So.. rifts in caves are even worse?

[00petar00]

Now we get "acid" rain and there is a new "Umbralla" item that you can use to get protection or you can use any of the rain protection items already in the game but it gets melted by this rain and it won't be sustainable unless you use the designed item for it, which means you won't be able to fight as it takes hand slot, and don't forget you need light in caves too.

Rain was already quite punishing in caves and no one would want to be there in spring, I don't understand why it needs to be even more difficult. There is literally no counterplay, if it starts raining, you are going to leave caves and this really makes the game more tedious.

Then there's boulders that drop from earthquakes, just another annoyance as they will be everywhere once rifts are enabled, I normally kill Antlion just to avoid him dropping boulders in caves that I need to remove but this isn't something you can fight off.

This feels like it is balanced with the extra equip slots mod in mind and players won't go to caves at all unless it is summer with this enabled.

Cave basing is completely out of the question, DST is a sandbox game but now we are punished if we want to progress, the rewards you get will never outweigh the permanent changes that make the game more tedious.

 

We need to be able to disable rifts, this shouldn't be permanent.

[Shosuko]

I actually don't mind that boulders CAN fall from earth quakes, but they would need to be changed to be more like antlion's cave ins where you have more warning and know specifically you're getting boulders this time, and much more rare then normal cave ins.

tbh I think that is one of my biggest issues with this arc - it tries to ramp things up and make them more intense, okay BUT there is no ramp down, which imo makes continuing a world that has hit this point something I am not excited about...

[ALCRD]

Hol up.

Acid rain?

[00petar00]

30 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

I actually don't mind that boulders CAN fall from earth quakes, but they would need to be changed to be more like antlion's cave ins where you have more warning and know specifically you're getting boulders this time, and much more rare then normal cave ins.

It looks like if you enable this, you really shouldn't be building a base in caves as earthquakes are pretty frequent.

32 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

bh I think that is one of my biggest issues with this arc - it tries to ramp things up and make them more intense, okay BUT there is no ramp down, which imo makes continuing a world that has hit this point something I am not excited about...

Not just that there is no ramp down but there is no reward that klei can give us that makes this increase in tedium worth it.

4 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

Hol up.

Acid rain?

Not sure what it is called but I am wondering what both of you guys think of this, anytime it rains in caves, it deals damage and current rain protection items lose durability too fast. This is the worst part of this update.

There is a new "acid" rain protection item called Umbralla that functions like normal Umbrella that can protect you but this means no fighting in caves if it is raining or you take damage.

[Horsheen]

3 minutes ago, 00petar00 said:

There is a new "acid" rain protection item called Umbralla that functions like normal Umbrella that can protect you but this means no fighting in caves if it is raining or you take damage.

I don't like this trend of introducing tedious mechanics and then introducing an item to counter them, you completely lose your handslot during acid rain, lest you be exposed to acid and all of your armour and rain gear melts away.

 

[lakhnish]

The acid rain only occurs if the shadow rift is active (which it probably is). Otherwise it's normal rain

As for the boulders, they drop near the player rather than anywhere on screen.

[firoborn]

lmao this umbrella is the only buff that beefalo tamers got cuz of the beef speed the walking cane is not as needed for the hand slot and the beef already protects you from damage so you already have most slots free for whatever

[-Nick-]

Have a few more ways to prevent/delay acid rain. Maybe slurtle helmets? Would give a use to that niche item.

With other threats there are many solutions, Acid rain's problem is that it only has one solution.

[Cassielu]

Another problem with acid rain is that it happens based on rain, which is a mechanism that has been killed by Wickerbottom...

[Valase]

29 minutes ago, Cassielu said:

Another problem with acid rain is that it happens based on rain, which is a mechanism that has been killed by Wickerbottom...

this paired with the fact that she can't be put to sleep against the lunar rift monsters.

Wickerbottom takes another win! She shall be the survivor Queen!

