Do you think wildfires can be salvaged?

[Szczuku]

So it is generally agreed upon that summer is the worst season in the game. After all most players spend it sitting around in the caves/oasis.

I've come up with an idea that every season should have a randomly chosen content every year so that they don't feel as static as they do now. However it has come to my attention that summer would still be mostly a 'get the thing and go back to caves/oasis' season.

I think wildfires are to blame. They are the most destructive and the most tedious-to-counter mechanic in dst.

Right now, in my opinion, the only thing that Klei can do to keep them in the game and to make summer more forgiving would be to make wildfires only target plants and more specifically withered plants. So a player that has a neat base wouldn't have to worry about a wildfire targeting one of his 36 chests. This mechanic would now potentially destroy only parts of the world that the player doesn't care as much about. Not having to constantly worry about my base would definitely encourage me to spend more summers on the surface. After all even if a withered grass tuft starts smoldering one could always just keep walking and unload that area to presserve the rest of plants near that grass tuft.

However even with that overhaul of wildfires I am not sure if summer would be considered a 'good' season. And so I wonder if you guys think wildfires as a mechanic can be salvaged and kept in the game or if summer would be better off completely without it

[Terra B Welch]

I'd take any change to wildfires to make them less annoying, if I ever do a world where I don't base in oasis/caves I play with them disabled, dealing with wildfires just isn't any fun for me.

[Ohan]

what if wildfires were more telegraphed and intense and occured periodically instead of a constant, low level, difficult to detect danger. I wonder if that would make them more engaging and less annoying. 

something like this: the screen would go smokey/ashy/orange and the character would announce that a heatwave is imminent. the threat of wildfires could be paired with maybe a spike in temperature so u need to find shade or eat something cold/use a luxury fan/chilling amulet. it would last like the entire day period maybe and occur like ~3-5 times per summer or whatever. 

This kinda thing i imagine would also require a bunch of new items to deal with the new dangers etc. (like the bamboo/palm leaf structure that protects against rain in SW but for heat) Would make above average trees also even better. 

[Mike23Ua]

Call me crazy.. but when I buy a survival simulator game I don’t want that game to have something I can craft that counter-reacts the survival aspects of that game..

Wildfires are annoying to most people building those huge mega bases (turn them off) but for people like ME who build the smallest bases possible with only the bare essentials of what you need in random “Encampments” around the map, Wildfires are treated as just another unfortunate thing that makes your life harder.

For SOME People the “FUN” of the game is recovering and rebuilding after unavoidable disaster.

This is WHY I often base in the Mosiac, or down in Caves when Antlion is dropping boulders in my path.. People tend to completely FORGET that DST is a SURVIVAL Game.. and if I’m being honest about it: I would like a whole lot more unavoidable disasters I would have to recover and rebuild from..

things like floods if I build too close to the shore, earthquakes, landslides- In fact there are actual WHIRLPOOL and TORNADOs in the unimplemented features on Wiki..

Not every feature about the game NEEDS to have a structure you can build to counter the danger, sometimes the Recovery and Rebuilding IS THE FUN PART.

But… if Klei is designing this game based on twitch and YouTube streamers with their mega bases and not based on the game being an actual survival game- Then I suppose summer will be reworked and you guys will get your wish of having wildfires removed completely.

[lakhnish]

1 hour ago, Szczuku said:

Right now, in my opinion, the only thing that Klei can do to keep them in the game and to make summer more forgiving would be to make wildfires only target plants and more specifically withered plants

One day, we'll get a rain machine to combat wildfires. One day and I will wait till then

[Captain_Rage]

Yeah, I am also for pushing the envelope when it comes to base building by having to plan ahead and expand carefully. If a design doesn't work satisfactory it should be remade and reevaluated. Bases can be built with wildfires and other hazards in mind (proper spacing, strategically placed Ice Flingomatics and so on). If you could build with impunity DST would pretty much cease to be a survival game. The whole world could be carelessly covered in structures within merely a few seasons and that is not something I want the game the aim for. Having the opportunity to build big bases by all means, but not without mindless and consequence free expansion.

[Stonetribe]

Maybe it's because I don't partake in mega-basing, but I don't mind wildfires too much. I think that it'd be great if the player character (with the exception our beloved mime) would comment whenever something starts to smolder due a wildfire, and maybe take a little longer than average before it actually catches fire. I feel like that would give attentive players plenty of time to react. I think that you could also reasonably not have to keep your ice flingos turned on for the whole season without fearing something in base starting to smolder that's barely off screen as your leaving. Keeping grass tufts/saplings/berries/stone fruits from withering would be a different story of course, but keeping just one flingo fueled is fairly manageable.

[Hornete]

8 minutes ago, lakhnish said:

One day, we'll get a rain machine to combat wildfires. One day and I will wait till then

Unfortunately, part of me thinks the new trees are the "rain" items. Things can change a lot when going through the design process, and the new canopy might be what they ended up with after going through the design process of said "rain" item. I hope I'm wrong though!

[Guille6785]

you can turn them off

[ArubaroBeefalo]

they shouldnt be removed since for that are the settings

just add more stuff to do in summer and a calling rain item (ejem crab king dropping a conch that calls rain ejem ejem)

[DarkPulse91]

Wild fires need a big change, because they prevent you from doing a lot of activities

One of those being sailing. Because nearly everything on a boat can catch fire, anything can start smouldering. Sure they added the pump, but it's useless when the boat is moving, the water blobs just fall into the water. So to put out the fire, you have to put up all the sails, lower the anchor, and then use the pump. By which the fire has probably started and spread already.

It's just annoying how one random chance can ruin everything if you don't see it/can't get it in time.

