Summer Wildfire Re-invented

[DinsdaleP]

1 hour ago, abrocator said:

And that means that summer is much more limited in terms of what I can do unless I had decided to do something like tame a beefalo or spend all summer in the caves.

But... it really isn't. As long as you have a flingo set up in your base and thermal stone + mooncaller's staff in your inventory (along with maybe something to put out fires), it's at best mildly limiting, much less so than winter or spring. You don't have to wear an eyebrella/rain coat constantly, you don't have to burn trees, visibility is great, it really is a second autumn if you have the required items... and even wildfires only happen in the middle 11 days.

On the more limiting side, yeah, don't choose summer to raid the lunar island or moon quay, things will wither, but other than that... sometimes a few tree burn down, so what?

Note: I do build my grass/twigs lureplant farms down in the caves and have an above-ground base that fits under a single flingo, without any kind of fire pits. These sure make life in summer easier, but they're not built this way because of wildfires.

[Popian]

10 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

This does help with some issues, but it does not fix the main issue. They need fuel, and in a multiplayer game you can not trust everyone to fuel them.

Do you not trust others (that have good intentions and have made it to your base during Summer) to learn? If so, build your base with fire spread taken into consideration (extra spacing, Scaled Flooring, moving things you care about to wildfire protected areas/containers) so at worst you would lose a few items instead of the entire base.

Misc points:

• Wildfires can only happen at day, allowing you to safely move at dusk or night
• Flingomatics do not have to be left on when you are spending extended periods of time near one, turn it on to extinguish any smoldering or burning you happen to hear/see
• Flingomatics do not have to be left on when you leave base, and if you do want to keep some on because someone is hanging around you can take note of when you should stop by (or ask someone) to refuel
• Watering Cans are cheap and effective for fighting fires

[00petar00]

A lot of people that replied are missing the point.

My understanding on what @goatt is saying that it is too punishing for something that you can't control if you play on pubs, so it doesn't make sense to give the current solutions to the problem when you can't expect other players to do that on pubs and the consequences of them not doing that are massive as your whole base can burn down.

I would even go a step beyond that and say that wildfires aren't fun even for solo play, I have them turned off as it doesn't allow me to build as much as I want without getting punished or I need to leave my base during summer.

If I need to evade the mechanic instead of dealing with it that usually is an indication that it isn't good. So many people base in oasis and while there are less cave basers it is still a big reason as to why they build there.

This mechanic needs to be reworked or replaced.

[Jakepeng99]

11 hours ago, Popian said:

Do you not trust others (that have good intentions and have made it to your base during Summer) to learn? If so, build your base with fire spread taken into consideration (extra spacing, Scaled Flooring, moving things you care about to wildfire protected areas/containers) so at worst you would lose a few items instead of the entire base.

Misc points:

• Wildfires can only happen at day, allowing you to safely move at dusk or night
• Flingomatics do not have to be left on when you are spending extended periods of time near one, turn it on to extinguish any smoldering or burning you happen to hear/see
• Flingomatics do not have to be left on when you leave base, and if you do want to keep some on because someone is hanging around you can take note of when you should stop by (or ask someone) to refuel
• Watering Cans are cheap and effective for fighting fires

It is day almost all the time in Summer, dusk is only a single segment. Because someone past base and did not notice a fire, it does not mean everyone else has to suffer greatly. It is not designed well for multiplayer. Things like deerclops you are given a warning, and you can still save base from them even with no equipment.

55 minutes ago, 00petar00 said:

A lot of people that replied are missing the point.

My understanding on what @goatt is saying that it is too punishing for something that you can't control if you play on pubs, so it doesn't make sense to give the current solutions to the problem when you can't expect other players to do that on pubs and the consequences of them not doing that are massive as your whole base can burn down.

I would even go a step beyond that and say that wildfires aren't fun even for solo play, I have them turned off as it doesn't allow me to build as much as I want without getting punished or I need to leave my base during summer.

If I need to evade the mechanic instead of dealing with it that usually is an indication that it isn't good. So many people base in oasis and while there are less cave basers it is still a big reason as to why they build there.

This mechanic needs to be reworked or replaced.

I like the "Hot to the touch" idea since it is relatable. It would be nice to rework the wildfires and add that, maybe you can tell hoe hot something is, and if it gets too hot, fire.