[Popian]

Acid rain doesn't seem too bad. It exchanges wetness for damage over time, which is negligible when it's light. Body armor is not affected by the decay and Miner Hat offers some damage resistance without extra durability loss.

If you want to be in caves while it's heavy pre-Umbralla, set up areas or bring a couple of Sewing Kits/Tape or extra healing. The Umbralla could use +25% move speed to make having the mechanic more rewarding.

[Baark0]

I wonder how beefalo being ridden work with acid rain, does the Umbralla protect them? If so, then using beefalo for anything caves related sounds like it's going to be a lot better.

Actually that brings up another question: how does acid rain interact with mobs in general? If I afk in the caves will all the clockworks die? Will the clockworks by my pseudoscience station I penned in specifically so I don't have to deal with them whenever I kill the fuelweaver die and need to be re-caged? What about my 15+ houndius I use to farm fuelweaver? Sure they regenerate health much faster than acid rain does damage, but what if it got changed to be actually threatening?

4 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

We need to be able to disable rifts, this shouldn't be permanent.

Can't you disable them in world generation settings? And both rifts require player input to begin spawning in the first place, so it's not like you'll ever have to deal with them if you don't want to.

[Cassielu]

1 hour ago, Popian said:

a couple of Sewing Kits/Tape

Acid rain takes only a quarter of a day to completely destroy an Eyebrella, that's about 8 Tape or 1.8 Sewing Kits per day, it's almost ridiculous.

 

[HowlVoid]

Ah yes, diseases 2.0.

Create a problem to sell you a solution. 

Rather than add a useless umbrella, they should introduced a consumable paint/coating that could be applied to any rain protection currently available. That way the current myriad of rain protections continues to be varied. Rather than introduce a cumbersome one trick pony.

If the purpose was to force us to use more than just the eyebrella, then all it did was introduce a new single minded more of the same.

Edit: After thinking on it more, it's entirely possible the acid rain this update could lead to new possibilities. It's entirely possible nitre isn't the only resource it makes more plentiful. Though my point still stands, the protection to acid rain should be expanded to the current rain protection we currently have in some form.

[WhackE]

11 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

This feels like it is balanced with the extra equip slots mod in mind

Probably one of the worst takes i've seen in a while. That is a very interesting way of wording your displeasure with a mechanic. 

11 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

DST is a sandbox

it's a sandbox survival, That last part is really important, and don't forgot it next time.

[Zeklo]

The mechanic is only problematic because we have a single [subpar] way of getting around it.

There's a pillar shelter suggestion on these forums that is one really fun and intuitive solution to the rocks. Slap on a couple more, and I'll be able to support it fully. It's my [personal] same issue with the Planar System. I don't have an issue with the system itself, but if we only get 2(.5) armors, and 2 weapon options then I'm not gonna like it.

tl;dr: I want more solutions. Not less problems.

[WhackE]

6 minutes ago, Zeklo said:

The mechanic is only problematic because we have a single [subpar] way of getting around it.

There's a pillar shelter suggestion on these forums that is one really fun and intuitive solution to the rocks.

I'm going to be a bit of a devils advocate here and say, I like the "single [subpar] way of getting around it." Because it's the only solution, and that's challenging, I also don't like the pillar shelter suggestion because it just seem, underwhelming. I am not against adding more solutions however, I think if klei were to add another solution something similar to the palm leaf hut from SW would be interesting, but could degrade from the acid rain forcing you not to completely rely it, or maybe allow acid rain to cause new plants to grow in random locations with massive leaves that provide simple stationary protection. I like the new acid rain because it seems to force into a bad spot with a single solution.

I understand if people don't like the new mechanics due to lack of depth, but Klei has finally started adding more survival and difficulty aspects to the game again, and I don't want them to lose their momentum.

[00petar00]

3 hours ago, Zeklo said:

The mechanic is only problematic because we have a single [subpar] way of getting around it.

