Did we forget about what is the goal of the characters? and How would you complete the game?

[Cuernito.]

Did you forget their goal? i mean almost all the characters are into the constant cause maxwell tricked them so i think a lot of them just want to get out of that weird dimension, and after all these years it is time for them to escape the constant, but my issue here is how and when is klei going to do it? remember that its almost a decade since klei launched DST and still i dont feel like we are near any end, i mean before all these updates post final bosses the game felt like it was ended but right now the game feels a lot like a WIP...

Its ok i guess, after all i still have my imagination, so i want to help with some ideas that can help or not... but i still want to express what i have.(this is gonna be hard cause english is not my native lenguage but as always im gonna try my best since i dont usually use traslators)

And this is not gonna be really detailed so feel free to add names or perks or whatever you want to this mess.

Im gonna split the content in 2, the surface(moon god), and the caves(shadow god) and each server is gonna have new seasons content, new bosses, events or puzzles, and new biomes(4 new biomes) as well as 2 final(real friking FINAL) bosses and some new players effects.

Lets start with the surface: what if after the rifts spawned, some days after that event(20-30 days) the world change completely adding new bosses, mobs, season effects, puzzles, events and biomes. This can be justified cause you just killed the champion and wagstaff used his new technology(took a few days to create) using a crown shard to weaken the barrier between the constant and the moon god, shaking the world.

All seasons get new stuff. Now no more hounds are going to spawn in any season, all the season giants got extint(except deerclops). Now all the world got a new pallet of colors. Now a random full moon can happens(all fullmoons cause the lunacy effect on players), and during a fullmoon always spawns from the sky a new mob(the replacement of hounds as waves mobs), a new mutant rat that like cheese and steal stuff from players(not carrats btw), they are stronger and more faster than hounds and can cause the new moon effect on players.(you can use the moon dial to prevent them) and each season has a different variant of these mobs, with some special stats, like more health or stronger damage idk, think that yourselves.(of course with planar damage). The world is now invaded by greater gestals and the shadows cant spawn anymore even if the player is low at sanity. The greater gestals now can attack the player if the sanity is too high, and they can be attacked and killed as well.(new drops)

Autum: During this season all trees are gonna become a new variant of moon trees(new loot from those) that can be chopped faster but they can release a moon gas that cause the new moon effect, the lunar affliction effect, during this season fullmoons can happen more frequently than all the other seasons, a new boss can spawn from the sky if you are in a forest.(this is one of the 4 new seasonal bosses, the 4 lunatic horsemen). This is still gonna be the easiest season thought.

Winter: During this season random heavy snowfall is gonna happens(this cause the players to freeze faster and not be able to see around them but it would not slow downs players, however you can ice yourself). All edible plants are going to stop growing. Some animals are going to become corrupted by the moon only during this season.(beefalos, goats, some fishes), they are going to become stronger, more agressive and the new drops from them are not going to be any edibles.  A new boss can spawn from the sky during the night(this is gonna be the strongest one of all the 4). The deerclops is gonna spawn to assist you during the new boss fight(i see deerclops as a force of nature that tries to stop any strong foe that is damaging the world, and he is iconic). New moon icebergs can appear on the ocean(new loot).

Spring: During this season instead of normal rain a lot of tiny meteors will fall from the sky damaging the player and causing the lunar affliction but they cant destroy things(however there is a chance to burn the player or some stuff on the floor), instead of frog rain some few big meteors will fall and they can destroy structures and stay on the floor and emit a venom gas(this gas cause the lunar affliction and damage the player over time), they can be broken with a pickaxe but the gas cloud is gonna stay for some days unless you use a new tool to remove that. A new boss can spawn on the ocean(you can spawn this one with a new tool). There are new plant-mobs that spawn in the ocean only during this season.(they are like big tentacles but in the surface and they are plants like creatures)

Summer: During this season all the plants mutant into a weaker version of deadly brightshade(all plants so no grass or twiggs from plants during summer). This is temporary. The last lunatic hoursemen can spawn either in the oasis or near the lava pools(dragonfly run away during this season). Only some farmplants can be cultivated like peppers.

