So.. rifts in caves are even worse?

[WhackE]

20 hours ago, Shosuko said:

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.

I wasn't going to read this because you typed too much, but I did and I have to say I'm happy I did, it's clear you have a good understanding of game design and challenge and I completely agree with you, all your points are true and are things I enjoy about the game. The difficulty is beginning to feel very artificial with planar damage and the way things are scaling now, I think klei is doing some things right and others wrong. But unfortunately for you this is very clearly the direction they want to go in, they want to previous items to become less useful so you're forced to use the new stuff, personally I don't like it either, but I still want them to improve on it, even if it goes against previous design, and I'm saying this because I don't think there is anything you or I can do to change the minds of the Klei devs, this is the path they're taking going forward. In the end, you seem like you know what's fun, I agree with you, but I'm interested in what new challenges klei can provide and where they will take this.

Except that last paragraph, It's really, really bad, It's not a good analogy and it's just wrong.

[abrocator]

18 hours ago, Popian said:

You can afford it with the 2+ chests full of Silk and Hound's Teeth.

Let me translate that for us more casual players:

Quote

You can afford to deal with acid rain with normal rain gear since you have a varg farm and three bunnymen spider farms set up

 

[Paxtonnnn]

2 minutes ago, abrocator said:

You can afford to deal with acid rain with normal rain gear since you have a varg farm and three bunnymen spider farms set up

By the time you’ve beaten Fuelweaver, shouldn’t it be sorta expected to have a ton of silk and hounds teeth? Even without farms

[abrocator]

8 minutes ago, Paxtonnnn said:

By the time you’ve beaten Fuelweaver, shouldn’t it be sorta expected to have a ton of silk and hounds teeth? Even without farms

For me? Yeah, without farms (I don’t have them) I will have accumulated a fair share of stuff simply because I wait to so long to kill FW (I just killed it today in order to trigger the rift). But I don’t want all of my accumulated items (it took a long time) to just dissapear after a few acid rains.

[Yuuko]

1 hour ago, Paxtonnnn said:

By the time you’ve beaten Fuelweaver, shouldn’t it be sorta expected to have a ton of silk and hounds teeth? Even without farms

There are different ways to play.  If I have some other goal like raising a beef, building a boat base or do some constructions like varg farm the bosses may become delayed BUT if I'm just grabbing Wanda and going then I usually have 1-2 chests, a fridge and a crock pot, and about a screen of objects littered about when I go for AFW.  I try to get him done first summer.

[Mike23Ua]

I can’t play in the betas, but it feels very wrong.. very how do I put this “Placeholder-y” for Earthquakes that are triggered only After Defeating FuelWeaver, (or through world change settings) to only be the same boulders that Ant-Lion causes.

I understand what Klei’s intentions were: to make renewing of boulders not rely on ignoring Ant-Lions existence. However.. these boulders should’ve provided that AND MORE.

These particular Boulders should probably be a bit Sparkly like glitter specs, and should’ve contained rarer resources, alongside the ones it does now.

TL-DR these things should look like maybe DreadStone Boulders, Black with little colored specs in them that once mined has a chance to contain gems. Gems sometimes randomly rain down during NORMAL Earthquakes, so it therefore makes sense that Boulder chunks falling out the sky could potentially contain them too.

If those Boulders in this image were to fall I would logically expect them to contain resources like Moon Stone for Example..

Very VERY Disappointed that this New Boulder Mechanic is just a Copy & Paste of Ant-Lions.

[HowlVoid]

On 6/2/2023 at 8:53 AM, 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

They where heading in that direction. They were aware that digging up and replanting stoped disease, but a developer commented they thought about adding more items to combat the problem.

Eventually they decide to scrap the whole thing because even if they added more items to combat disease they realized it wouldn't address the real issue, that it was just tedious to deal with. Just because there are "unique" items to address an issue, doesn't warrant that said issue is justified in existing. 

The only difference is acid rain changes the environment which is something that's interesting and I think has potential. So long as we have more FUN, fun being the key word, ways to coexist (coexist is another key word and not just tolerate) with it.

[Cr4zyFl4mes]

On 6/2/2023 at 1:53 AM, 00petar00 said:

which means you won't be able to fight as it takes hand slot, and don't forget you need light in caves too.

Won't be able to fight? you can just switch to weapon for hits and switch back to umbralla when kiting the enemy... it's not rocket science.
As for the light, you have more options than just your hand slot. Let me list some for you:

• campfire
• magiluminescence
• miner hat, moggles, (or slurper :D)
• light bugs
• glow berries & lesser glow berries
• moggles
• star/moon caller staves
• wicker book, wx's circuits, wilson's torch throw, warly's glow berry mousse

Your other points are valid, but your bias is really showing here. Seems, like you are not even trying to find solutions.

[00petar00]

1 hour ago, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

Won't be able to fight? you can just switch to weapon for hits and switch back to umbralla when kiting the enemy... it's not rocket science.
As for the light, you have more options than just your hand slot. Let me list some for you:

If you are clearing ruins, you aren't going to kill 1 clockwork and stop fighting, it is not feasible to switch Umbralla and weapon for a longer period of time.

When it comes to light, the issue I have is that we only have 3 equipment slots, there are options but on the surface you aren't inconvenienced like that. Light source is needed and campfire/star caller's are situational and not useful when you are on the move, you will be using an equipment slot for it.

Everything except boulders and acid rain in this update I don't have any problems with. Acid rain in itself isn't even that bad, the solution we are given is a hand slot item and this limits your ability to fight, the rain in caves is already not something players like tackling as it can be seen how only autumn and summer are used for cave exploration.

It is not worth enabling the rifts which is quite sad, the benefits can't compare to the difficulty increase, the new weapon/tool is very interesting and the new wall is nice for decoration. The enemies introduced have their own variety in mechanics and are engaging.

This comes down to DST being a multiplayer game, yet I am being encouraged to play alone, as in multiplayer there will be players that want to interact with new content and we aren't able to turn it off.

[Popian]

8 hours ago, abrocator said:

You can afford to deal with acid rain with normal rain gear since you have a varg farm and three bunnymen spider farms set up

Just 1 Bunnymen spider farm should be enough and Hound waves can cover the teeth if your main base isn't in caves or the ocean. If providing for more players there are more hands to generate more resources.

There's also healing the damage if that will feel cheaper. People would also have a bunch of Jellybeans and Thulecite Fragments and bundles to hold high health snacks by that point unless you really wanted to activate shadow rifts without them, and if so you would also be already aware of/ready to discover all the other healing options.

[abrocator]

5 hours ago, Popian said:

Just 1 Bunnymen spider farm should be enough and Hound waves can cover the teeth if your main base isn't in caves or the ocean. If providing for more players there are more hands to generate more resources.

There's also healing the damage if that will feel cheaper. People would also have a bunch of Jellybeans and Thulecite Fragments and bundles to hold high health snacks by that point unless you really wanted to activate shadow rifts without them, and if so you would also be already aware of/ready to discover all the other healing options.

The point is that the proposed solution here is to both have set up farms (which takes time that not all people prioritize) and to use your accumulated stuff (which just takes time) in order to deal with the new challenge. Which is fine if the rewards for that are good but the reward is just… more nitre in the caves? You don’t have to be obsessed with “min/max” in order to see that you won’t get much of a return on your investment.

But you know, maybe there will be better rewards in the next updates. Let’s just see.

[Jakepeng99]

Cave riffs are 50x better and are pretty cool. Only bad thing is the boulders which is a REALLY bad thing.