DST and Returning to its Roots

[cybers2001]

For many years now, DST has been known as that game that kills you a hundred different ways, yet rarely a player with at least a hundred hours would add starvation to that list. Though the choice of the name itself, "Don't Starve," wasn't arbitrary: beta testers of early versions of the game did often die of hunger. Over many iterations, food just became more and more trivial. DS has its reasons (*cough* dlcs), but for DST, I would probably trace it back to one pivotal moment: The introduction of bundling wraps. Yes, this is a thinly-veiled "bundling wrap is OP" thread, but I also plan to take it further than that. Let me explain...

I like to think of bundling wraps as the item nobody asked for, but can not live without. When it was introduced, it was a bit of a head-scratcher for me, but I could presume some valid reasons for it. Especially in a multiplayer environment, where you might build your own hermit base, stock it full of food, then leave and come back a few hours later to fridges full of rot. Add to that the compounding need for various resources with more players and a tool that improves storage and transport starts to make sense. (Then it gets ported over to DS, and I am once again confused, but that's beside the point). Regardless of its intent, though, bunding wraps are highly abusable. It's not at all uncommon for players to amass ingredients in bundling wraps, then batch cook stacks of food, just to throw it into another bundling wrap. Ice boxes are for ice and thermal stones. Salt boxes are the place you stash ingredients while you're batch cooking. Also, if you think power creep is a problem, and you hate how Warly is a hot-swap character, well, you can thank bundling wraps for that. Imagine how less abusable spicy volt-goat chaude-froid would be if it only kept for 15 days in an ice box.

Now, don't get me wrong. As much as I don't like it, completely removing bundling wraps would totally devastate my long-running world. It's become an essential part of the game, and I'm okay with that. While I do think long-term it would be healthier to permit some degree of spoilage in bundling wraps, for now, I would just propose we get some shiny new alternatives instead. For example, maybe Wagstaff can gift players a crafting ingredient that can be used to create something like a "Time-Freezing box." It would be a stationary structure, with a very small inventory space (maybe even just 1 slot), where you can place a stack of anything perishable, food, hambats, small animals, etc, and it will freeze its spoilage. The benefit here is the convenience. I don't know about you, but I hate using bundling wraps. It's just so tedious. If I want a single item from a wrap, I have to:

1. Clear inventory space
2. Unwrap the bundle
3. Pick everything up off the floor
4. Pull from the stack I want
5. Craft a rope
6. Craft a new bundle wrap
7. Activate the bundle wrap
8. Move the stacks back to the wrap

It takes maybe 10-15 seconds, but over a hundred times or so, it adds up. With a time-freezing box, its just as simple as taking an item from a chest. By the way, don't you just love all the varieties of birds in this game? Wouldn't you just love to put them all in cages without them starving? Well, you could just put them in time-freezing boxes while you're away from your base.

Anyway, at this point you're probably wondering if this post is really about returning to Don't Starve's roots, and not just a means to shill a single idea, and, well, I can't really argue with that, BUT, I think an important first step to considering a food overhaul in the game (of which I would love to discuss further) is to resolve the core issue, which is that hoarding is too easy. Klei, please make us stop putting foods in wraps, and back in boxes where they belong.

[lenship2]

4 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

For example, maybe Wagstaff can gift players a crafting ingredient that can be used to create something like a "Time-Freezing box." It would be a stationary structure, with a very small inventory space (maybe even just 1 slot), where you can place a stack of anything perishable, food, hambats, small animals, etc, and it will freeze its spoilage.

if only there was a popular stationary structure that cost 1 gear, cutstone, and gold with 9 inventory slots that you could place nearly any perishable item into halve its spoilage

[cybers2001]

3 minutes ago, lenship2 said:

if only there was a popular stationary structure that cost 1 gear, cutstone, and gold with 9 inventory slots that you could place nearly any perishable item into halve its spoilage

By gods, you're right! All these scrubs killing Bee Queen and using up precious honeycomb to make wax paper must not know about ice boxes!

[Brago-sama]

2 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

By gods, you're right! All these scrubs killing Bee Queen and using up precious honeycomb to make wax paper must not know about ice boxes!

Um ACSHULLY i think you meant to say salt box

Spoiler

 

[lenship2]

1 minute ago, cybers2001 said:

By gods, you're right! All these scrubs killing Bee Queen and using up precious honeycomb to make wax paper must not know about ice boxes!

i literally dont use bundle wrap outside of wagstaff quests and megabasing, it's just never worth it to bundle stuff imo when saltbox + icebox manages to keep all my foods fresh enough to eat in 99% of situations

[cybers2001]

18 minutes ago, Brago-sama said:

Um ACSHULLY i think you meant to say salt box

  Hide contents

 

You don't make a salt box with a gear, gold, and cut stone, silly.