All new mobs can inflict the lunar affliction effect.

New biomes: 

The shadow infested ocean: if you activate the rifts cycle caves this biome is going to be create. This is created in the hazardous ocean, This is like a representation of the shadows trying to take over the surface. A fissure in the bottom of the ocean allowed some shadows from the deeps to enter the overworld. This biome has new mobs with new loot and new effects over the players. The shadowmaids(shadow + mermaid) can spawn here(they are neutral to players unless you are using a moon armor or weapon) and they can make a noise that infflicts the whispers of madness effect. In this biome can grow up on sea stacks a new shadowy coral.

The moongle(moon+jungle): This is a totally new biome that can only be reached with a new item that you get from the loot of all the lunatic horsemen. Its is a colorfull jugle hidden in a island outside the limits of the world(idk how hard this can be to create since idk about the limits of the map in DST). Here is hidden the last of the new bosses on the surface, in the heart of the moongle is the oldest plant of Dont starve, a giant lunar-plant like boss.

The representation of the moon power is the life, it infects the world with life.

Whispers of madness: inverts the controls on the players.(this effects can be avoided using the dreadstone armor full set)

Lunar affliction: makes the players gain a big amount of sanity, makes the players lose half the hunger points.(this effect can be avoided using the brighshade armor full set)

Lets continue with the caves: the same as the surface but it is Charlie who used the new portal to weaken the barrier between world. Creating new chaos inside the caves.

No more deepworms waves. Toadstool and ancient guardian went extint(so no more ruins renovation during this event). All seasons in caves get new stuff. 3 new bosses lurking into the caves, instead of the deepworms a new shadow chaser is going to hunt you every some days.

Autum: This is still gonna be the easiest season. Only a new boss can spawn during this season. The little stalker. A kid like creature is gonna spawn during autum near the player(like a gingrebread pig) stalking him, if you follow him he is gonna show you his true self(a scary boss stronger than any lunar horsemen).

Winter: During this season a new shadow is going to turn off any source of fire(campfires, burning objects, and even dwarf starts), you can only use no fire source of ligh. A new shadow igloos are going to appear in some parts of the caves(new loot). 

Spring: During this season a new shadow vines-veins are going to emerge from the void in the edges and are going to block the paths(new edible loot), and some of them are going to be arteries with new loot as well(this one is gonna be hidden far away from the player)

Summer: During this season instead of the normal earthquake big about of thulecite and shadow flames are going to drop(they cause the shadow bite effect if they hit the player). they cannot burn normal objects, just shadow theme items. Some shadow flames can be collected from the ground using a new tool.

All new mobs can inflict the shadow bite effect.

A new boss can spawn in any of the 3 toadstool spawn areas. Its going to be a big shadow ceberus doggo eating the rests of a toadstool.

New biomes: 

New lunar manantial: this can only happens if the surface rifts are active. The lunar grotto sinks into the ground and fills with water. The mutan roots from some plants at the ocean break into the underground grotto. The new vines-roots are gonna be neutral to players unless you are using a shadow armor or weapon. They cause the light infection on hit. You have to use a boat here. You are gonna need to solve a new puzzle in the sealed portal at archives.

The body of the void: this new biome can only be reached after you done all new bosses and puzzles. it is deep inside the void of the caves(the character is going jump into the void with the new equip). Here is like inside the body of an animal, with giants shadow ribbs and weird organs, its all dark. Here is the final boss.  A giant shadow heart(one of the hearts of the void).

The representation of the shadow power is the void, it wants to consume everything.

Shadow bite: the player burns on shadow flames. Causes the players to lose health as normal burning and lowers the sanity a lot during the duration. One random item of the player inventory is gonna be inavailable for 45 seconds after the burning animation of the player(the items are overchaged by shadows) This effects can be avoided using the dreadstone armor set.