There's a pillar shelter suggestion on these forums that is one really fun and intuitive solution to the rocks. Slap on a couple more, and I'll be able to support it fully. It's my [personal] same issue with the Planar System. I don't have an issue with the system itself, but if we only get 2(.5) armors, and 2 weapon options then I'm not gonna like it.

tl;dr: I want more solutions. Not less problems.

We don't have solutions for deadly brightshades either, they spawn endlessly and are like hounds but even worse because much more spawn and dealing with 3 at once isn't easy.  Boulders falling every earthquake just means that you will not have a base down there.

Even if that solution is implemented, how big of an area would it cover and will you have to build it like lightning rod? That means that you will need to build a lot of them and this messes up with your base planning and won't look nice when you have 10 or more.

4 hours ago, WhackE said:

Probably one of the worst takes i've seen in a while. That is a very interesting way of wording your displeasure with a mechanic. 

It is completely normal take to have, there is only 3 equipment slots and we have to give 2 to deal with this rain and light in caves, where does your weapon go? You need to have a beefalo to go to caves with this rain.

3 hours ago, WhackE said:

I'm going to be a bit of a devils advocate here and say, I like the "single [subpar] way of getting around it." Because it's the only solution, and that's challenging, I also don't like the pillar shelter suggestion because it just seem, underwhelming. I am not against adding more solutions however, I think if klei were to add another solution something similar to the palm leaf hut from SW would be interesting, but could degrade from the acid rain forcing you not to completely rely it, or maybe allow acid rain to cause new plants to grow in random locations with massive leaves that provide simple stationary protection. I like the new acid rain because it seems to force into a bad spot with a single solution.

I understand if people don't like the new mechanics due to lack of depth, but Klei has finally started adding more survival and difficulty aspects to the game again, and I don't want them to lose their momentum.

So you are the definition of toxic "uncompromising" player, it is funny how you attack me on my take with new rain protection item and rain, yet don't see anyone else's point of view and how it might affect their experience with the game.

Should we have more tedium in the caves? Must be fun mining boulders over the span of 1000 days after each earthquake. Survival shouldn't be corrosive towards sandbox, there are better options to make survival more difficult without punishing players that want to build or play for a long time.

Must be really fun sitting in your cave base during spring because you will need to wear Umbralla or you can't fight without ornery beefalo.

[Paxtonnnn]

9 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

Ah yes, diseases 2.0.

Create a problem to sell you a solution. 

Wasn’t the main issue with disease the fact that it didn’t sell you a solution? Not every bad mechanic is disease

[Shosuko]

3 hours ago, WhackE said:

I'm going to be a bit of a devils advocate here and say, I like the "single [subpar] way of getting around it." Because it's the only solution, and that's challenging, I also don't like the pillar shelter suggestion because it just seem, underwhelming. I am not against adding more solutions however, I think if klei were to add another solution something similar to the palm leaf hut from SW would be interesting, but could degrade from the acid rain forcing you not to completely rely it, or maybe allow acid rain to cause new plants to grow in random locations with massive leaves that provide simple stationary protection. I like the new acid rain because it seems to force into a bad spot with a single solution.

I understand if people don't like the new mechanics due to lack of depth, but Klei has finally started adding more survival and difficulty aspects to the game again, and I don't want them to lose their momentum.

I think how challenges are defined is very important, and that nothing about sandbox prevents challenging content from being added.  This is not a "mega base casuals vs hard core survivalists" thing, it really isn't no matter how many people want to frame it that way.  Mega base players are using more of the content then anyone, which means going through all of the hoops the game has in place to obtain it all.

What I look for in a challenge are a few things:

1) Is this something I am involved in, or just something that happens to me?  Weather may seem like something that happens to you but you have several ways of overcoming it, and different options can be employed to open up certain opportunities.  We have a beefalo hat, hibernation vest, and thermal stone - each useful in a different way.

2) Is this something I get to interact with, or is the system sealed?  Antlion can open craters on the surface, destroying structures and resources, lasting a long time before fading.  I can also appease the antlion to delay these craters or defeat it.  Yes it comes back every year, but each year I have those methods of engaging with the system.

