Do you care to get the dreadstone armor?

[nimzowitsch10]

I'll be honest, i can't even be bothered to kill the werepig for that armor. I've only killed werepig twice for the armor set and they're sitting on a mannequin at base.

The sanity drain is an annoying downside of the armor because I use darkswords mainly and the combined sanity loss is like deerclops sanity drain

if you haven't played the new beta, we're getting another armor set but this time you kill celestial champ for it.

I can't be the only one that feels like these armors are useless and unexciting, they should make the drops something more useful.

[Dextops]

Yeah i'm probably never gonna use it when i can just go to the ruins next door and get ruins gear

[MondayNight]

Nightmare Werepig fight is fun. Loot.. not so much. In fact I for one haven't found any particular good use for Dreadstone Armor and Helm aside sitting in camp and NF farming. Thulecite counterparts win every time-of-day in the utility and accessibility field, hands down - more-so since it doesn't have some boss fight attached to it for attainment. KLei should either 2x the speed Dreadstone gear regenerate HP or introduce a quicker alternative to its regeneration (by use of Dreadstone/Pure Horror/etc). As of now these items are quite lackluster.

Hence I only fight to obtain Dreadstone gear as vanity items, mid-game onward, and display it (aesthetic purpose) on some dummy in base.

Interesting concept, poor implementation.

[Mike23Ua]

Klei has this HORRIBLY bad habit of “Gate-Keeping” Content within their game.

To Understand what Gate-Keeping means, it means that there is a Player Drop Off Point in understanding how to play the game and what is expected of them to do or to use.

For example I’ll Briefly Define My OWN personal experience with the game: Even though I’ve got every achievement across both Don’t Starve & Don’t Starve Together, my Enjoyment of the game is limited to my KNOWLEDGE of What to use.

This is a HUGE Problem with DS/DST because Klei does not design content with that in Mind.. they design their content expecting players to already KNOW the in’s and outs of previous updates.. 

For Starters: I can’t Kill the Bee Queen, and without her Highly Highly important game changing Bundling Wrap Recipes I am playing THE ENTIRE GAME on a Literal “Spoil Timer” that is dare I say Worse than Wanda’s Age Mechanics.

When you DON’T have Access to Bundling Wraps this means every single food item, Every creature you capture to bring back to base (such as the 4 rabbits to build a Prestihatitator) Your Hambats, EVERYTHING is running on a literal spoil timer for how long it’ll be useful for.

Thats part 1 of the issue- Part 2 comes into play when Klei’s newer content updates expect me to use higher tier weapons and armor than what I know how to collect.

For Example: When the Dreaded Cookie Cutters were added way back in Salty Dog I was fighting the Suckers off with a Spear, and I’m just going to be honest, a large Majority of my game time is spent using a Spear, I attempt to fight bosses with it, I try (& fail) to fend of pirate raids with it- When your playing the game on a LITERAL SPOIL TIMER for your food and Hambats, you rely on Weapons that don’t spoil overtime, and the only weapons I know how to obtain and reasonably craft for fighting are A Spear, A Bat Bat, and a Darksword.

But please do keep in mind I’m not a beginner who’s going to rely heavily on spears.

I now fight Cookie Cutters with Darkswords just because of how highly ineffective spears are.

AKA the Gate-Keeping Drop Off- Klei Expects me to know how to get X Item to use on Y Content…

And that’s just not the way people play this game at all.. 

I WISH Klei would do like some more famous companies have done in the past and intentionally leave a few developers completely in the dark of the next content update (so they don’t know the ins and outs of what is added and can only see the game through developer programming & code) This way: for the devs that had NO INVOLVEMENT in the update will play it as a GAMER and will find out first hand what is enjoyable, and easy to learn, and what is NOT SO Enjoyable & needs work, then after it’s been created from a Development perspective, the team of Devs who were left in the dark can play it from a GAMERS perspective, and then both teams can get together to know what works from both a fun factor, AND development perspective.

