.

 

So with all that outta the way, here are some ideas I came up with:

Spoiler

On a weird start, I would add Leaf Piles that appear under birch trees in 1st Year Autumn and early on in the season for any preceding years. These function similar to tumbleweeds with a slightly different loot table, helping to ease the early-game resource grab, and give Autumn something unique to contribute to players (especially if Summer was particularly unkind to world resources).

This would also set the stage for the challenge and (hopefully!) fun that comes with Year 2 onwards - as heavy piles of leaves will start falling from the sky onto the ground. These hazards, called Leaf Stacks, will engulf the players' current positions in large fields with little warning every few days, similar to Antlion sinkholes, and spawn naturally in Deciduous biomes, mimicking the Oasis sandstorm on a smaller, less annoying scale.

 

Leaf Stacks are harmless, but annoying hazards that simply slow down the player and any mobs passing through them. They can be cleared through the passing of the season, Bearger's slam attack, any charge attacks, such as that of a Rook or Weremoose's - alongside fire and Weather Pains, the former of which will instantly burn up and clear the leaves, uniquely without smoldering or setting fire to surrounding structures, but deal fire damage to any mob or player standing on the leaves when they are set ablaze.

The design intention of the Leaf Stacks all in all, is the opposite of wildfires - to placidly encourage players to leave their cushy bases and reexplore the world like their first Autumn on a nomadic playstyle, to dodge the Leaf Stacks spawning at their feet every few days... But importantly, trying to do this without forcing that playstyle, with areas of speed penalty being a relatively harmless obstacle which they can even negate with multiple options if they prefer to.

Buuut as is, the Leaf Stack would still only be an annoying gameplay mechanic that would either be shrugged off or dealt with through the safeguard. It needs something more to motivate players.

 

That's why these Leaf Stacks would have one more vital function - something like serving as the spawning location of one end of a desirable new seasonal enemy. Let's call it the Wholeworm.

 

And a new creature!

Spoiler

The Wholeworm appears every dark-Night from a Leaf Stack closest to a player, and will perform a suctioning attack that draws in all nearby players and mobs.

Anything and anyone swallowed by the Wholeworm will then be spit out at a random existing Wormhole in the world, leaving them a little sanity lower and potentially at the behest of Charlie if they were caught off guard.

After the initial strike, it thankfully will not perform that attack again if engaged in combat, using other attacks instead. However, if you simply kill the Wholeworm right there and then, a timer will start... and upon ending, the Wholeworm rejuvenates and retreats hastily into the leaves to harass you the next night. For this beast has an other end somewhere in the world which will keep its aggressive end in the Leaf Stacks alive and well until both are killed in coordination.

 

This hopefully motivates players to go on a scavenger hunt across Autumn, reexploring familiar lands for the Wholeworm's other end (disguised as a normal wormhole in the overworld, will not show on map). Once the other end has been tracked down separately, players at both ends can now try to take on and kill the Wholeworm within its revival window.

Failure to do so within that window means the other end will retreat and move to another location, allowing players to keep trying to move that end into a favorable position. But if successful, the Wholeworm will be successfully slaughtered - and both ends will become a permanent pair of Wormholes in the world for players to traverse.

 

((Though a solo player could theoretically wait for a new Leaf Stack to generate right by the other end when they find it - there could be an optional world setting to accomodate solo players better. The other end would turn into a Wormhole immediately upon its death, allowing a player to warp to its remaining end and kill it more easily within the window))

 

[W0l0l0]

It's nice to have a season that doesn't randomly screw me over halfway through my beequeen fight. Well, save for Bearger and dogs. 

I would like to see more gobbler like creatures, vegetarians that the many, many carnivores of the constant could prey upon. Something that poses a risk to crops like disease, but unlike disease, has multiple counterplays that are interesting, but still require input and thought when executing. Maybe not an Autumn specific thing, but I can certainly see it having some sort of emphasis in Autumn. Maybe baby Beargers running around everywhere? 

[Well-met]

only thing I want for autumn is it should last +1 day longer with each passing year

[rainman895]

I think Autumn is fine as it is. A relaxing break from the horrors of other seasons

[Zeklo]

I wouldn't mind some optional hazards during Autumn.

As I've suggested before I'd love an optional Hound Boss you can defeat to put hound waves on hold. Either for a full year or half a year—but it spawns during Spring as well (so long as you killed it in Autumn).

[Atkvin]

4 hours ago, W0l0l0 said:

It's nice to have a season that doesn't randomly screw me over halfway through my beequeen fight. Well, save for Bearger and dogs. 

That's fair, but I would offer that the seasonal hazard that only slows down players can be cleared anytime if players switch to Woodie, and the annoying warping mob who appears from that same hazard only does so at deep night.