 

Another example I have of fires ruin everything is when I was just starting out, I made it to my first summer and decided to run to the caves. Survived in the caves, and came back in autumn. To which I found my entire base burned down. So somehow in that time of me leaving my base to go to the caves, a fire started and spread all over my small base. I have no idea how this happened, and the only things saved were the berry bushes in range of the ice flingo.

 

[0rutyna0]

How difficult it is to make a watering can ...

[Terra B Welch]

7 minutes ago, 0rutyna0 said:

How difficult it is to make a watering can ...

Wildfires affect more then just farm crops ya know, and all a watering can helps with is with farm crops.

[Dextops]

Just now, Terra B Welch said:

Wildfires affect more then just farm crops ya know, and all a watering can helps with is with farm crops.

nah they can extinguish fires pretty sure don't remember the aoe of it and if im wrong about it extinguishing it then ****

[Terra B Welch]

Just now, Dextops said:

nah they can extinguish fires pretty sure don't remember the aoe of it and if im wrong about it extinguishing it then ****

I know ice staves and water balloons can extinguish fires, but what if a wildfire happens just slightly offscreen?

[Frashaw27]

1 minute ago, Terra B Welch said:

Wildfires affect more then just farm crops ya know, and all a watering can helps with is with farm crops.

Actually the watering can can put out fires if there is water in it. I used this a wormwood world where I single handedly saved an entire crop field from being set ablaze by lightning.

[Dextops]

Just now, Terra B Welch said:

I know ice staves and water balloons can extinguish fires, but what if a wildfire happens just slightly offscreen?

nah im just saying im pretty sure watering can can extinguish fires

[Mike23Ua]

14 minutes ago, Dextops said:

nah im just saying im pretty sure watering can can extinguish fires

It can.. and I keep one on me at all times during the moments I open my world up to the public- it puts out structures that are already lit ablaze.. and it’s awesome it’s the best Anti-Grief tool there is.. less server roll backs, more Watering Cans. 

[Owlrust]

3 hours ago, Ohan said:

what if wildfires were more telegraphed and intense and occured periodically instead of a constant, low level, difficult to detect danger. I wonder if that would make them more engaging and less annoying. 

something like this: the screen would go smokey/ashy/orange and the character would announce that a heatwave is imminent. the threat of wildfires could be paired with maybe a spike in temperature so u need to find shade or eat something cold/use a luxury fan/chilling amulet. it would last like the entire day period maybe and occur like ~3-5 times per summer or whatever. 

This kinda thing i imagine would also require a bunch of new items to deal with the new dangers etc. (like the bamboo/palm leaf structure that protects against rain in SW but for heat) Would make above average trees also even better. 

That could also be very useful for conserving the fuel in flingos since you could just turn them on when said day approaches.

[kiwikenobi]

I always turn wildfires off. I think they're just too frustrating to deal with in a season that's already difficult. I used to always turn disease off, too, until it was outright removed from the game. But some people were fine with how disease worked, and some people are also fine with how wildfires work, and it doesn't bother me if other people play with wildfires on.

But if I were going to make some kind of official change, I would just remove wildfires altogether, like disease, since that's how I prefer to play anyway. But that's just me, and if other people really enjoy the wildfire mechanic, then it might as well stay part of the game, since it's easy enough to turn off at any time now.

That said, maybe some clever person has an idea for how to make wildfires less frustrating and more interesting. I don't have any ideas like that, though. ^o^;>

[DarkPulse91]

The one thing about reworking/updating fires is that they also have to keep in mind items that were designed around fires like the water pump and the luxury fan. If they remove fires/change them in a major way, they will need to change those too so they aren't completely useless

 

[NightfallsCurse]

I wouldn't really want wildfires reworked imo, I feel they should keep them the way they are. Although they aren't a fun mechanic they still deserve to be in the game. It shows how intense the heat can get in the Constant. They might be an annoying mechanic but if they annoy you just turn them off.

I don't enjoy gathering so much ice for my megabases in winter. It's super annoying, especially when my megabase extends to the entire world, so my megabases aren't only in the oasis. I feel I'm turning them off from now on. They do get annoying from time to time and I don't like gathering a million pieces of nitre to refuel my flingos.

Wildfires aren't fun or enjoyable, and they don't need to be reworked either

[Hornete]

13 minutes ago, ShadowQueen said:

I wouldn't really want wildfires reworked imo, I feel they should keep them the way they are. Although they aren't a fun mechanic they still deserve to be in the game. It shows how intense the heat can get in the Constant. They might be an annoying mechanic but if they annoy you just turn them off

A mechanic can still be fun while showcasing the cruelty of the Constant.

"Oh but the constant is a bad place so this unfun mechanic fits" should never be the reason for why a bad mechanic should stay in the game as is.

Take @Ohan's idea. Heat waves of sorts can still show how terrible and cruel the Constant can be! Maybe itd be so hot that food cooks while on the ground, much more intense heats, Sound pretty cruel right? But itd also be telegraphed, and the player will have a chance to quickly prepare and deal with the said heatwave.

All just on paper of course, but my point is a mechanic can be fun while still being grueling and intense.

The main goal in the design of a game should always be making sure that it's fun.

[thegreatJash]

5 hours ago, lakhnish said:

One day, we'll get a rain machine to combat wildfires. One day and I will wait till then

Hopefully this will suffice until something is added to the base game.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2522367292&searchtext=Rainy+shell

[ArubaroBeefalo]

2 minutes ago, thegreatJash said:

Hopefully this will suffice until something is added to the base game.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2522367292&searchtext=Rainy+shell

that is what we need in game