I say this because many big name companies develop their games in this way, it prevents the massive knowledge drop off that Klei has a bad habit of introducing into DST.

If I’m still running around using mostly just a football helmet and spear- Two Varglets at the same time will NEVER be fun..

And that’s something Klei needs to look at Outside of a Developers Perspective.

even something as minor as moving the Daywalker boss from the surface down into the continuous sanity draining caves can be a massive change.

Its why Pirate Raids went from Too Punishing to now being Mostly Non-Existent..

Klei has a forum for constructive criticism right?? Well this is me desperately begging them to PLAY their own Game, so they know what works both from a design and and also from a fun factor perspective, to know what sounds right in development.. but ISN'T fun in actual gameplay.

[GenomeSquirrel]

A few log suits gets me through most of what I need, and I can usually switch to night armor once fuel and reeds are abundant enough. I might be interested if it had more utility, like glowing.

[Evelo]

I like it. Super easy to obtain and lets me save Thulecite for the more important fights while this will do perfectly for things like Dragonfly, Toadstool, Malbatross, etc. Stuff where I expect to get hit a little bit but not much. Since I play wormwood, I can just wear it while chopping down trees since I'll be insane anyway. Also useful against the last phase of CC cause I don't expect to be hit much during that stage.
(I don't use bearger because Autumn and summer lasts for 5 days each and winter lasts for 40 days so yknow, let sleeping bears lie).

 

[Pig Princess]

55 minutes ago, MostMerryTomcat said:

KLei should either 2x the speed Dreadstone gear regenerate HP or introduce a quicker alternative to its regeneration (by use of Dreadstone/Pure Horror/etc)

Or make player able to refuel dreadstone armor by using fixed portion of sanity directly, and the closer to insanity is player the more it would be refilled by set amount of sanity points. It won't affect farming nightmare fuel since player gets some sanity back while killing shadows, and player is barely above 0 sanity as well. That would at least fix the issue of needing to wait and issue of armor features working against each other on practice (sanity drain makes one want to wear it as less as possible, but then it hinders armor regen, and even if used for tanking, again, after the fight one needs to babysit that armor intead of wearing other useful equipment which defeats purpose of tanking as mean to save time vs kiting and purpose of regenerating armor as utility item vs necessity to obtain more other types of armor).

It would also encourage strategy and planning of when and in what circumstances it's better to refuel, for example, timing it for standing near multiple dwarf stars while cooking food and raising temperature or refueling while one has extra sanity that would be wasted otherwise (because of being close to 100% or having maximum sanity reduced as Maxwell, or plans on wearing bone helm in near future, or when one would loose that remaining sanity in next few seconds anyway, etc.). Variety of decisions player can make would rise in that case, and after quick refueling one could continue wearing other items.

[abrocator]

Yes. First time (world) that I’ve gotten them now. Playing Wickerbottom. I use it like an upgraded eyemask for the most part. Put on the helm in a pinch when I have to fight or protect myself. I keep the armor in Chester for regeneration.

I mostly fight on a beefalo but I always need a helmet handy just in case.

And I also use an ornery and a fast beefalo. And the fast beefalo has like 25 damage, so it’s best to just get off it and fight if you need to deal damage (again in a pinch). So that’s another use.

It works really well so far. At one point it got down to 78% I think. Mostly it stays above 90%. I can keep it at that percentage in my inventory and don’t sweat it since it has so much durability. So I can take hits now and again and just wear it for regeneration whenever it’s convenient.

The eyemask is great too since it’s so easy to refuel (just some monster meat). But very easy to break. Could just take two bishops or a pirate raid. I probably lost three eyemasks in my (now) 500 day world.

The sanity pool of Wickerbottom might matter? Losing some sanity for her is not so bad. I often have to spend 100 cactus flowers (EDIT: I must have meant cooked cactus) on her just because I had to bottom out her pool due to book reading spam. So spending 20 sanity to top off the helmet is not a big deal.