[Jandri]

I see having to both anticipate forest fires by building fligos and carrying ice staffs or whatever else you think is better, and having to keep surviving with one of your safe places missing if you weren't vigilant and lucky enough as challenging. I don't see why it would be any different than coming back to your base and seeing that the deerclops have destroyed it as an inexperienced player was watching. By the way, I also think it would be cool if the deerclops could destroy bases offscreen (though stuff like that might cause lag). Inexperienced players could do a lot of dumb things like destroying your spider nests or using the crockpot unoptimally.

I mean, if you leave the server with newbies living in your base, anything can happen, not just forest fires. If you're playing with friends, anything can happen while you're away from your base. Strangers who stayed for a few minutes doing random things in the portal biome might have done anything including dumb stuff unrelated to wildfires and without intentionally trolling, and loosing a few trees and saplings in that biome isn't really a big deal anyway. I don't see why wildfires should be given a different treatment than the other threats, and summer is supposed to be the toughest season. Many resources are renewable, for example reeds are. If you are afraid of losing non renewable resources, why not to make everything regrow instead?

I wish Klei would incentive us less to build magabases. Sometimes you go to a pig village and there's no house left, because someone thought "it's far from the base anyway", you go to the lunar island and there's not a single stone fruit bush left or you go in a grasslands biome and they have shoveled every berry bush, grass and saplings in the area. If you build small bases with only a crockpot and a few buildings, you won't mind having one burned down (and the fire is unlikely to spread to all the buildings) and will benefit from more of the map surface. I always play with one main base because that's what everyone does anyway, but even in that case there are items that are meant to protect your largest base from fires.

Maybe they could rework the wildfires a bit, like adding a special music when player built structures or player planted plants start to smolder, but I wouldn't want them to remove that. I don't get why so many people hated the disease mechanic; at least to me, the point of the game is supposed to be "die and do better next time". I liked it and hope they reimplement it, and maybe rework it a bit so it's not as destructive as it was and people complain less about it.

[abrocator]

16 hours ago, DinsdaleP said:

As long as you have a flingo set up in your base and thermal stone + mooncaller's staff in your inventory (along with maybe something to put out fires), it's at best mildly limiting, much less so than winter or spring.

I was specifically talking about wildfires and not also overheating.

Living in base in summer is no problem. Only walking around the world where there is no wildfire protection.

Something catching on fire right in front of me is not a problem. Then I can use a luxury fan or an ice staff or something similar. The problem is when I just pass something (load it in) and then it catches on fire practically off-screen.

To take some self-criticism on this:

• Yes, I can take into account that the two first and two final days of summer have no smoldering. But 11 days are still left so this is not a major win
• I am very paranoid about losing resources. Realistically though some saplings and grass tufts burning is not a problem
• I can use dusk and night more to roam since there is no smoldering. I have had to do this on a server where I joined shortly before summer and had very few resources. But I don't bother to take this into account on my own worlds. So I often stay tethered to my smoldering protection

[Mysterious box]

2 hours ago, Jandri said:

I don't see why it would be any different than coming back to your base and seeing that the deerclops have destroyed it as an inexperienced player was watching.

 

2 hours ago, Jandri said:

I mean, if you leave the server with newbies living in your base, anything can happen, not just forest fires. If you're playing with friends, anything can happen while you're away from your base. Strangers who stayed for a few minutes doing random things in the portal biome might have done anything including dumb stuff unrelated to wildfires and without intentionally trolling, and loosing a few trees and saplings in that biome isn't really a big deal anyway. I don't see why wildfires should be given a different treatment than the other threats, and summer is supposed to be the toughest season. Many resources are renewable, for example reeds are. If you are afraid of losing non renewable resources, why not to make everything regrow instead?

Honestly this is what bugs me most about the argument against wildfires based on random people screwing up and I've brought it up multiple times removing wildfires doesn't stop base being destroyed by various other methods. I get that wildfires happening off screen is frustrating and I agree it should be fixed so that doesn't happen but otherwise I personally see wildfires as fine. So I completely agree here. From how I understand it some people don't want the game to threaten their builds thus the game should avoid messing with base as much as possible but that I feel goes completely against the nature of the game we should have amazing builds despite how challenging the world is to show our mastery over the world not because the world took it easy on us so we could and if we don't want to the settings are always there.

 

2 hours ago, Jandri said:

I see having to both anticipate forest fires by building fligos and carrying ice staffs or whatever else you think is better, and having to keep surviving with one of your safe places missing if you weren't vigilant and lucky enough as challenging.