Light infection: the player now glows but chest, head and hand slots becomes unavailable for the duration of the effect. If the player is using something on any of those slots they are gonna be dropped. (this effect can be avoided using the brighshade armor full set)

Now to end this post lets talk about the re real final bosses.

After the player kill both final bosses he is going to get what he needs to create the final portal(a portal to the real world), now before you escape the constant depending of where you are(surface or caves) Charlie or wagstaff are gonna appears and they are going to steal your portal to bring back to this dimension a real lovecraftian god entity(methus or them or whatever you call it), and after that you have to defeat that god in order to choose to stay or leave the constant. There are 2 lovecraftian entitites.

For this real final fight you are gonna have some new food items and new ways to heals. A new armor combining the power of both moon and shadows, this new armor is gonna have a personal design per character. A final weapon again using the coombine power of shadows and moon. And depending of which god you are fighting is gonna happens one thing or the other.

• If you choose to operate the portal inside caves, Charlie is going to steal your portal and let the god of the void spawn, she is gonna be betrayed and devoured by that god, making her a part of the void. Wagstaff is gonna appears using a cinematic downing through a cave hole with a big mecha using the power of the moon, and he is gonna help you to kill that god, he is gonna assist you more or less depending of the number of players in the server, he is gonna have an army of mini moon mechas. if all the players get killed the game is over, you cant revive, you can however use rollback, and the void is gonna consume all the constant even the surface in a cinematic. But if you win you are gonna get the portal back, one of the gods is gonna be dead and the other one is gonna be afraid of you so its gonna disappear from the surface, making Wagstaff experiment and new technology useless now since the god just went away so he is not gonna steal the portal from you. At the end Charlie is going to be trapped inside the void, so if you choose to stay playing instead of leave a pair of female sad eyes are gonna appears from time to time inside the void(you can examine the eyes, just a little final detail). You win 3 things from the final boss if you stay. Charlie can no longer hit you in the dark, you can now fish into the void to get some junk and even a final void food to make a final special super dish. And finally the biggest thing, your own home, just like hamlet, you unlock a lot of new recipes for the house, all the hounds waves stop and the weather effects dont harm the players anymore.
• If you choose to use the portal at the surface, Wagstaff(the real one not a grainy trasnmission) is gonna steal the device and use it to allow the moon god to break into the constant, after that he is gonna try to use the god as a power source for a special machine that he created but he is gonna fail as the god was more powerful than he thought. He is gonna try to run away but the god can interfere with his technology. The moon god will turn wagstaff into a peach tree and before the final fight start a new cinematic is gonna pop. Some shadows from trees and rocks are gonna fuse together turning into Charlie, now she is gonna help you. And after the defeat of the god you are gonna unlock the same things but this time charlie is gonna be ok, she is gonna forget about getting more power from the shadows as since you killed the moon god now the void god is afraid of the constant. After chearlie meets his sister she is gonna recover his true self. So the end its gonna be almost the same. Charlie is gonna stay but she is not gonna harm players anymore, No hounds waves and no weather effects anymore. And the moon god is gonna drop the set to make your own house, the same as the shadows god. The only real difference is that instead of gaining the hability to fish into the void players can plant peach trees because wagstaff is gonna stay as a tree but that tree is gonna be invulnerable to all effects, if you try to chop it down, its just gonna drop some peaches that you can use to make the new trees.

i have to say that charlie or wagstaff are just gonna help you more or less depending on how much players are in the server. They are gonna have a little army of their own crew. When you start this final fight you cant run away, all ways to tp are gonna be disable, and a big barrier is gonna prevent you to escape the fight.

And finally if you choose to escpe a little comic page is gonna show you what happened to the character you were using after they escaped the constant. End.