So a very worthwhile item considering you just need to kill a 10K boss (after the initial kill you can dup the items to get however many items you need for yourself or a team).

 

[WONTow]

I found it to be pretty useful on Willow. Armour is pretty ugly, though.

[Evelo]

5 minutes ago, WONTow said:

Armour is pretty ugly, though.

Yes! That is my major gripe with it. It really doesn't fit the art style I feel. I know it is similar to Obsidian Armour from Shipwrecked, but that didnt fit the style either I felt.

[Theukon-dos]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

Klei has this HORRIBLY bad habit of “Gate-Keeping” Content within their game.

To Understand what Gate-Keeping means, it means that there is a Player Drop Off Point in understanding how to play the game and what is expected of them to do or to use.

~~Snip~~

My brother in Christ you literally just described progression. 

[RatSkinner]

Its literally the best armor in the game.

[Paxtonnnn]

3 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

I can’t Kill the Bee Queen, and without her Highly Highly important game changing Bundling Wrap Recipes I am playing THE ENTIRE GAME on a Literal “Spoil Timer”

Yes. That is how boss drops work, if you can't beat the boss, then you don't get their loot - I really don't understand your point here. (And I'm saying this as someone who has never beaten Bee Queen)

[00petar00]

I use dreadstone armor because I play on a world for a long time and playing Wanda helps because there is no sanity drain. 

Their durability is high enough and there's no downside except sanity drain or the time it takes to repair but it is permanent 90% damage reduction armor. 

There is argument to be made that there are better options like thulecite, marble suit and night armor but I prefer being lazy and duplicating materials after killing Nightmare Werepig so I can have more dreadstone helmets, I just fill up a chest eventually and just swap them out when the one I use gets low. If I am not planning to fight, i just carry a few to repair.

[jrthekidRS]

Wait, can you just hold it instead of wearing it for the armor to repair? If that's true, then I would like to change my vote please!

[gamehun20]

2 minutes ago, jrthekidRS said:

Wait, can you just hold it instead of wearing it for the armor to repair?

Don't think so

[BB Marioni]

I like it. I'm not a fan of how much effort is involved in renewing thulecite, So I was never a fan of thulecite gear. I find dreadstone a bit easier to obtain compared to mass producing monkey tails for night armor, as the island is so hard to find, not to mention the low durability of the armor. Other armors are meh, as I usually use Maxwell, so I like the ones that give my shadows bonus dmg. Eye helm and shield are also good when I use other characters.

[Szczuku]

Sanity drain and slow regen make it inferior to the Eye Mask for everyday use.

Being able to craft only 1 piece of armor every 20 days, without green gems, prevents it from being a spamable armor for a drawn-out boss fight.

Luckily for the dreadstone gear, the Daywalker fight is really fun and I might use the armor here or there, once enough has accumulated

[Cruvimaster]

Dreadstone Helm is good but Dreadstone Armor is not very useful. If it had 95% protection it could be more interesting.

[Mike23Ua]

19 hours ago, Theukon-dos said:

My brother in Christ you literally just described progression. 

False, Progression is when you grow and become more powerful to take on new challenges- Such as playing something like Skyrim and a Village is being guarded by a level 50 Spider, you can’t go into this area until you climb in power high enough to fight & slay said spider.

DST on the other hand doesn’t do this- DST rather you climbed in power OR NOT becomes progressively more difficult.

Thats two different Types of Progression.

Player Skill & Power Progression Example 1, and World Difficulty Progression Example 2 

Now in most cases (such as Gotham Knights) the Worlds Difficulty climbs with you as you do more missions, unlock better gear and climb in Levels.

DST IS NOT AN RPG…

We don’t have this kind of balanced progression between player & world.

So what ends up happening is you end up having players dealing with content they weren’t prepared to deal with.

(ever tried to fight off two Varglets with a Spear and a Football Helmet?) The game expects you to have gotten better Weapons and Armor by that point, but UNLIKE Gotham Knights.. You can’t Obtain these Better Weapons and Armor as the world progresses naturally.