This right here sums up the appeal of summer nicely honestly. It's a intense season where you survival skills are put to the test if you choose to engage with it but the game does two things that improves on it. First the experience is temporary so you don't get overwhelmed and second there are safe zones where you can wind down if the pressure becomes too much.

[Mike23Ua]

1 hour ago, abrocator said:

I was specifically talking about wildfires and not also overheating.

Living in base in summer is no problem. Only walking around the world where there is no wildfire protection.

Something catching on fire right in front of me is not a problem. Then I can use a luxury fan or an ice staff or something similar. The problem is when I just pass something (load it in) and then it catches on fire practically off-screen.

To take some self-criticism on this:

• Yes, I can take into account that the two first and two final days of summer have no smoldering. But 11 days are still left so this is not a major win
• I am very paranoid about losing resources. Realistically though some saplings and grass tufts burning is not a problem
• I can use dusk and night more to roam since there is no smoldering. I have had to do this on a server where I joined shortly before summer and had very few resources. But I don't bother to take this into account on my own worlds. So I often stay tethered to my smoldering protection

I think that things not loading in when the player (or players) aren’t in vicinity of it is a 2013 relic of the past from a highly outdated gaming engine.

And had Klei EVER at any point in time remastered DS/DST for the next generation platforms- That this I’ll just call it an “Exploit” wouldn’t be possible.

Yes I realize that this is a “Hot take” and a hundred bajillion people will frown upon my wishes for DST to get a 2024 updated gaming engine that in a lot of ways: Changes the way we can play the game.

But personally: It never made any sense to me at all how I could just “Off-Load” parts of the map and they just become completely safe from the world and it’s hazards.

Newer content such as Lunar Rifts say screw you and your off-loading exploits, in fact lunar rifts DONT CARE they’ll drop some Deadly Brightshades on pearls island and they won’t give a flying flip.

This is undeniable proof that old gameplay mechanics are outdated & in need of revisiting.

[gamehun20]

4 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

And had Klei EVER at any point in time remastered DS/DST for the next generation platforms- That this I’ll just call it an “Exploit” wouldn’t be possible.

You do realise that unloading will always be a thing because it's not so things don't get affected it's so your console or pc doesn't go up in flames because it's using too much memory for something that is not even in your reach. This aint an engine fault Mike.

[_zwb]

10 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

I think that things not loading in when the player (or players) aren’t in vicinity of it is a 2013 relic of the past from a highly outdated gaming engine.

An average Don't Starve level has a couple thousands entities, and usually you would have both forest and caves level loaded. No device can handle this amount of entities, there's simply not enough RAM to calculate all the data for each entity nor there's enough speed for it to be playable.

Games like Minecraft also does this "things not loading in when the player (or players) aren’t in vicinity", only chunks around you are loaded, mobs outside a certain range is straight up removed.

[Mike23Ua]

5 minutes ago, _zwb said:

An average Don't Starve level has a couple thousands entities, and usually you would have both forest and caves level loaded. No device can handle this amount of entities, there's simply not enough RAM to calculate all the data for each entity nor there's enough speed for it to be playable.

Games like Minecraft also does this "things not loading in when the player (or players) aren’t in vicinity", only chunks around you are loaded, mobs outside a certain range is straight up removed.

I’m aware of this, but… Lunar Rifts choose a seemingly random location to spawn in and then send out Deadly Brightshades to infest areas that you aren’t even anywhere near.

[_zwb]

8 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

I’m aware of this, but… Lunar Rifts choose a seemingly random location to spawn in and then send out Deadly Brightshades to infest areas that you aren’t even anywhere near.

That's just running a single component of TheWorld entity, it wouldn't cause as much lag as running a couple thousands entities. It doesn't have to constantly load in the brightshades when the rift does so, it just spawns it, moves it to plant and that's it. No more tracking, no more constant calculations.

[Jandri]

59 minutes ago, _zwb said:

An average Don't Starve level has a couple thousands entities, and usually you would have both forest and caves level loaded. No device can handle this amount of entities, there's simply not enough RAM to calculate all the data for each entity nor there's enough speed for it to be playable.

Games like Minecraft also does this "things not loading in when the player (or players) aren’t in vicinity", only chunks around you are loaded, mobs outside a certain range is straight up removed.

Perhaps off-screen entities could have simpler behavior so that they still interact with the off-screen environment, or what happened to those entities is only calculated when a player returns to see it. Being able to stop a fire from spreading just by walking away from it seems a little weird to me, but I can accept it if it's due to the capabilities of our computers.

[goatt]

10 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

A lot of people that replied are missing the point.

