Marsh Biomes Could be Improved

[ZombieCow323]

A few days ago, I made a post about the idea of farming reeds outside of the marsh biome, and after reading what everyone replied, I realized something I hadn't really thought of before: the marsh biomes are really boring.

I've spent so little time in the marshes because there's never an incentive to explore them unless you need reeds or tentacle materials (or merms, if you're Wurt). The basic idea of the marshes, slowing you down and being full of creatures that want you dead, is interesting and different than the other main biomes, but there just isn't enough in them.

 

I'm going to give a brief rundown of all the main biomes - any biome on the surface, mainland, and separate from other biomes - to explain why I feel the marsh biome just doesn't hold up.

Forests have trees, twigs, and birds, and less commonly have spiders, grass, graves, flowers, pigs, mushrooms, and rocks. Almost all of these are/give very important resources you need throughout the game, and you will most likely be going there often, or taking things like trees, twigs, and berries to make your own mini forest near your base. Treeguards are mini bosses that can spawn frequently there, and spider queens can spawn if there are spiders in the forests.

Deciduous forests are similar to normal forests, containing trees, mushrooms, fireflies, catcoons, twigs, berries, flowers, and occasionally grass and rocks. Another important thing about these biomes is that they're the only way to find Glommer, who has a few uses. No-eye-deer can spawn in this biome during winter, as well as Klaus, a special boss.

Grasslands can have birds, flowers, beehives, killer beehives, grass, twigs, berries, carrots, fireflies, ponds, rabbits, and occasionally mushrooms and spiders. This biome is chock full of good resources and food sources, with frogs and killer bees providing some challenge. The bee queen is a boss that can be optionally spawned, and again spider queens can spawn if spider dens are present.

Rockylands have, well, rocks, boulders, gold veins, crows, spiders, grass geckos, and occasionally tallbirds. The rocks and gold veins also contain nitre and flint, and glaciers can spawn in winter. Once again, most of these are important throughout the game, and while you can't bring boulders to your base, you can quickly gather large amounts of materials from making an occasional trip to a rockyland, and they can be pretty big. Tallbirds are the only real concern, though meteor showers can happen and hurt you if you're unlucky, and there are no bosses unique to that biome.

Deserts have cacti, boulders, flintless boulders, tumbleweeds, vultures, grass geckos, bones, spiky bushes and trees, grass, and the occasional hound mounds, volt goats, and magma pools. This biome can also contain the very important oasis, and two unique bosses being the dragonfly, which is found near magma year-round, and the antlion, which is found near the oasis in summer.

Savannahs are the most barren of the biomes, even more so than marshes, containing only grass, rabbits, birds, beefalo if you're lucky, and the occasional rocks, flowers, and spiders. Despite not having a lot of resources, savannahs serve a very different purpose than marshes, rather than being inhospitable, they provide an abundant source of grass and food through rabbits, which are helpful throughout the game. The main concerns are beefalos during mating season, and spiders if there's any around, but there's no unique bosses. In all honesty the savannahs could maybe be improved a bit but are successful in what they do, so I don't think it's important to focus on them at the moment.

 

Finally, the topic at hand: marshes. These biomes have tentacles, reeds, crows, spiky bushes and trees, mushrooms, ponds, spider nests, merms, and rarely trees and grass. This is also the only biome where mosquitoes spawn, around ponds at night. These biomes have the most consistent dangers, being tentacles, merms, mosquitoes, and spiders, and a low amount of resources, the only unique one being reeds. Despite all of the danger, there are no unique bosses.

In terms of drops, mosquitoes can drop mosquito sacks, tentacles can drop tentacle spots and spikes, and merms can drop fish and frog legs. Mosquito sacks are a healing item, which is nice, but there are much better ones available for less work, and fish and frog legs can be found easier from other sources. Essentially, tentacle drops and reeds are the only unique resources of this biome, which is it's first issue. Every now and then you'll have to go and find these resources, which are important for many things, but after you get them there's no incentive to return to the marshes until you're low on reeds or tentacle drops again. With all of the other threats, they don't drop anything incredibly useful, so there's no incentive to put yourself in danger to kill them unless you're desperate for food.

The other problem is that these biomes can be massive, I've seen some take up a quarter to a third of the entire mainland, which essentially just cuts off a huge section of land because you're never going to base in one unless you're Wurt. And with them slowing you down, traveling across these massive stretches of land is just tiring, it takes forever and you don't get anything out of it.

I get that these biomes are meant to be inhospitable and dreary, but I don't think they do it well. The base concept is good, and the few unique resources are very useful, but I don't think I've ever actually had fun traversing a marsh. Obviously I can't speak for everyone, maybe some people love marshes and that's fine, but to me they seem incredibly lackluster compared to the other biomes.

Deserts are meant to be wastelands, but they also contain useful materials, food sources, enemies, and unique bosses.

Savannahs are very plain, but again they contain abundant grass and food, and I often base close to one or even in one simply because so many rabbits are available.