If the world continues to climb in difficulty, but the players options of items to deal with it doesn’t also increase alongside it- then you end up as that level 5 Skyrim Character trying to fight that level 50 Content Gate-Keeping Spider.

Or in other words, if newbie players are too scared to go out and explore the world and spend their time in base huddled by a fire telling Walters campfire stories to regain sanity, making the world around them even more progressively difficult is just going to encourage them to continue to huddle around that campfire at base.

Dreadstone Armor in particular currently only has ONE way of Obtaining it, Unlike the Brightshade Armors which will become more Widespread available to you the more rifts that open up invading the world.

While we can only guess what Klei’s overall plans are for these two sets of Armor- the TL:DR-

Brightshade will become more available overtime as the game progresses while DreadStone currently is locked to fighting one particular boss.

 

 

[Evelo]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

False, Progression is ...

Spoiler

If you can't kill Bee Queen, how are you going to kill Celestial Champion to even acquire the Brightshade gear?

The game is listed as an "Uncompromising Wilderness Survival" Like in real life, if you go out into the wilderness as an uneducated explorer. You. Will. Die. Thankfully the game is well just that, a game a Roguelike if you will. If you die you can start a new world with knowledge of your failure in the past. Using that knowledge you can progress further and further.

I remember you mentioned Terraria on a different post some time ago, so I know you are aware of the mechanics in that game. Enlighten me how any player who has never looked up or has tested the mechanics of the game even figured out how to summon the Wall of Flesh? As far as I am aware, they kill a Voodoo demon and the doll drops in the lava spawning the wall. They then died because they were ill prepared. It happens again, now they correlate between [doll in lava = wall]. So quickly pick up dolls before they fall in lava to prevent spawn. Prepare for fight, kill demon over lava pit, spawn wall, get stuck in the ceiling or an obsidian/hellstone tower, die. Okay lesson learned clear a path. Prepare for fight, kill demon over lava pit, spawn wall, do much better, die because the path cleared wasn't long enough. Repeat until they defeat it. That's mental progression, the developer expects you to figure out X requirement to collect or defeat Y. Don't Starve cranks this dial to 11.

Can you defeat 2 Varglets with a spear and a football helmet? Yes. yes you can. It requires a lot, and I mean A LOT of practice to get down the kiting to avoid taking as much damage as possible, but eventually they will die. Especially if it is during Winter or Spring where you can more easily utilize the Ice Hound freeze effect to CC other hounds. Hambats can be crafted using any spoilage level of meat to create a fresh 100% hambat. Going to fight something far away? Bring the materials for the hambat but don't craft it till you arrive at your destination.

I much MUCH prefer when the game's progression system is tied to experience and knowledge rather than just straight up numbers upgrade. Reason being is this progress in knowledge is something that can never be taken away from me and will always be available. I still remember how to fight raid bosses from World of Warcraft over a decade later because my raid group and I were under-geared and spent numerous hours fighting a boss until everyone mastered the mechanics of the fight and defeated it. Not because we just got the best gear and defeated it quickly.

DST has progression. I just think the method of progression isn't what you want out of a game. I can't say for certain because I am not you, but that is the feeling I am getting out of it. This kind of "gate-keeping" can be circumvented by just, looking things up and practicing. Rather than literal gate-keeping by as your example.

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

trying to fight that level 50 Content Gate-Keeping Spider [as a level 5]

Edit: I completely forgot to mention this (whoops) the terms are Vertical and Horizontal Progression. I am less eloquent so I am just stealing this from Reddit when I googled "What's the difference between Vertical and Horizontal Progression?"

Quote

Ok this is a pretty easy question to answer. Vertical progression is progression where the player character becomes more powerful over time. Think advancing through raiding tiers and gaining new and more powerful equipment in World Of Warcraft.