My understanding on what @goatt is saying that it is too punishing for something that you can't control if you play on pubs, so it doesn't make sense to give the current solutions to the problem when you can't expect other players to do that on pubs and the consequences of them not doing that are massive as your whole base can burn down.

I would even go a step beyond that and say that wildfires aren't fun even for solo play, I have them turned off as it doesn't allow me to build as much as I want without getting punished or I need to leave my base during summer.

You got it right. And after the discussion with people in the forum, I also realize that wildfire or hound fire are generally not good for multiplayer for the same reason. Even though I didn't have the mental energy to expand the topic. But I agree, the current wildfire isn't fun as a survival mechanic. Because the "fun" comes from the aesthetics of my base, not the survival function of my base. When it doesn't hurt my survival ability and wellbeing, it hurts my emotion and my enjoyment of my base. When I want to have more "fun", I can't unless I turn off wildfire.

One thing I didn't succeed to express or clarify about is the game design perspective. I just came up with a new metaphor. Imagine cook vs diner relationship. Every diner has their preferred salt level. Some people like salt more, some less. But as a cook, they don't adjust salt level for every individual customer (normally). Instead, they have a guideline for fair amount of salt maybe based on food volume. For example, 1 tsp per 1lb food, as a general guide.

Now come back to game design. When a lot of people talking about fun or fair, they are talking like a diner, which I don't have problem with. But under this thread, I try to bring the cook's perspective, and say the punishment for (accidental) wildfire is too "salty", especially considering the fire is not caused by you and is caused when you are offline. As a cook, or a game designer, it is obvious to me that it's disproportional, regardless of whether the diners enjoyed it or not. That's also why the solution (food can be eaten despite salt level) and punishment (whether food is too salty) are two separate topics. IF it's ok to mix them up as one topic, then it's justified to give bees 100 attack damage, because any intermediate players should be able to dodge bee attacks. In other words, because there is solution, any harsh punishment is justified.

@Mysterious box This is a new metaphor I came up with. Maybe you will find it helpful, I hope.

 

6 hours ago, Jandri said:

I mean, if you leave the server with newbies living in your base, anything can happen, not just forest fires. If you're playing with friends, anything can happen while you're away from your base. Strangers who stayed for a few minutes doing random things in the portal biome might have done anything including dumb stuff unrelated to wildfires and without intentionally trolling, and loosing a few trees and saplings in that biome isn't really a big deal anyway.

Your exact words can be used as a good reason why some mechanics in current game is unfriendly to multiplayer. Let me try to rephrase it for you "I mean, if you leave the server with newbies living in your base, anything can happen, not just forest fires. If you're playing with friends, anything can happen while you're away from your base. Strangers who stayed for a few minutes doing random things in the portal biome might have done anything including dumb stuff unrelated to wildfires and without intentionally trolling, and loosing a few trees and saplings in that biome isn't really a big deal anyway is sad."

You are accepting them because you are used to them, not because they are good. You are saying "this bad thing is not that bad because we are ok with that other bad thing which is similarly bad". But the truth is that they are both bad in your words. In summary, this line of logic is not very good.

I'm responding to this because I think this is a common argument.

 

4 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

Honestly this is what bugs me most about the argument against wildfires based on random people screwing up and I've brought it up multiple times removing wildfires doesn't stop base being destroyed by various other methods.

I don't get this part, either. Using same logic, we should fix any bug, because fixing one bug won't fix the whole game. On the contrary, I think fixing one bug is absolutely important. Fixing wildfire can remove one (unfair) way your game can be ruined, and can improve gaming experience for 1/4 seasons.

No one is trying to stop base destruction entirely (or fixing entire game in metaphor). The suggestion only tries to improve a small aspect of it. So I think your dismissive argument makes no sense.

[Nnumber3]

On 8/6/2023 at 10:12 AM, cropo said:

I'd rather items got superhot to the touch, and attempting to use them burns YOU and does some damage.  Think of putting out a smoldering fire. So the items don't combust into flames, but using them costs upfront health and won't leave the ''simmering'' state until you ice-staff it or do some other things like wear a chilled amulet.

 

This would give scale-mail another use as well as Willow and make the threat of summer more engaging. Kind of like how Monsoon season can flood your alchemy engine and other appliances rendering them unusable.

 

You can also buff scaled flooring to make anything built on it unaffected by this mechanic.

 

Additionally, standing in the vicinity of these items can increase the rate the player gains heat even higher than typical summer heat so you can't just leave items to simmer forever until the season ends. 