 

 

[D_Good_Fellow]

I don't think the endgame of Don't Starve Together will be about the survivors escaping The Constant. I think it's a misdirect intentionally inverting the "Faustian bargain" trope. Consider this: almost every single survivor from the real world had goals even before they arrived in The Constant:

• Wilson wanted success as a scientist
• Willow wanted a new start
• Wolfgang wanted strength
• Wendy wanted to be with Abigail again
• Wickerbottom wanted to preserve knowledge
• Wes wanted to make others happy
• Wigfrid wanted to be in the spotlight again
• Webber wanted to not be lonely anymore

Typically a faustian deal forces the bargainer to reconsider what they think they wanted by taking away something they never appreciated or punishing them in ways that make them realize their own folly. But that doesn't actually appear to be happening in the Don't Starve series: almost every single one of those things genuinely comes true.

• Wilson is now constantly making unprecedented discoveries and inventing new things beyond any normal scientist
• Willow got her new start and actually has non-teddy bear friends for the first time
• Not only is Wolfgang stronger than he was, but he can actually use that strength to protect his new friends 
• Wendy literally gets to be with Abigail again
• Wickerbottom is learning all kind of crazy knowledge, plus she sort of gets to play the role of teacher again which she seems to really like
• Wes's compendium entry literally says he wouldn't rather be anywhere else, since the survivors in The Constant need his uplifting cheeriness more than anyone
• Wigfrid clearly enjoys being her viking character, which definitely makes her happier than the depressed mess she was when Maxwell found her
• Webber has more friends than he ever did on the farm and definitely more than he would have if he returned to Earth as a spider boy

Many of these characters are better off in The Constant than they would be in the real world. Almost all of them were defined by aspects that "othered" them to broader society: Wilson was expelled/fired for his dangerous experiments, Willow was/is a serial arson, Wolfgang was seen as a coward, Wendy's ghoulish attitude was almost certainly alienating (also most adults are pretty bad at interacting with grieving children), Wickerbottom's compendium implies she was rather lonely, Wigfrid was being panned by critics, and Webber was literally chased out of his home for being a monster. 

I do think that, if asked, most of those survivors would still say that they want to leave The Constant and go home. But I can't help but think that Wilson's life would be empty if he returned to the real world and suddenly there were no more magical rocks to take notes on or strange rods that summon dog-chests. I think he would find normal life dreadfully mundane at this point, but he's been so fixated on the goal of escape that he hasn't reconsidered it. I think a lot of the other characters would feel a similar way.

Now there are some notable exceptions. Warly obviously needs very badly to leave and Wanda seems to have escaped The Constant once before, so for them the goal of escape 100% makes sense. Winona wants to escape as well, but that's secondary to reuniting with Charlie (Maxwell is in a similar boat). Walter, Woodie, and WX-78 don't necessarily seem to want to stay, but all three appear to be better equipped for supernatural wilderness survival than they are for early 20th century living anyway.

This is all to that I think there's a different, more clear endgame for our protagonists. And it's right in the title of the game:

Don't Starve Together

Don't Starve To Get Her

Charlie herself will be the endgame of DST. Whether or not DST will see any survivors escaping is up in the air, but I strongly suspect DST's main story will conclude with the completion of Charlie's arc. It seems likely she'll be redeemed too, so I'm guessing players will have at least the option to save her. Whether she's defeated or saved, I believe that will mark the end of DST.

I do still think some of your gameplay ideas could work with that narrative. I just don't see an escape portal being the final goal of the game.

[Dr.Webber]

On 7/18/2023 at 8:21 AM, D_Good_Fellow said:

I don't think the endgame of Don't Starve Together will be about the survivors escaping The Constant. I think it's a misdirect intentionally inverting the "Faustian bargain" trope. Consider this: almost every single survivor from the real world had goals even before they arrived in The Constant:

• Wilson wanted success as a scientist
• Willow wanted a new start
• Wolfgang wanted strength
• Wendy wanted to be with Abigail again
• Wickerbottom wanted to preserve knowledge
• Wes wanted to make others happy
• Wigfrid wanted to be in the spotlight again
• Webber wanted to not be lonely anymore

Typically a faustian deal forces the bargainer to reconsider what they think they wanted by taking away something they never appreciated or punishing them in ways that make them realize their own folly. But that doesn't actually appear to be happening in the Don't Starve series: almost every single one of those things genuinely comes true.