Horizontal progression is progression without necessarily becoming more powerful, instead having more options available. In EVE online there's a hard cap to the amount of skills that can affect a certain type of ship. So a relatively new player may have just as many skills for flying frigate "X" as a Veteran player, but the Veteran player may also be fully skilled in the equally powerful frigate "Y". So the Veteran Player isn't inherently more powerful than the new player when it comes to frigates, the Veteran player just has more options available.

DST is a predominately horizontal progression game. (And I want it to stay that way much to the dismay of people with the new beta talking about Brightshade gear but to each their own).

[Yuuko]

7 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

If the world continues to climb in difficulty, but the players options of items to deal with it doesn’t also increase alongside it- then you end up as that level 5 Skyrim Character trying to fight that level 50 Content Gate-Keeping Spider.

 

The problem with this argument is that most bosses don't give you drops that help you defeat bosses.  Even the ones that give weapons and armors aren't giving special versions that scale you up higher then non-boss loots, and no boss is stat checking that you have xyz armor or weapon for the fight.

If a player is struggling with *any* aspect of DST the answer is usually to learn about how it works and practice different ways of handling it.  Whether that is surviving the first few days, first winter, hound waves, nightmare monsters, or doing science-less ruins rushes, bee queen rushes, etc.

Like sure, I haven't ever tried fighting off 2 varglets with only a spear BUT I know enough about the game that I have never needed to.  In fact my first advice to someone who finds themselves in that situation wouldn't be to fight them, but to find something they can dump their aggro on.  Beefs, pigs, frogs, penguls, etc are all great ways to handle that and none of them require you're any better at the game then just understanding where you are on the map and how to get to the right distraction.

tbh that is one of my favorite parts of DST.  Its not always about finding the biggest weapon, or grinding rare drops.  Most of the game can be creatively solved with little need to actually fight at all.  I find it very ironic that YOU would even make such an argument considering you know very well how certain strategies can make boss loots a lot more accessible.  Sure you call them "cheese" and complain about people using them...  but imo you can either complain about the game allowing creative strategies to overcome its challenges OR you can complain about the game forcing stat checks.  But complaining about both at the same time?  idk about that...

[Frashaw27]

As a Maxwell main, I like the dreadstone armor!

In my current world I got it (after dying to the n. werepig and rollbacking because it was my first legitimate fight against the thing and I was severely underprepared), and I've been loving using it. It's been serving me well so far in everyday encounters and the chest piece even held up against klaus's first phase pretty well. While it will eventually get replaced by fuelweaver armor for it's higher duelest damage boost, the armor set is a very solid piece of equipment that I could see myself prioritizing. The only thing I'd have to mention is that you'd pretty much have to use a construction amulet to get both at once without having a long wait time between pieces. But the dreadstone armor is pretty good on maxwell, don't know about the other characters though.

[AlternateMew]

I can't be bothered to reset the ruins. You think I can be bothered to fight a big pig? On that note, though...

On 4/10/2023 at 5:37 PM, Mike23Ua said:

For Starters: I can’t Kill the Bee Queen, and without her Highly Highly important game changing Bundling Wrap Recipes I am playing THE ENTIRE GAME on a Literal “Spoil Timer” that is dare I say Worse than Wanda’s Age Mechanics.

Tip for ya. Go to world settings. Turn on Winter's Feast. Craft gift wrap. Turn off Winters feast if you don't want it. Gift wrap is bundling wrap for us peasants who can't solo BQ lol. It does the same exact thing, just different ingredients and you don't need to fight anything to learn it. That's not anything on the rest of your comment, just a friendly 'here have the solution I use' tip.

[Catteflyterpill]

On 4/10/2023 at 5:59 PM, Evelo said:

Yes! That is my major gripe with it. It really doesn't fit the art style I feel. I know it is similar to Obsidian Armour from Shipwrecked, but that didnt fit the style either I felt.

Not only that, falls especially flat when you look at the Brightshade armors from the beta - which feel like they're supposed to be the lunar equivalent. Brightshade armor looks absolutely amazing, meanwhile Dreadstone is a rock on your head.