Why the oceans won't be full the ways things are going (I think)

[Dextops]

        The oceans have had a major problem since they were released; Most of the time content is focused on a single location in the ocean. What I mean by this is how when an ocean update is rolled out there is usually a single point to find the ocean content for that and nowhere else. Some examples include the lunar island and moon quay. These things are simply an entire ocean content update, but instead of being several well spread out biomes (or any other term you want to use)\ across this extremely spacious ocean they are a small island that has the content entirely condensed into that place.
        And even when klei has made the place multiple biomes it is either too few biomes or those biomes are very small, or possibly both. An example of this can be the waterlogged. In my opinion waterlogged is a near perfect update, but the only reason it's only NEAR perfect is because of the fact that there are only like 3-4 spread out across the entire ocean landscape and they're relatively small which make them easy to go across which is extremely troublesome and can make the oceans a pain to explore
        If this design philosophy continues even if klei made a plentiful amount of ocean updates the oceans would still be lacking compared to anywhere else because how far they spread biomes apart and how few they make of each of them. Simply put biomes are too far and few in-between to be engaging and make travelling extremely cumbersome, especially when taken into account that you travel slower than on mainland making distances feel even longer.
         This could be fixed with a change in the way they design these biomes by creating them with the intent of making them be sprawled across the ocean in multiple locations, and increasing the sizes of those biomes so that they are easier to come by and reduce the chances of accidentally missing them.

      Hopefully one day ocean updates will shift focus from making a single island on the ocean, and decide to spread islands across the vast empty space that the ocean currently has. 
 

Spoiler

also just extremely empty atmospherically but that's for another day

 

[Mike23Ua]

Actually the real reason DSTs oceans feel pretty empty is lack of underwater mob spawners for Oceanic mobs.
You can get your best example of this by playing Minecraft there is a block that literally spawns enemy mobs around the location this block is placed, however the difference is that once spawned: Those mobs can freely roam AWAY from their Spawning point.

DST on the other hand.. locks mobs into a hard pre-choosen location- or as you all like to call them: Biomes and Set Pieces 

One of the Worst offenders in this design is the Briar Bush/Briar Wolves- They only spawn in the locations of their set pieces.. when these things should’ve honestly just been able to pop up in random locations across the map.

The above description is also what’s hurting ocean content. 
Skitter Spiders are “locked” to the Water-Logged biome instead of randomly spawning 1 or 2 stray bugs out on the ocean.

Even PIRATE RAIDS something that from Klei’s own official animated short for it was clearly intended to be challenging and a real threat was degraded to the point that instead of them coming after YOU, You literally now fire off a flare to summon them when you want them to come.

Sure spreading the biomes apart, making them larger or breaking the land mass up into an Archipelago of Islands and all the things you suggest will help… BUT it does not solve the problem of their being little to do/interact with between point A to B.

They need to have some under water invisible spawn points that mobs can spawn from and then freely roam away from their spawn point.

Nothing extremely annoying mind you..

But a stray Water Spider, or even a few mosquitos that spawned in the swamp biome but now freely roam hovering over the ocean won’t hurt.

Easily killable mobs that just make the ocean feel more “alive” then being an invisible loading screen between points of interest.

[chirsg]

I wouldn't mind a late game hand held motor. The problem at this point is that the game is a lot more fun and productive being played together, but the player base is rapidly dwindling. Like, ridiculously. I can't even play the salesman to friends because they're into different **** than I am. DST is niche as funculo. It's not a game that people just play.
Go ahead, try to tell people to buy dst. It's the most difficult game to get people on. And the numbers for my local player base are near nothing either.
May as well buff the single player aspects to it.
 

One of the biggest aspects of my point of "The game is more fun and productive being played together" is sailing. You're meant to have a helmsman steering all the time and the other players doing other things to remain productive. You have less incentive to go out on your own to have any sort of fun.

And because the playerbase is going the way of the dodo, may as well just take steps to make it as solo as you can.

[Helord]

Personally the reason I don't do as much on the ocean is the boat feels clunky and bad.

Compare to for example Sea of Thieves, where the boat has a similar process of clicking associated with raising / lowering sails and anchor and turning the wheel, but the act of sailing around with friends was much more fun. 

The DST boat by comparison just feels like a chore to drive that I have to put up with until I can build bridges to replace it.