That sounds like... the best wildfire "reinvented" idea I have heard on this thread, as people here are mostly arguing about wildfires good/badness of it. Makes summer more unique than just winter and reverse with less depth, gives previously bad items good, and i can see this being like the obsidian tools in Shipwrecked that overheat the more you use them but they also damage you over time. seems to be OBJECTIVY better then wildfires, may be even better if it can affect structures and burn you when you use them, so things like flingos are still good Still making summer a threat but lowers the Bulls**t meter of summer drastically, as it affects your health whitch is fixable, instead of a visitor accidently burning down your base.

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, goatt said:

You got it right. And after the discussion with people in the forum, I also realize that wildfire or hound fire are generally not good for multiplayer for the same reason. Even though I didn't have the mental energy to expand the topic. But I agree, the current wildfire isn't fun as a survival mechanic. Because the "fun" comes from the aesthetics of my base, not the survival function of my base. When it doesn't hurt my survival ability and wellbeing, it hurts my emotion and my enjoyment of my base. When I want to have more "fun", I can't unless I turn off wildfire.

I feel like what's being overlooked is what you consider fun and what other people consider fun are different things you consider the possibility of base being damage unfun because your more interested in the design aspect of the game while others are more interested in the survival aspect. But making the solution to ignore people interested in the survival aspect of the game so as to appease those more interested in the design aspect is simply unfair to people more interested in survival. Having key resources in base destroyed by specific events may not impact your survival experience but it does for others.

 

1 hour ago, goatt said:

Now come back to game design. When a lot of people talking about fun or fair, they are talking like a diner, which I don't have problem with. But under this thread, I try to bring the cook's perspective, and say the punishment for (accidental) wildfire is too "salty", especially considering the fire is not caused by you and is caused when you are offline. As a cook, or a game designer, it is obvious to me that it's disproportional, regardless of whether the diners enjoyed it or not. That's also why the solution (food can be eaten despite salt level) and punishment (whether food is too salty) are two separate topics. IF it's ok to mix them up as one topic, then it's justified to give bees 100 attack damage, because any intermediate players should be able to dodge bee attacks. In other words, because there is solution, any harsh punishment is justified.

The issue here is your speaking from the perspective that everyone thinks it's too punishing but that's simply not true. In fact the player themselves are the ones amplifying the punishment themselves based on how they choose to build. No one is saying because there's a solution any harsh punishment is okay but that doesn't mean we should feel the game should outright stop it's own mechanics so as not to inconvenience the player. Let's take your bee example in a different direction what if instead someone decided to build their base in a killer bee field then got upset when 30 killer bees come out and sting them to death then a suggestion comes out that only the first 5 stings count but after that you stop taking damage for the rest of the day from bees. Your entire base isn't burning down from a single wildfire unless you build things extremely close and even then should you do so there's preventive measures that can be taken saying the game is unreasonable for a situation you the player put yourself in doesn't seem fair. I don't think creativity is a good excuse on that front either your not being creative if your changing game mechanics so you creativity lasts. I equally can't accept the argument that nothing bad should happen when your offline you might find things changing unfair but that's just how playing in a shared server works sometimes people screw up we can't just remove every mechanic that might impact our experience so the world is impacted as little as possible when we're not playing that's what private worlds are for.

1 hour ago, goatt said:

Your exact words can be used as a good reason why some mechanics in current game is unfriendly to multiplayer. Let me try to rephrase it for you "I mean, if you leave the server with newbies living in your base, anything can happen, not just forest fires. If you're playing with friends, anything can happen while you're away from your base. Strangers who stayed for a few minutes doing random things in the portal biome might have done anything including dumb stuff unrelated to wildfires and without intentionally trolling, and loosing a few trees and saplings in that biome isn't really a big deal anyway is sad."

You are accepting them because you are used to them, not because they are good. You are saying "this bad thing is not that bad because we are ok with that other bad thing which is similarly bad". But the truth is that they are both bad in your words. In summary, this line of logic is not very good.

I'm responding to this because I think this is a common argument.

But it really isn't some people play don't starve together for the group survival experience that's what most public servers are if you remove the possibility of anything bad happening you've changed the game into something else. It's not that we just "accept bad things happening" We enjoy the challenge of surviving despite that possibility. For example you don't go into a platformer expecting to lose but that doesn't mean you want to play one where there's no risk because overcoming those odds is what feels rewarding.

