My thoughts on the new beta Charlie, Acid Rain, and Scrapbook/Item Sounds.

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Here’s are my thoughts on the new beta, Klei! Hopefully this will help you fix this before the official release!

 

Please, add an option to completely disable the scrapbook. As somebody who’s played the game over 6,500+ hours I don’t want to get any pop-ups, distractions or be bothered at all by something which’s mostly for people getting into the game or don’t know everything already. An option to disable the “scrapbook papers” or whatever in worldgen would be great too because my OCD is going to drive me crazy if a bunch of little papers start cluttering the world demanding me to pick them up and burn them..

 

Please, add an option for items to all use the normal item pickup sound we had for many years instead of this new item-based one. Some people like the DING and some may like the new one.. Personally, I actually made something like this new sound thing but with a lot more sounds (like 40+) as a mod for myself for a year now, but even then I think it’s good to have an option for players to choose for themselves and this is something which is done from the client-side I’m pretty sure so it should be possible to allow this option. Having more options can only be a good thing!

 

Now one of my biggest disappointments in the update… Charlie! love Charlie and how Charlie was implemented in the game for her grand debut I feel was lame.. it’s not epic or anything even though she’s one of the most important characters other than Wilson in DST! I always imagined Charlie would be a grand boss sitting on the shadow throne puppeteering shadow beasts to fight you with some epic opera boss battle music in the background on a grand shadowy stage as a sort of final boss battle against the darkness but instead it’s this… I guess my expectations were high, but still this is not epic… *sad trumpet noise*

Another thing about Charlie’s I’m really disappointed she doesn’t as good as her original artworks and specific DST trailers (like the moon being an eye one)... (here's some of pictures which she looks the best in the top ones being the best imo the design of her should strive to look like)

Spoiler

...and even some of the loading wallpapers… Charlie should look beautiful as possible she’s the almighty queen of the constant after all! She should look young, pretty, sinister/smug, and have a queenly air to her like best art of her! I’m not a fan of the trailer art creeping into the game not just because it doesn’t fit with the game art, but also because the trailer arts are so wacky and all over the place! There’s no consistency usually with the trailer art sometimes something looks better or worse in the trailers.. and currently in this design she looks old, washed out, derpy, and doesn’t feel have threatening/powerful air to her at all.. she’s such an important character to the series she should be given only the best quality art and design!

Here’s a quick redrawing (I drew it really quick so probably wouldn't look as good if Klei did it with 100% effort) of Charlie to make her look like a more powerful, dark and beautiful queen that she should be and not like a meme on the left lol!

 

Now unto the next thing! ACID RAIN! One if not the most annoying thing you can do is to add something to an existing place that was unchanged for years and then force players to need a super-duper special item which is the only way to counter this new mechanic! I would understand if this acid rain was only in a special new cave biome (maybe the gauno biome?) but it seems it’s everywhere! Acid rain should have more ways to be protected from it not just some specific magic tool if it’s going to be everywhere! How about some acid-proof coating that can be applied to equipment? I think the stomach protects itself from our digestive acids with mucus/phlegm.. Phlegm as an item never had any use, maybe either using it directly on an equippable or some new crafting recipe that uses it you can make some acid-proof coating that can be applied to an equippable which grants that equippable infinite immunity to acid! That’s just one idea I had, but just having a shadow umbrella be the only way to prevent it is very annoying!

 

Also, the nitre stacks look a bit off to me for some reason.. might just be my artist ocd, but if you compare it to salt stacks for example

Spoiler

it feels like they lack detail.. here’s an edit I made I think it would look better with scribbly lines and stuff like basically all other mineral deposits have and since it's in a pond it probably should look submerged or merged with the pond (I didn't do the best example of it but you know what I mean) instead of having the shadow scribbly ground effect which makes it look weird while it's on the pond.

 

And finally… please add more HD textures or HD turf would be so amazing! Lots of items in the game and other stuff you see a lot of (ice) still missing crispy clean textures! Thanks for reading and have a good day!

[00petar00]

I really like your drawing of Charlie and agree with pretty much everything else, but did you forget about boulders falling from an earthquake? They are quite bad for base building in caves.

[Pcwer]

Your Charlie sprite edit is fantastic, I really hope they take some cues from it.

[Trevindo]

Your rework actually looks pretty cool, but I'll point out that this and your comment about the nitre formations are the only things I see being changed. What you said about having the option to go back to the old sounds or having the option to change it reminded me when the new creation tab arrived, many of the old players wanted the option to go back that never came and I think it was right on Klei's part that it be like that . There's still a chance they'll change too and allow us to mute the "bestiary" notifications, but otherwise that might be the only conflict there is on that point so they might as well do it.

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2 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

did you forget about boulders falling from an earthquake? They are quite bad for base building in caves.

I don't have such a strong opinion on it which is why I didn't include it (and in my beta run I didn't effect me much that's also why), but I agree with the other posts on it saying it needs things to prevent it or safezone from it and stuff with columns or something 

13 minutes ago, Trevindo said:

There's still a chance they'll change too and allow us to mute the "bestiary" notifications, but otherwise that might be the only conflict there is on that point so they might as well do it.

Well at minimum I really REALLY hope we can not get notification from the scrapbook thing and have it hidden away maybe you need to press a button to bring it up. It really kills my immersion with pop-ups and the skin-popup is something that already bugs me lol my ocd goes crazy with notifications and pop-ups in a game when I just wanna get immersed in it and survive and stuff lol

[bloopah]

5 hours ago, . . . said:

The Salt Formations look too much like something that would be in Newhome, to be honest. The lines feel too "clean" compared to other things.

[-Variant]

1 minute ago, bloopah said:

The Salt Formations look too much like something that would be in Newhome, to be honest. The lines feel too "clean" compared to other things.

I'm really inclined to disagree. The lineart is clean, yes, but it's very fitting and not perfectly smooth.
There's a lot more to the design and the texture work that also make it more DST style than NH. It's not entirely dependent on lineart!
You could compare it to some of Newhome's art, if you wish.
 

Spoiler

 

[Zeklo]

Full black clothes on Charlie looks outstanding.

[WhackE]

I really love your Charlie edit, it simply fits the style perfect. I am so disappointed in the current art for, it's really underwhelming.

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On 6/2/2023 at 8:31 PM, Zeklo said:

Full black clothes on Charlie looks outstanding.

Ya, I think so too. Though personally I don't mind the trailer scribble hair and clothes as well, but I think the pure black triumphant look like in her concept art looks pretty great and could probably fit the game art more since other characters have the triumphant skins too.