[Mike23Ua]

I’ve actually started to take a fine liking to the insulated backpack, it’s like a fridge+backpack at the same time.. sure I guess it means having to fight a boss to get it, but if you’ve NEVER been able to kill Bee Queen you don’t have bundling wraps, and if you don’t have Bundling Wraps.. a walking Icebox is the next best thing.

Speaking of.. didn’t WX78 become that in their Rework?

[lenship2]

1 minute ago, Mike23Ua said:

Speaking of.. didn’t WX78 become that in their Rework?

iirc wx's personal inventory will have foods spoil 25% slower if they have a refrigeration circuit installed, and 25% faster if they have the thermal circuit

[Maxil20]

We are never going to escape nerf bundle wrap threads are we

I don't get why so many people despise bundle wraps. Yes, I know it goes against the design philosophy of the game, that was said a decade ago, before any of the major mechanics (let alone DLC's) were fleshed out. It's okay for things to change as the game evolves when it could lead to more unique interactions. Bundle wraps are one of those examples.
 

• The problem with food spoilage lategame is that players are simply going to amass the food that spoils the slowest and only use said options. The best example of this is honey. Honey has an incredible 40 day spoilage, high enough that if you had enough beeboxes, you could harvest during the winter and be set for food until the next winter if you kept it in an icebox, even in RoG. Jerky/Bacon and eggs were good intermediate options that lasted 20 days and were also relatively simple to stockpile. Any other food source was simply left to rot (quite literally) because the shorter spoilage meant you needed to restock more often, which meant more trips to base gathering/cooking the mats, and that gets annoying fast.
• Players are still required to get the blueprint for bundle wraps, which either requires killing bee queen, one of the most annoying bosses in the game solo, or getting a 3-4% roll from klaus. Even then, only one person would have the blueprint, and it would take a long while to get everyone on a server amassed with them.
• Players still need to get all the wax paper for bundle wraps. If you are trying to make a storage system to store food, you are going to go through a Lot of bundles. While wax paper can be reliably farmed from klaus/bee queen, it can still be quite a bit of a gate in a multiplayer setting.
• Warly's dishes being reliant on bundles is okay, as it moreso showcases why he needs perks that benefit himself. Even simple perks such as his dish buffs lasting longer for him specifically or getting extra ingredients would go a long way on helping him feel better to play aside from the fact he's the only one who can make these dishes. 
• You literally described one of the main downsides of bundle wraps:

  54 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

  It's just so tedious. If I want a single item from a wrap, I have to:

  1. Clear inventory space
  2. Unwrap the bundle
  3. Pick everything up off the floor
  4. Pull from the stack I want
  5. Craft a rope
  6. Craft a new bundle wrap
  7. Activate the bundle wrap
  8. Move the stacks back to the wrap

  It takes maybe 10-15 seconds, but over a hundred times or so, it adds up.

  Because of this, I usually don't like doing the "lunchbox" strat of keeping a bunch of food on me in a bundle wrap, especially because a lot of the dishes I would use for this usually spoil in around 10 days or less. It's simply more practical for me to return to base and cook food that I might need and/or stockpile foods that already last a long time.
  
  I get bundle wraps are a massive shift in the gameplay from DS, and I feel that's okay. The game has evolved a lot over the years (from being a game that you could realistically "survive" in after 100 days elapse to a world with a multitude of things to do that could realistically take a new player thousands of days), and bundles are an example of a change that is overall positive. 

[Mike23Ua]

Since I’ve never had bundling wraps I must ask a dumb question about them, do they function in the same way that Gift Wraps from the WintersFeast holiday event do?

(meaning you can store ANYTHING in them not just food stuffs)

This is a huge game changer, I can carry around Hambats keeping them fresh, I can carry 12 Darkswords in just 3 inventory slots..

I don’t know if bundling wraps are restricted to just Food Stuffs… but I do know that Gift Wraps are as easy to get as having at least ONE world that has been through WintersFeast at least once in its existence and your character has learned the Gift Wrap Recipe during this time.

[lenship2]

1 minute ago, Mike23Ua said:

Since I’ve never had bundling wraps I must ask a dumb question about them, do they function in the same way that Gift Wraps from the WintersFeast holiday event do?

yes mike, literally the only difference is that bundle wraps also drop wax paper once unwrapped

[Maxil20]

1 minute ago, Mike23Ua said:

Since I’ve never had bundling wraps I must ask a dumb question about them, do they function in the same way that Gift Wraps from the WintersFeast holiday event do?

(meaning you can store ANYTHING in them not just food stuffs)

Yes, you can store anything in them. Do note though that unbundling the wrap does result in the bundle wrap turning into wax paper every time you do this, so you will need to recraft the wrap every time you do this. It's meant to allow you to carry more with you, with the main perk of halting food spoilage overshadowing that.