3) Is the challenge a fair one?  Deerclops spawns on top of you, in the night, can destroy structures, freeze you, drive you insane etc.  We also receive a warning, and learn what that growl means.  We know we can move away from our base, light up the dark, and prepare for combat.  Sure the first times we run into deerclops its going to be scary, and if we don't catch the warning we can still be caught off guard, but knowing what's coming we are able to tackle it head on.

This content kinda fails all 3 points.  The portals open, and their stuff comes out.  Even if you clear the BS plants you get another wave very quickly after, and acid rain just replaces rain which can literally last an entire season.  The portals take a long time to open during which you just need to wait and bear whatever is happening.  Things we have before these portals open are made less effective against them, requiring us to always go through that first "gotcha" fight in every world regardless of us knowing all of the details about them.

To me this is a very artificial sort of difficulty akin to level scaling in an rpg.  Things aren't harder because they get harder at higher level, they're harder because of the level disparity and stat checks.  Once you level back up the things normalize.  DST is kinda based around a lack of scaling too, which really makes this feel out of place thematically.  One could say that we have "progression" in a sense of tier 0 =>1 =>2 alchemy or magic, and point to the availability of axe => spear => ham bat, but that isn't really the case.  Combat is not more difficult with an ax, it just takes longer.  The scaling between an ax and ham bat, or dark sword is no great chasm.  Few situations really demand 95% protection of "high tier" armor compared to a log suit or football helmet.  If at any time you lacked the materials to fight a mob with one weapon / armor you can easily grab the other and do nearly as well.  ONLY NOW do we actually have this sort of versioning with planar damage specifically nerfing all previous gear against it, endorsing the new tier which comparatively only restores normalcy to the game.  Its only made worse in the new update with acid rain requiring the tier 2 umbrella, we've now entered the state in artificial progression where stat checks shut us down.  At least with skillful dodging you could still evade BS plants, putting in the extra time it took to overcome them with weaker weapons but with acid rain you are now taking forced damage too.

These aren't challenges, like a taking a difficult test or sparing with a strong opponent, they are punishments like a parent spanking a child for crying.

[Popian]

16 hours ago, Cassielu said:

Acid rain takes only a quarter of a day to completely destroy an Eyebrella, that's about 8 Tape or 1.8 Sewing Kits per day, it's almost ridiculous.

 

You can afford it with the 2+ chests full of Silk and Hound's Teeth. Maybe the numbers could be tweaked so sewing is more viable but inconvenient enough that you'll still want the Umbralla for longer stays.

[WhackE]

12 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

It is completely normal take to have, there is only 3 equipment slots and we have to give 2 to deal with this rain and light in caves, where does your weapon go? You need to have a beefalo to go to caves with this rain.

"It's a completely normal take to say the game is balanced around a mod." 

12 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

So you are the definition of toxic "uncompromising" player, it is funny how you attack me on my take with new rain protection item and rain, yet don't see anyone else's point of view and how it might affect their experience with the game.

"I understand if people don't like the new mechanics due to lack of depth" -Me, I'm quoting myself verbatim. You're allowed to not like the new mechanics, but your opinion about it is hot garbage, please stop talking.

You could say "toxic "uncompromising" player", sure why not, close enough.

[Spino43]

15 hours ago, Paxtonnnn said:

Wasn’t the main issue with disease the fact that it didn’t sell you a solution? Not every bad mechanic is disease

It did, you can dig the plants and replant before they go sick.

You can imagine that didn't sound fun at all.

[gamehun20]

40 minutes ago, Spino43 said:

It did, you can dig the plants and replant before they go sick.

Yeah but could you even tell when plants were going to be sick?

[Shosuko]

17 minutes ago, gamehun20 said:

Yeah but could you even tell when plants were going to be sick?

Sorta - when you harvested the plant that was about to become diseased your character would make a text comment about it.