Brightshade infestations are prone to getting incredibly repetitive and uninteresting.

[PetulantPansy]

On 4/7/2023 at 2:26 PM, Bearger Enjoyer said:

Initially, it seems cool to be jumped on by a fresh new mob, but what about the fifth time? The fourty-sixth time? Brightmare wave on your decor berry bushes #331 on day 2481?

As things stand, this beta makes it seem like killing CC is some form of griefing, by causing an incredibly tedious-to-kill mob to spawn randomly on your decorative berry bushes or twig/grass farms. There's 0 way to prevent them, 0 precaution measures possible on the surface and it's just a forever annoyance. That they require specific crafts in order to not be even more annoying to kill is another nail in the coffin.
None of the new crafts or the enlightened crown are worth this and they still wouldn't be if they were buffed. This is just a garbage mechanic, at least add a way around it so it isn't just a permanent anti-qol in return for a handful of awful crafts and an aggressively unpopular crown, a punishment for a tedious journey.

I don't feel like killing CC at all like this, the "progression" seems more like putting on clown makeup and taking up a new hobby of pulling weeds constantly. It will get boring so fast.
This wouldn't be so terrible if you could protect your plants/builds from it in some way, or if it wasn't a """reward""" at the end of a long journey of tasks that were mostly unrewarding to begin with. Congrats, you did all that! Now deal with new annoying mobs that spawn semi-randomly.

The most disappointing thing about all this is that the easiest way to handle this new content/mob is to not interact with it. Kill cc and move as far away as possible from wherever that portal spawns. And while this would be a perfectly viable way to deal with this new challenge, that's not exactly the type of content dst fans want. aka. the stuff you want to forget about asap  

[cybers2001]

This is basically disease 2.0. Why anyone is defending it is beyond me. If survival is a playstyle that is independent of megabasing, why do survival players like this content? How do you not get bored of the game as soon as you beat CC?

[gamehun20]

7 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

How do you not get bored of the game as soon as you beat CC?

How do you not get bored after beating deerclops or any other seasonal boss for the 100th time? Idk maybe because people enjoy playing a game outside of fighting bosses?

[cybers2001]

Just now, gamehun20 said:

How do you not get bored after beating deerclops or any other seasonal boss for the 100th time? Idk maybe because people enjoy playing a game outside of fighting bosses?

Are you answering this as someone who megabases, or someone who just plays for survival? I'm asking seriously because it gives me an idea of who this content is meant to be for.

The thing is, I think all megabasers start out as survival players. Nobody hops in right after buying the game and says, "I'm gonna decorate the oasis!" Megabasing drew me in specifically because its a solid way to turn a 200 hour game into a 2000 hour game. I don't fight deerclops for the thrill of fighting deerclops. I fight deerclops because he's a slight distraction that pops up while I'm busy building my 2nd merm village.

[gamehun20]

1 minute ago, cybers2001 said:

Are you answering this as someone who megabases, or someone who just plays for survival?

I don't megabase i just play the game because i enjoy the atmosphere and the art style it's unlike any other. 

Mega basing is certainly a way to spend your time but taking on challenge modes like lights out and stuff is more my thing.

[sudoku]

6 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

Are you answering this as someone who megabases, or someone who just plays for survival? I'm asking seriously because it gives me an idea of who this content is meant to be for.

The thing is, I think all megabasers start out as survival players. Nobody hops in right after buying the game and says, "I'm gonna decorate the oasis!" Megabasing drew me in specifically because its a solid way to turn a 200 hour game into a 2000 hour game. I don't fight deerclops for the thrill of fighting deerclops. I fight deerclops because he's a slight distraction that pops up while I'm busy building my 2nd merm village.

Exactly, you love the game and want to sit in the endgame forever. Not everyone wants to do that because to many players who dont make the transition to being megabasers, they simply find it boring. Like you said they start out as survival players looking for survival challenges. 

So why is extending the survival portion of the game bad. At the end of the day megabasers will still find a way to get to the endgame where they want to sit forever while players who dont like to megabase get more content to do at the same time.