[MondayNight]

So... your "solution" for perceived Bundle Wrap "OP issue" is... another type of stationary "bundle wrap" mechanic on top?

Why?

Also, from DST's bulk player-base, what percentage do you believe will actually end up acquiring, using "and abusing" Bundle Wraps? Accent on acquiring.

[Ridley]

22 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

Though the choice of the name itself, "Don't Starve," wasn't arbitrary: beta testers of early versions of the game did often die of hunger. Over many iterations, food just became more and more trivial.

I'm pretty sure starvation was never meant to be the number one killer of players or anywhere near the top of the list. Rather, "Don't Starve" is the guiding principle all the survivors cling to and agree on. They prioritize their own survival over all else. It is why the benevolent Wes and anxious scientist Wilson will kill an entire village of sentient friendly pigs.

I'd like to think Maxwell adopted a similar, "Do whatever it takes to survive" mentality as a failing magician before eventually sitting on the Nightmare Throne. Charlie's play asserts that Maxwell went on to abduct "fools" to cure his "boredom". We don't know his motives yet, but could it be that a guilty Maxwell wanted to force others to adopt his mentality so he can feel like it's not his fault his life fell apart, it's just the way all people are forced to be?

 

As for bundling wraps and spoiling, food is always abundant if you know what you are doing, so I think some convenience for players who can defeat a powerful raid boss isn't that crazy. Not being able to preserve a few important farm seeds would shackle me to repeatedly farming plants like potatoes, which is not what I want to be doing with my time.

[cybers2001]

37 minutes ago, Maxil20 said:

• The problem with food spoilage lategame is that players are simply going to amass the food that spoils the slowest and only use said options. The best example of this is honey. Honey has an incredible 40 day spoilage, high enough that if you had enough beeboxes, you could harvest during the winter and be set for food until the next winter if you kept it in an icebox, even in RoG. Jerky/Bacon and eggs were good intermediate options that lasted 20 days and were also relatively simple to stockpile. Any other food source was simply left to rot (quite literally) because the shorter spoilage meant you needed to restock more often, which meant more trips to base gathering/cooking the mats, and that gets annoying fast.

Well, I'm glad you mention that. I do agree food diversity was an issue since way before bundling wraps existed, and even in the presence of more accessible ingredients, the recipes that persist are still the ones with the slowest spoilage. I'd like to investigate viability of different recipes, as well as alternate solutions to food longevity in follow-up conversations, but the latter is still a moot point as long as bundle-wraps are meta.

 

37 minutes ago, Maxil20 said:

• Players are still required to get the blueprint for bundle wraps, which either requires killing bee queen, one of the most annoying bosses in the game solo, or getting a 3-4% roll from klaus. Even then, only one person would have the blueprint, and it would take a long while to get everyone on a server amassed with them.

Only one person really needs the recipe. In terms of a "battle lunchbox," one person can bring battle foods for a whole group. In terms of long-term storage, one person just has to juggle the contents of an icebox with bundle wraps.

37 minutes ago, Maxil20 said:

• Players still need to get all the wax paper for bundle wraps. If you are trying to make a storage system to store food, you are going to go through a Lot of bundles. While wax paper can be reliably farmed from klaus/bee queen, it can still be quite a bit of a gate in a multiplayer setting.

I only need about 3 bundle wraps to never worry about food. More than that is a QoL bonus.

37 minutes ago, Maxil20 said:

• Warly's dishes being reliant on bundles is okay, as it moreso showcases why he needs perks that benefit himself. Even simple perks such as his dish buffs lasting longer for him specifically or getting extra ingredients would go a long way on helping him feel better to play aside from the fact he's the only one who can make these dishes. 

Warly fills the fantasy of a chef that lives with a group of mouths to feed. That means spending a lot of time in the kitchen. I don't think he needs buffs if he's able to chill at the base and feel useful.

37 minutes ago, Maxil20 said:

• I get bundle wraps are a massive shift in the gameplay from DS, and I feel that's okay. The game has evolved a lot over the years (from being a game that you could realistically "survive" in after 100 days elapse to a world with a multitude of things to do that could realistically take a new player thousands of days), and bundles are an example of a change that is overall positive. 

I disagree. I always liked the delicate balancing act of food in DS. Trying to be creative with the ingredients you have on-hand to get the most out of them before they rot. No reason to do that, though, if I always have fat stacks of ham and honey.

[Jakepeng99]

2 hours ago, cybers2001 said:

For example, maybe Wagstaff can gift players a crafting ingredient that can be used to create something like a "Time-Freezing box." It would be a stationary structure, with a very small inventory space (maybe even just 1 slot), where you can place a stack of anything perishable, food, hambats, small animals, etc, and it will freeze its spoilage.