I'm not saying that marshes should contain abundant food like the rabbits, or a ton of resources like rocks and wood, but I do think they should have a few more things.

I feel like there should be some kind of unique or rare material(s) only found in the marshes, maybe not with a ton of uses, but something to prompt exploration. Maybe some kind of gem, or special trinket, or something that can craft unique weapons, I'm not sure.

Another addition I think would help is a unique boss of some kind. Even something like a spiky treeguard would be better than nothing. Maybe some kind of giant mosquito boss? A special pond set piece that functions similarly as the magma does with the dragonfly could be cool. Again, bosses provide unique challenges and drop unique items, which is another incentive for exploring a marsh.

 

To sum everything up: I think marshes need something new, something interesting, to spice things up and make marshes a better biome. At the very least there should be an incentive to be in the biome instead of briefly running around to grab reeds and leave. It should be both challenging and fun to traverse, and make it less of a chore to gather the few unique resources.

This was a bit longer than I meant it to be but oh well, I'm curious to see what other people think about this. What aditions do you think could be made to marshes? Are the marshes actually better than I think they are, and I just haven't discovered the uses yet? In any case, thanks for reading.

[Hornete]

The Marsh is probably the most interesting and fun pre-RoG biome to me, it's a funky and dangerous biome that stands out and has some nice resources, I wouldn't mind anything new, but i'd rather see other older biomes get new content first.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

i thinks most of the old biomes need adittions

i wish klei use some of the stuff datamined from newhome like the moth or the pilars

[Mike23Ua]

18 minutes ago, Hornete said:

The Marsh is probably the most interesting and fun pre-RoG biome to me, it's a funky and dangerous biome that stands out and has some nice resources, I wouldn't mind anything new, but i'd rather see other older biomes get new content first.

I literally just said this in another thread, and personally I would love it if the in-game biomes matched how they are portrayed in Klei’s animated shorts that depict them.

Why make the biomes appear more interesting in your animations then they actually are? I’m sure the newer consoles (PS5 Series X & S) are more than capable of updating old biomes, so maybe what I’m wanting is more of a DST “Next-Gen Edition” 

But I would love it if ALL biomes got some new updates and content: for swamps in Particular.. Flurp from Shipwrecked sound like a fun “thing” to have randomly pop out the ground chasing you.

 

I feel the need to heavily stress to Klei that I have bought their game for like 15 of my friends and of those 15.. only 3 stuck with it- the rest weren’t really into it: Some of them even explained that “Walking around just picking up resources with nothing else to see, do or fight is boring..”

Lately Klei has been making changes that address this though: like letting me set Clockworks to appear in any biome Randomly.. We need MORE of this..

And if Minecraft can update its old biomes with new mobs (both passive and hostile) new resources and just in general new things to see, explore, and do- it’s High time DST did the same thing.

And I only have one question to ask: now that there’s a lovely menu we can toggle full of things On/off, more/less … what Exactly is Klei so afraid of amping things up to 11?

If for example some of the newer “questionable” content is too difficult for casuals- then add it to the game anyway but have it toggled OFF by default so people like myself who WILL find it and turn that risky feature or new mob ON can.

[HowlVoid]

All the biomes are boring when you've played with them for hours and hours.

Recently I've found the swamp biome to be the most useful out of all the biomes. Most biomes have a singular reason to visit them for one thing or another, but I find myself going back to the swamp biome the most. My base just has to have a sinkhole or wormhole that goes there. 

The swamp has free food, rotten fish for blooming, free weapons, free silk and spider glands, fresh fish/frog legs, easy hound protection, free bat wings (when you open a sinkhole there), and free mosquito sacs; yup, lots of free stuff.

The other biomes could use a tweak, imo. Hopefully we get an update that adds something interesting to the biomes after a year, like everyone has been asking.

Oh god I almost forgot about reeds (night armor)! Its basically a must have for all boss fights for me now when I play Wanda or Wormwood.

[Ohan]

Id like to see mushrooms (outside of the rare fairy rings) come back to the swamp... and also the small forest in the middle of the swamp from old world gen. Idk when exactly these things were removed nor do i understand why. 

The small patch of forest was a nice tentacle/reeds/ponds-free space in the swamp for basing and it broke up the monotony of the biome. And it just makes sense for there to be mushrooms in a swamp 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

5 minutes ago, Ohan said:

Id like to see mushrooms (outside of the rare fairy rings) come back to the swamp... and also the small forest in the middle of the swamp from old world gen. Idk when exactly these things were removed nor do i understand why. 

The small patch of forest was a nice tentacle/reeds/ponds-free space in the swamp for basing and it broke up the monotony of the biome. And it just makes sense for there to be mushrooms in a swamp 

the cave entrance was almost always near the forest which made it look nicer than the cave entrance we have in dst

[Mike23Ua]

Can you change the name of this thread to ALL Biomes could use an update please? It’s not just the Marsh that could use a 2022 overhaul- it’s every single empty-ish biome with little to fight in glorious bouts of battle.