[CameoAppearance]

On 4/8/2023 at 6:02 PM, Evelo said:

I'm telling ye, just have a world setting option to disable the destructive nature of the portals. If you want the destruction, keep it on. If you don't turn it off.

I don't think that's really a solution to the portals being unpleasant to deal with. Klei servers always use the default settings, but they usually get reset in the first or second year anyway so they'll rarely encounter the post-CC content, and if the results of killing CC on default settings are too disruptive and un-fun then most community-run long-haul servers that use default worldgen for every other aspect of the game will, indeed, turn them off. Like disease.

[cybers2001]

13 minutes ago, sudoku said:

Exactly, you love the game and want to sit in the endgame forever. Not everyone wants to do that because to many players who dont make the transition to being megabasers, they simply find it boring. Like you said they start out as survival players looking for survival challenges. 

So why is extending the survival portion of the game bad. At the end of the day megabasers will still find a way to get to the endgame where they want to sit forever while players who dont like to megabase get more content to do at the same time.

If I was still in survivalist mode, I would probably explore the post-CC long enough to try the new armor, go "ohh, shiny," then send the game back to the depths of my steam library. Maybe it's just me jumping the gun because Klei is going back into some sort of "early access" mode with the content, but we'd probably be having this exact same conversation if they released the moonstorm event months before they added a way to end the event.  

Also, I can already tell you what megabasers would do if this can't be turned off. We will create a new shard for game progression, so our main overworld will remain untouched. I've already seen it happen with archives content.

[sudoku]

10 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

If I was still in survivalist mode, I would probably explore the post-CC long enough to try the new armor, go "ohh, shiny," then send the game back to the depths of my steam library. Maybe it's just me jumping the gun because Klei is going back into some sort of "early access" mode with the content, but we'd probably be having this exact same conversation if they released the moonstorm event months before they added a way to end the event.  

Also, I can already tell you what megabasers would do if this can't be turned off. We will create a new shard for game progression, so our main overworld will remain untouched. I've already seen it happen with archives content.

I understand that megabasers love their world and everything they have built, but at the same time i just dont agree with the notion that we shouldnt ever add anything new to the game to deal with because it will get boring after 2000 hours. Thats going to happen, anything will become repetitive after you do it for so long but that doesnt mean the game should never change or it becomes stagnant and stale. To put it bluntly, most players do not stay on 1000+ worlds building up the map, they quit once all of the challenges are conquered and there is nothing left to guide them in overall progression. Sure, some players make their own progression if they enjoy megabasing, but Klei is simply adding more structured and gameplay related things for players to do once they hit that point in the game and I will never see that concept as a bad thing or one that megabasers should be against.

 

[Mike23Ua]

17 minutes ago, CameoAppearance said:

I don't think that's really a solution to the portals being unpleasant to deal with. Klei servers always use the default settings, but they usually get reset in the first or second year anyway so they'll rarely encounter the post-CC content, and if the results of killing CC on default settings are too disruptive and un-fun then most community-run long-haul servers that use default worldgen for every other aspect of the game will, indeed, turn them off. Like disease.

Because Klei handles it poorly.

Further clarification: When the lovely folks at Terriaria did the DST Crossover, they also took the liberty of looking at World Gen Settings and adding a “Taste of Terraria” world Presets- which did things like increase depth worm spawns & how often it rains.

Kleis Official/Dedicated servers should be set up in the same exact way- Some servers in No Sweat/Relaxed Mode, Some servers in Default, and Some in New Game +

This would allow you to simply “Join” a server with your playing preferences.

But since Xbox does not and has NEVER had official or dedicated servers, I can personally careless how they handle it, so long as I can toggle it on/off to my own leisure in my own hosted worlds.

34 minutes ago, gamehun20 said:

I don't megabase i just play the game because i enjoy the atmosphere and the art style it's unlike any other. 

Mega basing is certainly a way to spend your time but taking on challenge modes like lights out and stuff is more my thing.