 

1 hour ago, goatt said:

I don't get this part, either. Using same logic, we should fix any bug, because fixing one bug won't fix the whole game. On the contrary, I think fixing one bug is absolutely important. Fixing wildfire can remove one (unfair) way your game can be ruined, and can improve gaming experience for 1/4 seasons.

No one is trying to stop base destruction entirely (or fixing entire game in metaphor). The suggestion only tries to improve a small aspect of it. So I think your dismissive argument makes no sense.

The difference is the basis of the argument keeps coming back to wildfires can destroy base when we're not around with unexperienced players but that applies to multiple mechanics so it doesn't hold up if we're allowing other methods of base destruction. This isn't two unrelated concepts like pathfinding vs attack canceling this is two directly related concepts that carry the same impact in the scenario purposed one that you feel is a problem due to how you engage with the game.

I've said in the past that people looking for a survival experience and people looking for a more relaxed base building experience can't really fully coexist and while I've wanted to believe that I was wrong. It's really topics like these that I feel just prove that right.

Figured I'd add the game gives many tools for people not looking for the survival experience with consequences be it roll backs, server locks, or the settings. If your not in control of the server you need to accept the settings and rules put forth by the host and that for better or worse that world will move on with or without you.

[Jandri]

53 minutes ago, goatt said:

You got it right. And after the discussion with people in the forum, I also realize that wildfire or hound fire are generally not good for multiplayer for the same reason. Even though I didn't have the mental energy to expand the topic. But I agree, the current wildfire isn't fun as a survival mechanic. Because the "fun" comes from the aesthetics of my base, not the survival function of my base. When it doesn't hurt my survival ability and wellbeing, it hurts my emotion and my enjoyment of my base. When I want to have more "fun", I can't unless I turn off wildfire.

One thing I didn't succeed to express or clarify about is the game design perspective. I just came up with a new metaphor. Imagine cook vs diner relationship. Every diner has their preferred salt level. Some people like salt more, some less. But as a cook, they don't adjust salt level for every individual customer (normally). Instead, they have a guideline for fair amount of salt maybe based on food volume. For example, 1 tsp per 1lb food, as a general guide.

Now come back to game design. When a lot of people talking about fun or fair, they are talking like a diner, which I don't have problem with. But under this thread, I try to bring the cook's perspective, and say the punishment for (accidental) wildfire is too "salty", especially considering the fire is not caused by you and is caused when you are offline. As a cook, or a game designer, it is obvious to me that it's disproportional, regardless of whether the diners enjoyed it or not. That's also why the solution (food can be eaten despite salt level) and punishment (whether food is too salty) are two separate topics. IF it's ok to mix them up as one topic, then it's justified to give bees 100 attack damage, because any intermediate players should be able to dodge bee attacks. In other words, because there is solution, any harsh punishment is justified.

@Mysterious box This is a new metaphor I came up with. Maybe you will find it helpful, I hope.

To use your metaphor: we are actually precisely telling how much salt we would like in DST. By the way, if the wildfires are removed, it will no longer be possible for us to have them in our games, just as it is no longer possible to have the disease mechanic. On the other hand, anyone could just remove the wildfires from their server if they don't want them.

I'm not opposed to some changes in the way wildfires happen, but I just don't see them as a bad mechanic that should be removed or would be disproportional, unfair or as absurd as bees dealing 100 damage.

53 minutes ago, goatt said:

Your exact words can be used as a good reason why some mechanics in current game is unfriendly to multiplayer. Let me try to rephrase it for you "I mean, if you leave the server with newbies living in your base, anything can happen, not just forest fires. If you're playing with friends, anything can happen while you're away from your base. Strangers who stayed for a few minutes doing random things in the portal biome might have done anything including dumb stuff unrelated to wildfires and without intentionally trolling, and loosing a few trees and saplings in that biome isn't really a big deal anyway is sad."

You are accepting them because you are used to them, not because they are good. You are saying "this bad thing is not that bad because we are ok with that other bad thing which is similarly bad". But the truth is that they are both bad in your words. In summary, this line of logic is not very good.

I'm responding to this because I think this is a common argument.

 

I don't get this part, either. Using same logic, we should fix any bug, because fixing one bug won't fix the whole game. On the contrary, I think fixing one bug is absolutely important. Fixing wildfire can remove one (unfair) way your game can be ruined, and can improve gaming experience for 1/4 seasons.

No one is trying to stop base destruction entirely (or fixing entire game in metaphor). The suggestion only tries to improve a small aspect of it. So I think your dismissive argument makes no sense.