• Wilson is now constantly making unprecedented discoveries and inventing new things beyond any normal scientist
• Willow got her new start and actually has non-teddy bear friends for the first time
• Not only is Wolfgang stronger than he was, but he can actually use that strength to protect his new friends 
• Wendy literally gets to be with Abigail again
• Wickerbottom is learning all kind of crazy knowledge, plus she sort of gets to play the role of teacher again which she seems to really like
• Wes's compendium entry literally says he wouldn't rather be anywhere else, since the survivors in The Constant need his uplifting cheeriness more than anyone
• Wigfrid clearly enjoys being her viking character, which definitely makes her happier than the depressed mess she was when Maxwell found her
• Webber has more friends than he ever did on the farm and definitely more than he would have if he returned to Earth as a spider boy

Many of these characters are better off in The Constant than they would be in the real world. Almost all of them were defined by aspects that "othered" them to broader society: Wilson was expelled/fired for his dangerous experiments, Willow was/is a serial arson, Wolfgang was seen as a coward, Wendy's ghoulish attitude was almost certainly alienating (also most adults are pretty bad at interacting with grieving children), Wickerbottom's compendium implies she was rather lonely, Wigfrid was being panned by critics, and Webber was literally chased out of his home for being a monster. 

I do think that, if asked, most of those survivors would still say that they want to leave The Constant and go home. But I can't help but think that Wilson's life would be empty if he returned to the real world and suddenly there were no more magical rocks to take notes on or strange rods that summon dog-chests. I think he would find normal life dreadfully mundane at this point, but he's been so fixated on the goal of escape that he hasn't reconsidered it. I think a lot of the other characters would feel a similar way.

Now there are some notable exceptions. Warly obviously needs very badly to leave and Wanda seems to have escaped The Constant once before, so for them the goal of escape 100% makes sense. Winona wants to escape as well, but that's secondary to reuniting with Charlie (Maxwell is in a similar boat). Walter, Woodie, and WX-78 don't necessarily seem to want to stay, but all three appear to be better equipped for supernatural wilderness survival than they are for early 20th century living anyway.

This is all to that I think there's a different, more clear endgame for our protagonists. And it's right in the title of the game:

Don't Starve Together

Don't Starve To Get Her

Charlie herself will be the endgame of DST. Whether or not DST will see any survivors escaping is up in the air, but I strongly suspect DST's main story will conclude with the completion of Charlie's arc. It seems likely she'll be redeemed too, so I'm guessing players will have at least the option to save her. Whether she's defeated or saved, I believe that will mark the end of DST.

I do still think some of your gameplay ideas could work with that narrative. I just don't see an escape portal being the final goal of the game.

Maybe there’ll bring Warly’s mom to the constant or show him a vision of her in a nursing home or do the same  with Wickerbottom’s cat but instead a loving family  also I  don’t think Wanda is familiar with the powers of the consent not the constant it’s self  i think Winona will learn to except Charlie is not that breakable doll any more and Maxwell probably   contributes when his life turned around for the better so as long as the women he loves is there why wouldn’t he want to stay in the world of shadows

[Falkenpelz]

The endgame scenario living in my head for a long time is some kind of ultimatum: They get a chance to go home, but that would come with the price of unleashing the power of Them upon their home. If the survivors want to keep their realm safe from Them, they cannot reconnect it to the portal and therefore never go home. The first scenario would however be, what Queen Charlie wanted, since those are basically the goals of Metheus and Charlie combined: Spreading the nightmare reign further, while also going home.

[Bughead]

While there's a lot of pros for the survivors staying in the Constant, what if they weren't able to stay there anymore and were forced to return? Like Constant exploding on itself or something. I admit it's not that likely with live service and all, but still.

[abrocator]

The apparent goal is to become subservient to either Charlie or Wagstaff.