I do a mix of BOTH actually, I’ll change world settings by increasing season lengths, lowering Butterfly Spawn rates, locking the server to 24/7 Summer or Winter, but at the same time if I’m not going to Moon Quay Island to get Beach Turf and Palmcone Trees, Why am I going there at All??

I redesigned the Oasis using Moon Quay stuff, but outside of pretty decorations (& once upon a time to remove your Wonkey curse..) What’s the point in ever going there at all???

And that’s DSTs entire gameplay in a nutshell, you can toggle on/off/more or less of certain features, but at the end of the day- 80% of the game is designed with the intent to get pretty decorative things to place in your world.

I mean: You have to fight Dragonfly just to get a purely decorations Broodling pet den creature- that should sum up DST for you perfectly.

[cybers2001]

9 minutes ago, sudoku said:

I understand that megabasers love their world and everything they have built, but at the same time i just dont agree with the notion that we shouldnt ever add anything new to the game to deal with because it will get boring after 2000 hours. Thats going to happen, anything will become repetitive after you do it for so long but that doesnt mean the game should never change or it becomes stagnant and stale. To put it bluntly, most players do not stay on 1000+ worlds building up the map, they quit once all of the challenges are conquered and there is nothing left to guide them in overall progression. Sure, some players make their own progression if they enjoy megabasing, but Klei is simply adding more structured and gameplay related things for players to do once they hit that point in the game and I will never see that concept as a bad thing or one that megabasers should be against.

 

Who's saying that we shouldn't ever add anything new to the game? I don't understand how things that spawn in and mess with your base is the only way to make the game more interesting. Then again I also don't enjoy sitting by the oasis or huddle around a flingomatic during summers, either, so maybe I'm just a hater. 

[sudoku]

9 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

Who's saying that we shouldn't ever add anything new to the game? I don't understand how things that spawn in and mess with your base is the only way to make the game more interesting. Then again I also don't enjoy sitting by the oasis or huddle around a flingomatic during summers, either, so maybe I'm just a hater. 

Things spawning in that you have to fight is another way to add combat based gameplay into an endgame that is currently mainly comprised of building (megabasing). It adds another layer to it. 

Imo, it is unreasonable for megabasers who have built up 1/5 of the map or an entire biome into a base to expect gameplay to revolve and bend around that playstyle.

Even if a player has a small base the destuctive nature of this kind of gameplay can provide you with a new gameplay experience of having to defend/protect your buildings. Idk it just feels way more interesting than never having to be bothered by anything ever again while i build up the map.

[cybers2001]

13 minutes ago, sudoku said:

Things spawning in that you have to fight is another way to add combat based gameplay into an endgame that is currently mainly comprised of building (megabasing). It adds another layer to it. 

Imo, it is unreasonable for megabasers who have built up 1/5 of the map or an entire biome into a base to expect gameplay to revolve and bend around that playstyle.

Even if a player has a small base the destuctive nature of this kind of gameplay can provide you with a new gameplay experience of having to defend/protect your buildings. Idk it just feels way more interesting than never having to be bothered by anything ever again while i build up the map.

I fundamentally disagree. "Taming" the map is a large undertaking that should always be feasible. There can always be defined hazard zones that are not meant to be safe for building, like the meteor zones. Introducing the moon island as a new frontier to explore, and being able to retrofit it into existing worlds as a way to add content was a good solution. A lot of megabasers have been hoping for new biomes to be added, or islands, or repurposing otherwise ignored biomes. Even moreso, about 90% of the caves go un-utilized by players, which I'd love to see more content for.

This ain't it, chief.

[sudoku]

18 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

I fundamentally disagree. "Taming" the map is a large undertaking that should always be feasible. There can always be defined hazard zones that are not meant to be safe for building, like the meteor zones. Introducing the moon island as a new frontier to explore, and being able to retrofit it into existing worlds as a way to add content was a good solution. A lot of megabasers have been hoping for new biomes to be added, or islands, or repurposing otherwise ignored biomes. Even moreso, about 90% of the caves go un-utilized by players, which I'd love to see more content for.