I'm not sure I understand. Why would you consider having burned trees near the portal due to wildfires enough of a reason to remove them, when you already have burned trees there because some players spawned during the winter and set trees on fire with a torch for the heat?  It's not sad, it's just "meh", and there are surely other solutions if you don't like seeing trees burned in random places before completely removing the wildfires.

I don't think that a wildfire destroying a base is unfair, because there are ways to prevent it from happening, and if it happens anyway, you can always build another one, just like you would build an hostile flare or would wait until next winter if you weren't careful enough and something ate the deerclops's eyeball.

And, what do we mean by "bad". Anything that reduces your chances of survival could be called "bad", but it depends on what you mean by "bad". Having threats isn't "bad" if you mean the difficulty is "good", and I don't think the game should be easy, especially in the summer.

Wildfires also cause us to consider other strategies than megabasing in one single place, so I'm not saying what I'm saying just because I'm used to them. And if the people you are playing with are playing as well as you are, the wildfires are not less friendly to multiplayer than singleplayer. If you are playing with inexperienced players, then you will have to loose time helping them and fixing their mistakes with or without wildfires.

[goatt]

@Mysterious box yeah I give up. Sorry.

[Nnumber3]

We are not trying to REMOVE wildfires with NO compensation, we are trying to replace it with something BETTER, like are you actually going to tell me that something as good as @cropo idea, for something that randomly sets something on fire and you place a flingo and your done for every summer after, you can even reuse the same thermal as winter and just use a fridge to cool it down, or just repair it .like i would get it if you just deleted it and gave nothing in return. For example, Disease, it was a bad feature, with no counterplay, but when they removed it they added the new farm system. the reason i am comparing disease and wildfires are because they are both features that are natural and destroy things with hard counter play (with disease no counterplay) while wildfires HAVE counterplay but are just annoying. Actually, the whole SUMMER SEASON ( i should make a topic about that) needs to be "re-invented." if they replace wildfires with something and re-WORK summer. then how would you be upset?  as we alluniversally know that summer is the worse season. Sorry about the capitals I'm feeling @goatt pain right now.

[goatt]

4 hours ago, Jandri said:

To use your metaphor: we are actually precisely telling how much salt we would like in DST. By the way, if the wildfires are removed, it will no longer be possible for us to have them in our games, just as it is no longer possible to have the disease mechanic. On the other hand, anyone could just remove the wildfires from their server if they don't want them.

I'm not opposed to some changes in the way wildfires happen... I'm not sure I understand. Why would you consider having burned trees near the portal due to wildfires enough of a reason to remove them

Yeah, the original intention was to improve wildfire's punishment so that it's more fair. It wasn't to be removed. The "sapling and trees burnt at portal" scenarios are unaffected by this suggestion, if you imagine how it happens. The problem it tried to solve is imagine some internet stranger walked by your no-player base, and accidentally smoldered something which light your entire base up because you were offline. So I don't think we disagree here. I provided 3 different suggestions to see people's reaction. But what I got was not a quantitative disagreement, but a qualitative disagreement, I think, largely due to misunderstanding the post, or maybe I didn't clarify it enough.

[Mike23Ua]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the entire purpose of Scaled Flooring & Scaled Chests to be well uhm… “Fireproof”?

Sure maybe you don’t like that idea because it’s items locked exclusively behind fighting Dragonfly… but sadly: That’s the game DST is.

I never in my life thought I would EVER see puzzle mechanics & open world new survival content locked behind having to fight multiplayer designed raid bosses- but that is the point we are at with DST.

Dragonfly is no exception: The more players that are attacking her she will actually fall to the ground and “Faint” allowing for easy cheap free hits, and she drops extra scales- Features that are near Damn impossible to accomplish in solo unless your juiced up on Warly food dishes, using Winona catapults and playing as Wolfgang.

Should Dragonfly be a “skill check” for Surviving Summer? Well uhh no but, until Klei changes the game in drastic ways- most your best wildfire protection is locked behind fighting her.

Read the description for scaled flooring and scaled chests, there literal job is to be fireproof….

The only problem I have with that is it’s locked behind a boss I’ve only fought and successfully killed maybe 3 times, and it also limits creative freedom (such as using different types of ground turfs..) to using JUST the Scaled Flooring.

But, I guess that’s just the type of game DST is.

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, Nnumber3 said:

while wildfires HAVE counterplay but are just annoying.