 

4 hours ago, rainman895 said:

I think Autumn is fine as it is. A relaxing break from the horrors of other seasons

A valid opinion not unlike one I posited, but I wonder if seasons as a whole could use a second pass if the favorite season from the support on your post seems to be the lack of one.

Some way to put on hold the weather effects similar to the Volcano's Altar of Snackrifice in Shipwrecked would help the design of seasons as a whole for players like you year-round rather than leave Autumn as the designated dull peaceful season, alongside more positive effects from the weathers (rivers freezing over in Winter) etc.

2 hours ago, Zeklo said:

I wouldn't mind some optional hazards during Autumn.

As I've suggested before I'd love an optional Hound Boss you can defeat to put hound waves on hold. Either for a full year or half a year—but it spawns during Spring as well (so long as you killed it in Autumn).

I love the idea of a mob that would allow more control over those annoyances!

Only problems I have are 1. hound waves just get so dull. I would love other types of mob attacks that do something slightly different and change up strategy i.e not just spawn and run at you, and 2. Vargs already exist, and would be the perfect candidate for a mechanic like this year-round.

[minespatch]

What about a bookbug that lurks in the library?

[Yuuko]

The unique thing about autumn is you actually get to do the stuff in the game without worrying about all the seasonal BS lol

--------------------------------------------------------------

I think your idea is kinda on par with wildfires for spicing up the game - sry, big NO from me.

In an attempt to give some reasonable criticism - switching a character to get rid of leaves is pretty rough.  Many people like the characters they play as, and see switching characters as breaking the immersion they enjoy.  You should at *least* make a character agnostic mechanic, even if there are also character specific ones.

Basically you're just adding another chore though.  One more thing to deal with in an already busy world as hound attacks close in on the 4-5 day recursion, 50% fire hounds, 30 second notice, and about 7-10 per player...  and now you're putting leaves everywhere, slowing movement, spreading fire easier, and yanking ppl through wormholes...  What is the point of this?

If just you want ppl's worlds to burn you can join non-password protected worlds as willow, you get a free lighter.

[Atkvin]

Spoiler

 

1 hour ago, Shosuko said:

One more thing to deal with in an already busy world as hound attacks close in on the 4-5 day recursion, 50% fire hounds, 30 second notice, and about 7-10 per player...  and now you're putting leaves everywhere, slowing movement, spreading fire easier, and yanking ppl through wormholes...  What is the point of this?

Madness and confusion, obviously.

Hah.. Admittedly I did joke about the leaves being a fire hazard to a friend while we were talking about Autumn. But you got me there - fire hounds would make all of this my secret love letter to wildfires by sheer forgetfulness. And your criticism about character changing as a solution being immersion-breaking is very fair!

 

Hound waves being a terrible year-long nuisance of a mechanic aside then - how about we kill two birds with one stone? The leaves could be designed to never cause smoldering or spread fire to any nearby structures by burning away instantly, but they will cause a burst of fire damage to any mobs or players standing on it without setting them ablaze.

If handled well fire would be a great and accessible way to deal with the leaves, giving the leaves a new potential use as a trap - and Weather Pains could probably be another safer but more costly alternative.

 

And answering the rhetoric more seriously, because autumn is boring, and I want to try design an interesting seasonal obstacle that encourages different gameplay without being oppressive. Clearly it isn't fireproof (literally) but I love coming up with crud like this.

(And are you crazy? Who doesn't love being yanked into wormholes and forced to trek home like a loser? It only happens at dark night if you were standing still at a patch of leaves anywho.)

[Dextops]

i think maybe some of these challenges could happen in later autumns like after the first one because just having one season to get a start is nice and then the world can f*** me over as much as it likes

[Gourmand]

Autumn is the most fun for me, I get to sit back to build and decorate my base

[Atkvin]

27 minutes ago, Dextops said:

i think maybe some of these challenges could happen in later autumns like after the first one because just having one season to get a start is nice and then the world can f*** me over as much as it likes

Without a doubt! I have zero qualms about the first autumn where players start out and settle down at all - it is the preceding years of autumn that I have subjective beef wellington with, and I'm trying to push for interesting mechanics that can be dealt with easily.

20 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

Autumn is the most fun for me, I get to sit back to build and decorate my base

This is a whole other can of worms I'm not equipped to touch, and there obviously can be overlap, but I do wonder if DST has a bit of identity crisis between being a harsh survival game and base-building game - when one is the eventual long-term goal as the other becomes more and more of a nuisance that threatens your hard work.