This ain't it, chief.

idk one of Don't Starves main issues that is has had since RoG is that is has no endgame which is why megabasing even became a thing in the first place. It was a psuedo endgame activity for players to engage in an otherwise empty world that consisted of the same activities players had done in the early and mid game.

Adding actual progression based endgame activities that progress survival gameplay forward  was always going to conflict with the playerbased megabasing endgame which essentially renders survival moot due to the overabundance of resources which is why klei probably has taken so long to design an endgame of their own. 

Soley adding new biomes isnt going to solve this fundamental problem that the game has.  

[Copyafriend]

14 minutes ago, sudoku said:

idk one of Don't Starves main issues that is has had since RoG is that is has no endgame which is why megabasing even became a thing in the first place. It was a psuedo endgame activity for players to engage in an otherwise empty world that consisted of the same activities players had done in the early and mid game.

Adding actual progression based endgame activities that progress survival gameplay forward  was always going to conflict with the playerbased megabasing endgame which essentially renders survival moot due to the overabundance of resources which is why klei probably has taken so long to design an endgame of their own. 

Soley adding new biomes isnt going to solve this fundamental problem that the game has.  

 

I mean. THIS update at least does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING survival wise for me at least. I've said it before but i really feel like its worth reiterating:

There is NO survival content in this update. There's an event that causes hostile plants to spawn.

 

What about this event really strikes you as "Saves the endgame from being bland"

I mean honestly, its just an endgame source of expensive and -slightly more effective than their competitors at doing this one thing- weapons and armor.

When you are POST CC (And yes I have said that every time too) What about this event strikes you as a constant interesting threat?

is it the destruction? well it cant be that, the portal spawns once every ten days, half the time it will be on the other side of the world, and you'll either go hunt it down, or completely ignore it. the only people likely to actually see a part of their base being destroyed IS the megabasers themselves. Without a biome wide base, the target is just too small for the random nature of the event to actually hit you unless you're really unlucky.

is it the plants? I mean I SUPPOSE they're pretty dangerous, and they definitely will be randomly spread out across the map. But to me at least, they're mostly annoying.

Is it the "grazers" I sure hope not, those things are less of a threat than literally tallbirds. just dont huff the mist and you'll be fine.

Is it the weapons and armor...?

I mean i'm just curious what has people rallying behind this update like its giving us summer 2.0 here? It's just NOT REALLY a survival update. Like the monkey pirates, there was a argument, but this one just doesnt.

[sudoku]

1 minute ago, Copyafriend said:

 

I mean. THIS update at least does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING survival wise for me at least. I've said it before but i really feel like its worth reiterating:

There is NO survival content in this update. There's an event that causes hostile plants to spawn.

 

What about this event really strikes you as "Saves the endgame from being bland"

I mean honestly, its just an endgame source of expensive and -slightly more effective than their competitors at doing this one thing- weapons and armor.

When you are POST CC (And yes I have said that every time too) What about this event strikes you as a constant interesting threat?

is it the destruction? well it cant be that, the portal spawns once every ten days, half the time it will be on the other side of the world, and you'll either go hunt it down, or completely ignore it. the only people likely to actually see a part of their base being destroyed IS the megabasers themselves. Without a biome wide base, the target is just too small for the random nature of the event to actually hit you unless you're really unlucky.

is it the plants? I mean I SUPPOSE they're pretty dangerous, and they definitely will be randomly spread out across the map. But to me at least, they're mostly annoying.

Is it the "grazers" I sure hope not, those things are less of a threat than literally tallbirds. just dont huff the mist and you'll be fine.

Is it the weapons and armor...?

I mean i'm just curious what has people rallying behind this update like its giving us summer 2.0 here? It's just NOT REALLY a survival update. Like the monkey pirates, there was a argument, but this one just doesnt.