When i was reading this post i was thinking of an idea like this, and i read on and found it. I agree with this idea.

[cybers2001]

41 minutes ago, MostMerryTomcat said:

So... your "solution" for perceived Bundle Wrap "OP issue" is... another type of stationary "bundle wrap" mechanic on top?

Why?

Well, like I said, transitioning players is an iterative process. You won’t win anybody over just saying “X is op pls remove it.” Ask the celestial portal complainers how that’s working out.

41 minutes ago, MostMerryTomcat said:

Also, from DST's bulk player-base, what percentage do you believe will actually end up acquiring, using "and abusing" Bundle Wraps? Accent on acquiring.

So what if I introduce a walking stick that gives players 500% movement speed and can walk on water? We could make it hard to get, like a 1% drop from CC (we can even call it the “moonwalking stick”). Would you say it’s balanced because most players would never get it?

[Jakepeng99]

1 hour ago, lenship2 said:

if only there was a popular stationary structure that cost 1 gear, cutstone, and gold with 9 inventory slots that you could place nearly any perishable item into halve its spoilage

Uhhhh i think you miscalculated. 50% is not near infinite. Leaving a stack of perogies in a time stop box would be cool.

[ALCRD]

I play on Huge worlds most of the time so when i go on long expeditions especially in caves everything in my Ice/Salt boxes usually becomes rot by the time i return.

So it's nice to have some spare healing and filling food bundled either with you or at your base as emergency reserve.

[abrocator]

Why are so many people here so hilariously literal?

• “Don't Starve“: Well actually if you have 30+ hours in the game you will never starve...
• “Uncompromising wilderness survival game”: Well actually if you have experienced everything in this knowledge-based game then you will find that the game is actuauaually quite compromising hehe...

Remember (or watch the documentary) the Beta of the game when food didn't even have spoilage? Yeah, you didn't even need bundling wrap... because everything was de facto bundled (omg). And yet the game was called Don't Starve? How dare they. Who do I contact to sue Klei 2012/2013.

[00petar00]

Like others have stated food is abundant and bundling wrap is a fitting reward for killing Bee Queen, there's nothing overpowered about it and the only thing that can be considered strong is bundling Warly's dishes but more often you have already killed all the bosses by the time you do this.

Bundling wraps offer convenience to the players that want to invest time into obtaining the blueprint, there is no chance of me starving without using them.

It just takes one person to start a trend on how overpowered something is and we get a new thread every month about someone wanting nerf for said item.

[cybers2001]

37 minutes ago, abrocator said:

Why are so many people here so hilariously literal?

• “Don't Starve“: Well actually if you have 30+ hours in the game you will never starve...
• “Uncompromising wilderness survival game”: Well actually if you have experienced everything in this knowledge-based game then you will find that the game is actuauaually quite compromising hehe...

Remember (or watch the documentary) the Beta of the game when food didn't even have spoilage? Yeah, you didn't even need bundling wrap... because everything was de facto bundled (omg). And yet the game was called Don't Starve? How dare they. Who do I contact to sue Klei 2012/2013.

Who’s the hilariously literal one, exactly? But of an overreaction to my post there, pal

29 minutes ago, 00petar00 said:

It just takes one person to start a trend on how overpowered something is and we get a new thread every month about someone wanting nerf for said item.

Who is this you speak of? I haven’t seen other such posts, though I personally have called op on bundling wraps for at least most of this year so…

[Mike23Ua]

I don’t want to be the elephant in the room, but if a games difficulty is based on how easy/hard it is to well uhh “Starve” then what does that really say about the rest of the game?

Before we point fingers at Nerfing food spoiling prevention items, we should first point fingers at some more immediate issues.

Such as: how good healing is from eating foods when the game quite literally has a Survival Tab dedicated entirely to healing items.

And: How good armor is at keeping you alive in this game.

I know that Nerfs to football helmets, marble armors & food healing may not be something people want to discuss, but maybe it’s something we should think about?

[abrocator]

3 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

Who’s the hilariously literal one, exactly? But of an overreaction to my post there, pal

“But” is a connective. The meaning of this paragraph is literally indecipherable.

3 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

I know that Nerfs to football helmets, marble armors & food healing may not be something people want to discuss, but maybe it’s something we should think about?

All of that is off topic.

[cybers2001]

10 minutes ago, abrocator said:

“But” is a connective. The meaning of this paragraph is literally indecipherable.

All of that is off topic.

A sensible person would figure it’s just a misstyping of “Bit.” Something something Occam’s razor. But sure, invalidate the whole thing instead.

12 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

I don’t want to be the elephant in the room, but if a games difficulty is based on how easy/hard it is to well uhh “Starve” then what does that really say about the rest of the game?

I’m not even asking for it to be the center of conflict in the game. I just want it to be a more ever-present game loop.