From the way all of you think about Autumn, the actual official seasons could probably do with more environmental benefits complementing the harsh drawbacks, and ways to appease the survival aspects lategame if weather and hounds only gets in the way of making your bases and your own fun from the game.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

Instead of making autunm more dangerous they can add stuff to the other seasons. Challenge that grows per year and make the 4 seasons cycle less repetitive. So when autumn comes again you will apreciate it

Klei was planning an update to change the seasons but for some reason they didnt keep on it

[Lil K]

Not being unique where everyone else is unique makes you unique to certain extent. 

[Atkvin]

3 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

Instead of making autunm more dangerous they can add stuff to the other seasons. Challenge that grows per year and make the 4 seasons cycle less repetitive. So when autumn comes again you will apreciate it

Klei was planning an update to change the seasons but for some reason they didnt keep on it

Unfortunately that already does seem to be how people feel given the responses on this thread! We definitely don't need the other seasons becoming more challenging, if anything they should become easier to manage and bring more positives for players to look forward to alongside the seasonal challenge.

Goals seem to change lategame, and autumn becomes favorite by proxy of being the only time they can then play [the game] and work on their projects unhindered.

 

That just tells me there's a serious design flaw in there that goes deeper than my silly ideas which add content - or "chores" in the eyes of some can cut.

[Dorka]

11 hours ago, minespatch said:

What about a bookbug that lurks in the library?

A BookWurm, which could look similar to a Bagworm Moth Caterpillar. (Which builds a house around itself out of sticks.) This one could be stacking books on top of itself. 

 

EDIT: So after posting i realized this would be an interesting mob that you find in the world around twiggy trees, cleaning up the twigs and adding it to it's stack/eating them. Killing it would give a pile of twigs and some silk. 

Also Autumn as a whole is perfect the way it is; it's the season when i get the most done around my base with building, and when exploring or collecting materials. 

[Mike23Ua]

The problem with a world that progress through years played is one many people don’t actually take into account, sure it SOUNDS Nice on paper.. but there are several things that have to be factored in-

the first of which is playing with friends: This should be Klei’s number one priority, they want to make the game fun and accessible to players of all skill levels, and a world that just got harder and harder the longer it’s lasted would be like playing State Of Decays- Breakdown game Mode AKA- You Start in a town that’s just starting into zombie outbreak, and the longer you stay alive the worse that outbreak gets until eventually... you can not STAY in that map anymore and have no choice but to abandon the overly infested town for a fresh start.

This is what I call a World with a definitive Death Date: eventually you’ll progress to a difficulty point where you can no longer handle it & are forced to bail.

the Second problem you would run into with  a setup like this is ITS A MASSIVE TIME SINK to progress to year 3/year 4 just to experience progressed content.. which if you can afford to spend many many hours playing the game- fine good I guess? But the majority of people can not- And therefore they don’t get to play or experience that content without some serious hours put into reaching that point.

The Last thing that has to be factored in- How would this even work at all for people playing on short or random season world settings?

 

[Well-met]

34 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

The problem with a world that progress through years played is one many people don’t actually take into account, sure it SOUNDS Nice on paper.. but there are several things that have to be factored in-

the first of which is playing with friends: This should be Klei’s number one priority, they want to make the game fun and accessible to players of all skill levels, and a world that just got harder and harder the longer it’s lasted would be like playing State Of Decays- Breakdown game Mode AKA- You Start in a town that’s just starting into zombie outbreak, and the longer you stay alive the worse that outbreak gets until eventually... you can not STAY in that map anymore and have no choice but to abandon the overly infested town for a fresh start.

This is what I call a World with a definitive Death Date: eventually you’ll progress to a difficulty point where you can no longer handle it & are forced to bail.

the Second problem you would run into with  a setup like this is ITS A MASSIVE TIME SINK to progress to year 3/year 4 just to experience progressed content.. which if you can afford to spend many many hours playing the game- fine good I guess? But the majority of people can not- And therefore they don’t get to play or experience that content without some serious hours put into reaching that point.

The Last thing that has to be factored in- How would this even work at all for people playing on short or random season world settings?

 

the majority of people investing their leisure time in videogames can certainly afford spending alot of hours into it.

the people who willingly attempt to invest into videogames while being certain that they will never be able to play for long is, infact, a minority, and should have zero impact for those who have no such trouble.

[Yuuko]

7 hours ago, Atkvin said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Madness and confusion, obviously.

Hah.. Admittedly I did joke about the leaves being a fire hazard to a friend while we were talking about Autumn. But you got me there - fire hounds would make all of this my secret love letter to wildfires by sheer forgetfulness. And your criticism about character changing as a solution being immersion-breaking is very fair!

I knew it!  A Willow main can spot these things...