(Sorry my secondary Wigfrid main is showing) 

Heres an image of what I picture Oasis biome to be updated to look like:

Scorpions, Snakes, Sand Worms (would love a clean sweep skin for the sand worms to look like the ones from Beetlejuice) 

And HERE is a GiF of how KLEI sees their swamps..

Look closely at this- you see different types of Tree looks, Crows landing in the trees, fog, Spiders crawling on their nests, and what’s that behind the spider nests? GRAVES! 
 

Here’s my own very badly done concept of Summer as a weather season being Overhauled.

those are Magma Spiders, the hardened Charcoal like cave spiders, Ponds boiling into lava pools capable of spawning either Larvae or Forge Magma Golems, Red Birds that spontaneously combust into ashes and then raise from those ashes as a Phoenix, and oh yeah trees that have been burned by wildfires becoming “Petrified” 

Heres a Marble forest Biome actually found in-game in Single player Dont starve that doesn’t exist in any form whatsoever in DST..

there’s also vignettes showcasing city ruins, pink trees, mountains, cliff ledges- and unless those were all in some limited time mode I never actually got to play: NONE of it exists in-game but do remember that the vignettes those are all KLEI OFFICIAL- meaning that is how KLEI envisions there world to look, and in actual gameplay.. it just Doesn’t..

Its time we really shook things up right down to its very core foundation. 
please Klei.. heck I’d pay you guys 30-40$ for this kind of upgraded 2022 game.

[YouKnowWho]

Semi-related, but I think it’d be nice if the savannah had those stone slabs from hamlet.

It’d be nice to have something break up all the tan, and I think being able to collect some actual worms or bugs to use as fishing bait would be pretty cool. 

[Mantispidae]

The swamps are clearly just supposed to be 'exclusive' resources, most of the things that spawn there spawn almost no where else minus the occasional tree and spider, but things like merms, reeds, and tentacles are only ever gonna be found in swamps (Well minus the occasional wacky merm in the middle of no where spawn). It works for being a hostile biome that most people want to be near but not in.

And frankly, the reason people don't tend to base in swamp has little to do with the quality of its resources- its the fact they're not key ones and the swamp tends to be isolated. People want to base in spots that keep resources (and bosses, generally) close by and accessible, which the swamp tends to be off in its own spot and doesn't provide easy links to other biomes itself. Thus it's better as just a "keep close" biome and frankly that works fine for the most part. Basing quality is not the end all be all. 

That said, I would love to see a bit more diversity in the DS biomes, not just the swamp. Although the swamp could definitely use something just due to the sheer size of it on most maps- its so much but feels so empty when swamps are usually teeming with life and you can have whole screens of swamp with like, one single reed plant. It would be cool if the swamp had its own style of treeguards for the spiky trees or something just to add flavor. Even if they don't provide anything new and exclusive alternate sources to resources are always fun and I'd love to see more things crawling around the constant even if they aren't providing super rare and exclusive sources of resources.

[ZombieCow323]

3 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Can you change the name of this thread to ALL Biomes could use an update please? It’s not just the Marsh that could use a 2022 overhaul- it’s every single empty-ish biome with little to fight in glorious bouts of battle.

(Sorry my secondary Wigfrid main is showing) 

Heres an image of what I picture Oasis biome to be updated to look like:

Scorpions, Snakes, Sand Worms (would love a clean sweep skin for the sand worms to look like the ones from Beetlejuice) 

And HERE is a GiF of how KLEI sees their swamps..

Look closely at this- you see different types of Tree looks, Crows landing in the trees, fog, Spiders crawling on their nests, and what’s that behind the spider nests? GRAVES! 
 

Here’s my own very badly done concept of Summer as a weather season being Overhauled.

those are Magma Spiders, the hardened Charcoal like cave spiders, Ponds boiling into lava pools capable of spawning either Larvae or Forge Magma Golems, Red Birds that spontaneously combust into ashes and then raise from those ashes as a Phoenix, and oh yeah trees that have been burned by wildfires becoming “Petrified” 

Heres a Marble forest Biome actually found in-game in Single player Dont starve that doesn’t exist in any form whatsoever in DST..

there’s also vignettes showcasing city ruins, pink trees, mountains, cliff ledges- and unless those were all in some limited time mode I never actually got to play: NONE of it exists in-game but do remember that the vignettes those are all KLEI OFFICIAL- meaning that is how KLEI envisions there world to look, and in actual gameplay.. it just Doesn’t..

Its time we really shook things up right down to its very core foundation. 
please Klei.. heck I’d pay you guys 30-40$ for this kind of upgraded 2022 game.

Those are some cool ideas for updated biomes, and I agree that biomes do tend to get boring after a while, and they all probably do need an update. I guess my thoughts are that while every biome can get boring, they still serve their purpose in terms of resources, challenges, and progression, but to me the swamp doesn't really deliver on either of those. It would be nice if the biomes matched the trailers better.