I agree with you. Right now it is completely lacklustre. But i like the concept and hope that they continue to expand on the foundation. Hopefully we will see updates that add a stronger variety of enemies to better utilize the new weaponry and armor. Hopefully we will see new bosses/ NPCs that spawn that react differently to the player depending on which alignment they have chosen - lunar or nightmare. Hopefully whichever faction you choose to align with causes the other faction to be angry towards you and alter your world.

This is just the start. A way to gain new resources to hopefully be able to interact with much better late game defining content.

When the ocean was first release it consisted of the boat and an empty sea filled with rocks. This is just how klei develops their updates, give them time, let them cook, etc. Have some trust that what we will eventually get will be worth it 

[cybers2001]

24 minutes ago, sudoku said:

idk one of Don't Starves main issues that is has had since RoG is that is has no endgame which is why megabasing even became a thing in the first place. It was a psuedo endgame activity for players to engage in an otherwise empty world that consisted of the same activities players had done in the early and mid game.

Adding actual progression based endgame activities that progress survival gameplay forward  was always going to conflict with the playerbased megabasing endgame which essentially renders survival moot due to the overabundance of resources which is why klei probably has taken so long to design an endgame of their own. 

Soley adding new biomes isnt going to solve this fundamental problem that the game has.  

I think that's another fundamental difference of opinion. I don't expect Klei to ever add an end to the game, nor do I think I want to. Imo, games like The Forest suffer a bit of an identity crisis in this respect, where there's little point to surviving when all it does is gets in the way of story progression. Don't Starve has very distinct gameplay loops, and one thing that they do uniquely that few other games do is keep most of their loops meaningful at all stages. For example, you always need to farm grass and twigs, you always need to manage food in some way (though bundling wrap does cheat this to a degree), and a lot of bosses and the ruins will always be worth revisiting repeatedly over the course of your playthrough. Introducing elements that hinder existing game loops doesn't make the game more fun. Introducing new game loops, while also improving the player's existing game loops is, however, both fun and rewarding.

[sudoku]

8 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

I think that's another fundamental difference of opinion. I don't expect Klei to ever add an end to the game, nor do I think I want to. Imo, games like The Forest suffer a bit of an identity crisis in this respect, where there's little point to surviving when all it does is gets in the way of story progression. Don't Starve has very distinct gameplay loops, and one thing that they do uniquely that few other games do is keep most of their loops meaningful at all stages. For example, you always need to farm grass and twigs, you always need to manage food in some way (though bundling wrap does cheat this to a degree), and a lot of bosses and the ruins will always be worth revisiting repeatedly over the course of your playthrough. Introducing elements that hinder existing game loops doesn't make the game more fun. Introducing new game loops, while also improving the player's existing game loops is, however, both fun and rewarding.

But if all of this is just leading to being able to build more and more that is a problem. 

I am not saying that base building shouldnt be an aspect of this game - it absolutely should, but i dont think the game should throw out the other principles of gameplay and make building the end all be all. There needs to be more of a balance to the endgame where right now it is soley comprised by a desire to build, which is great for megabasers, but it leaves everyone else out in the cold and they literally stop playing the game due to sheer boredom. And klei cant just survive by selling skins to megabasers alone - there simply just arent that many. 

[lakhnish]

3 hours ago, sudoku said:

I am not saying that base building shouldnt be an aspect of this game - it absolutely should, but i dont think the game should throw out the other principles of gameplay and make building the end all be all.

I don't think this is something Klei can ever fully resolve.

They can keep adding more content, but at a certain point, your gonna end learning how to beat the survival content and then the main thing left is to megabase.

I've noticed this even more during the past few years as they've been constantly updating the game: whatever they add will be solved and then the main thing to do with it is to megabase with it.

It's quite honestly has always been that way, even when I was a noobie to this game.

[sudoku]

26 minutes ago, lakhnish said:

I don't think this is something Klei can ever fully resolve.

They can keep adding more content, but at a certain point, your gonna end learning how to beat the survival content and then the main thing left is to megabase.