I could say if you include this as part of a larger overhaul that deals with hound attacks and other hazards then sure, you could do something like this.  Part of the problem with Summer is that it was made for DS, a single player survival game where you eventually died.  DST is still a survival game but the edge is certainly taken off in favor of group content, more depth to the late game, and skins skins skins.  It leaves things like hound waves and summer smolder in an odd spot because while they worked well for the simple, solo game when it comes to an online shard, ppl joining after worldGen, and ppl wanting a more casual / crafty experience they aren't so great.

That all said, and as much as I criticize things like summer smolder, I do trust Klei and am patient with their development.  They really surprised me by coming back to rework farming, something I long thought they stopped caring about.  I don't doubt they float different ideas on how to rework the seasons to both keep up the challenge while also making it friendly for the (I don't like calling them casuals, b/c some of these players are pretty hard core and certainly put my skill to shame, so I'll call them) creatives just waiting for the right idea to come along.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

The problem with a world that progress through years played is one many people don’t actually take into account, sure it SOUNDS Nice on paper.. but there are several things that have to be factored in-

the first of which is playing with friends: This should be Klei’s number one priority, they want to make the game fun and accessible to players of all skill levels, and a world that just got harder and harder the longer it’s lasted would be like playing State Of Decays- Breakdown game Mode AKA- You Start in a town that’s just starting into zombie outbreak, and the longer you stay alive the worse that outbreak gets until eventually... you can not STAY in that map anymore and have no choice but to abandon the overly infested town for a fresh start.

This is what I call a World with a definitive Death Date: eventually you’ll progress to a difficulty point where you can no longer handle it & are forced to bail.

the Second problem you would run into with  a setup like this is ITS A MASSIVE TIME SINK to progress to year 3/year 4 just to experience progressed content.. which if you can afford to spend many many hours playing the game- fine good I guess? But the majority of people can not- And therefore they don’t get to play or experience that content without some serious hours put into reaching that point.

The Last thing that has to be factored in- How would this even work at all for people playing on short or random season world settings?

 

For someone that spends little time into the game dst offerst a lot of hours of content so i dont see it a reason to keep long term worlds repetitive. Also there is a world editing tab that can customize it to change how quickly or slow this season changes might appear

About playing with friends. Just create another world. Dst have infinity amount of slots to create new worlds. Is what i do when i want to play solo or with friends and i dont see the problem. Just the opposite, makes me want to try new things

[Superlucas1231]

21 hours ago, Atkvin said:

On a weird start, I would add Leaf Piles that appear under birch trees in 1st Year Autumn and early on in the season for any preceding years.

I  saw this and immediately though of coconuts from the palm tress in shipwreck.  Wish we got that fun mechanic back just because of how much of a meme it was

But with the sinkhole-like leaf pile, I feel like having one character the ability to remove them is a bit annoying; especially considering how many people already have an issue the celestial portal and character swapping.  It'd be nice if you can shovel them away, but make it take a bit of time to shovel it away (like maybe 5-7 shovel uses)

[sudoku]

If we can refresh characters because they are stale, we should employ the same tactics for seasons. I personally hope that now RoT is finished Klei makes season refreshes the next priority. 

[Atkvin]

1 hour ago, Superlucas1231 said:

I  saw this and immediately though of coconuts from the palm tress in shipwreck.  Wish we got that fun mechanic back just because of how much of a meme it was

But with the sinkhole-like leaf pile, I feel like having one character the ability to remove them is a bit annoying; especially considering how many people already have an issue the celestial portal and character swapping.  It'd be nice if you can shovel them away, but make it take a bit of time to shovel it away (like maybe 5-7 shovel uses)

Should have edited the original post! They can now be cleared with fire and weather pains as well, making the hazards easier and less awkward to clear! Fire which I forgot to account for, will set ablaze the entire stacks of leaves, but as they burn up and clear instantly, they will not set fire and smoldering to anything nearby, and instead deal damage to anything standing on it at the moment for an additional little hazard players could use to their advantage as traps.

[minespatch]

3 hours ago, Dorka said:

So after posting i realized this would be an interesting mob that you find in the world around twiggy trees, cleaning up the twigs and adding it to it's stack/eating them. Killing it would give a pile of twigs and some silk. 

Also Autumn as a whole is perfect the way it is; it's the season when i get the most done around my base with building, and when exploring or collecting materials. 

I like it! Makes a great compromise to my goat-trasheater concept. 

[HowlVoid]

I like that autumn can be as hard as you want to make it. Autumn is probably not a relaxing time for me in the early game as time is my biggest obstacle.

I wouldn't be apposed to more content though. Id like to see a harvest time type of event. Maybe a jack-o-lantern type boss that summons jack-o-lantern hounds. Decorate giants pumpkins etc.