The main conflict comes from the fact that this is a opinion that not everyone shares. I and many others enjoy wild fires in their current state(aside from the possibility of it happening offscreen but a fix was proposed for that) I also understand there are many who don't enjoy the current state of it as well however so long as the change is something that makes wildfires less impactful there's going to be a conflict because it being impactful is what's liked about it as much as it's what some hate about it.

1 hour ago, Nnumber3 said:

We are not trying to REMOVE wildfires with NO compensation, we are trying to replace it with something BETTER, like are you actually going to tell me that something as good as @cropo idea

My issue mainly comes from the fact anytime someone proposes something "better" it's usually just nerfing the mechanic and cropos idea is no different it becomes a no stakes mechanic with that change.

[goatt]

4 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the entire purpose of Scaled Flooring & Scaled Chests to be well uhm… “Fireproof”?

No, you are right. That sentence makes sense.

But that's not the point. That sentence was quite irrelevant. It was missing the point.

A: "How about we set freezing damage to 10hp per second?"

me: "no, it's too much"

A: "but isn't that the entire purpose of thermal stone to be well uhm... not freeze"?

me: "yeah, but that's not the point".

3 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

The main conflict comes from the fact that this is a opinion that not everyone shares. I and many others enjoy wild fires in their current state(aside from the possibility of it happening offscreen but a fix was proposed for that)

Therefore, the chef vs diner metaphor. I was not comparing my preference to yours as one diner to another. I was asking you to be a chef, and asking you to think about how to create a good salt level for everyone. You have so far yet attempted to be chef. You always speak as a diner, and assume I'm also a diner. When you start to speak like a chef, then you are qualified to criticize my salt level, and your criticism would be interesting enough for other chef to consider.

[Nnumber3]

25 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the entire purpose of Scaled Flooring & Scaled Chests to be well uhm… “Fireproof”?

Sure maybe you don’t like that idea because it’s items locked exclusively behind fighting Dragonfly… but sadly: That’s the game DST is.

I never in my life thought I would EVER see puzzle mechanics & open world new survival content locked behind having to fight multiplayer designed raid bosses- but that is the point we are at with DST.

Dragonfly is no exception: The more players that are attacking her she will actually fall to the ground and “Faint” allowing for easy cheap free hits, and she drops extra scales- Features that are near Damn impossible to accomplish in solo unless your juiced up on Warly food dishes, using Winona catapults and playing as Wolfgang.

Should Dragonfly be a “skill check” for Surviving Summer? Well uhh no but, until Klei changes the game in drastic ways- most your best wildfire protection is locked behind fighting her.

Read the description for scaled flooring and scaled chests, there literal job is to be fireproof….

The only problem I have with that is it’s locked behind a boss I’ve only fought and successfully killed maybe 3 times, and it also limits creative freedom (such as using different types of ground turfs..) to using JUST the Scaled Flooring.

But, I guess that’s just the type of game DST is.

HA HA HA HA HA what a funny joke! 

Wait, is that not a joke?

ms mike women, did you go insane in real life? I think that's 1 of the WORSE things I have ever heard! killing DF HINDERS you in this situation. if you kill DF once, you get 1 scale, and instead of making the furnace (a good item for winter but hurts you in summer) you make SIX pieces of turf, SIX. if you have TWO scales, and you make the furnace and 6 turf, or 12 turf and no furnace, do you know how little 6 turf does? and the scaled chest is not better, you have 12 slots, fit ALL of you stuff in 12 slots, TRY. the scalemail also is bad as you know, fire. i thought you knew better in your high message reply's

[Popian]

8 hours ago, Jandri said:

Being able to stop a fire from spreading just by walking away from it seems a little weird to me

I think this is a special property of evergreens. I haven't extensively tested other things but it looks like they continue burning a while before getting unloaded and when a player returns.

35 minutes ago, Nnumber3 said:

Disease, it was a bad feature, with no counterplay,

The counterplay is to transplant as many plants as you are willing to maintain, quick grow the resources en masse to use later, rely on (endless) regrowth to replace the ones you lose, or use other sources for the resource you're looking for.

50 minutes ago, Nnumber3 said:

Actually, the whole SUMMER SEASON ( i should make a topic about that) needs to be "re-invented."

Honestly, this seems to be a problem with DST being held back by its single player legacy, and it looks like they don't want to do anything too intrusive unless there's a good reason for it (Whirly Fan, Dragonfly replaced with Antlion as summer boss so inexperienced players don't get a base completely burned).