I've noticed this even more during the past few years as they've been constantly updating the game: whatever they add will be solved and then the main thing to do with it is to megabase with it.

It's quite honestly has always been that way, even when I was a noobie to this game.

It just depends on their approach. I really would have loved for them to have gone with their initial content premise of Through the Ages rather than the largely optional side content that A New Reign provided. That content arc i feel largely  just added bloat to the game without any new gameplay experiences other than boss fights. At least Return of Them tried to tackle a new gameplay experience with sailing, but other than the trees you can plant on the mainland for summer protection it largely did not factor in to RoG's season based gameplay loop and ended up being mostly ignorable.

If they put more of an emphasis on providing updates that evolve RoG's season based progression loop, which the whole game was built upon, then we'd get our 3 or so updates each year that would extend the endgame, and yes eventually in that time frame you will have mastered the content and settle back down to megabasing but we'd be continually moving the goalpost with each new update.

I think this new update is at least a step in the right direction - it just depends on whether or not they go back to empahasizinng optional disconnected content once again after this arc and stop moving the goalpost  

 

[00petar00]

I agree with @Copyafriend , this doesn't feel like it adds anything to survival in any way. Most people that kill CC that play DST just for survival will quit soon after.

Adding annoyances to people that keep playing on one world isn't really good, there are so many different things that can be done to the survival aspect of the game without punishing megabasers or even builders, why must it be one or the other?

Meteors are terrible, cutting so much space from players and sometimes they reach into another biome over water.

Wildfires just force you to spent summer in caves so that you don't have to use expensive flingomatics that don't have almost any range and can only be an option for someone who wants to have a small base and doesn't care if forests catch fire.

Why can't we have more systems like krampus or have more content added to the caves that are 70-80% empty and don't have almost any danger except darkness? There are so many things that can be done to make survival more difficult without adding things that will keep coming at you without an option for you to stop it if you want to progress.

[Be2014]

Instead of no CC fight, I will not farm.  I will take the farms to the caves.  After fighting the Brightshade in the base for the 10th time I just dug up the grass, berry bushes and farms.  I have the staffs to kill them but it is easier to just move the farms to the caves.  
I want a season like Winter when the vines are Dormant. Fall few spawn,  Spring frequent spawn, summer  few spawn.  They even spawn on Pearls island not nice at all.

[PetulantPansy]

6 hours ago, Be2014 said:

Instead of no CC fight, I will not farm.  I will take the farms to the caves.  After fighting the Brightshade in the base for the 10th time I just dug up the grass, berry bushes and farms.  I have the staffs to kill them but it is easier to just move the farms to the caves.  
I want a season like Winter when the vines are Dormant. Fall few spawn,  Spring frequent spawn, summer  few spawn.  They even spawn on Pearls island not nice at all.

Be - I think you tested out the beta for 800 days? This busy Bee knows what she's talking about 

[sudoku]

The whole philosophy of the brightshades is that they will add more challenging mobs/bosses in the future and that you will need to kill the plants to collect brightshade for the new armor and weapons and whatever other additional crafts they add later in order to deal with them.

This is why they really should not have released this update so half baked. 

It'd be like if they added the sanity meter to the game but its only interaction was that eating raw meat dropped your sanity.  Everyone would be like this is dumb i just wont eat raw meat and ignore the bar. And then later they add all the sanity loss and gain interactions that we have today. 

 

[Be2014]

1 hour ago, sudoku said:

The whole philosophy of the brightshades is that they will add more challenging mobs/bosses in the future and that you will need to kill the plants to collect brightshade for the new armor and weapons and whatever other additional crafts they add later in order to deal with them.

This is why they really should not have released this update so half baked. 

It'd be like if they added the sanity meter to the game but its only interaction was that eating raw meat dropped your sanity.  Everyone would be like this is dumb i just wont eat raw meat and ignore the bar. And then later they add all the sanity loss and gain interactions that we have today. 

 

I am testing the Beta to help the Developers.  What do you want to see instead?   Don't just be negative help tell them what you want to see.