My Beta feedback after 30+ Hours of gameplay

[GLERMZ]

Howdy Klei Devs

This beta as been really fun so far and there are a lot of positives but it wouldn't be a beta if it was perfect on the first go.
Let's start with the good:

- Bosses coming back to life posessed by the moon gesalts is a brilliant idea and I can't wait to see how far this will go. On top of that you made them WORTHY, by giving them some really awesome items.
- Bearger Bin - I don't know who had this idea but praise that individual!! Such an awesome game changer, it has also a gorgeous artwork. Simply kudos!!
- Howlitzer - Even if i will not use it a lot its finally AMAZING to see a worthy ranged weapon. Specially for multiplayer, for those who have more trouble fighting and learning patterns, they will still feel usefull by using this. It also opens some really interesting DPS opportunities for the more veteran players. The fact that it uses hounds teeth is also a big plus. All in all great to see. Just hoping Walter will get the justice he always deserved, when his talent tree arrives
- Hail - Even if i think there is a lot to be tweaked about this, i'm still putting it on the positive because i really enjoy the idea, specially because its not base destructive, it doesnt cluter the ground with trash that needs to be constantly picked, and it actually provides a bit of a threat to the player, specially when doing bosses. It's not something ultra hard, its just an earthquake above, but its fitting. It sure made me use the Umbralla for the first time when outside of the caves. It's also visually stunning even if i think it needs some optimization for medium/low setups. Will talk about it more on the Suggestions part of this post.
- Sawmill - I was totally not expecting for something like this to ever be implemented, but obviously i'm all in for it. I really hope we will see more decorations popping from the sawmill, and  future skins, hopefully rock/marble versions of them.
- ARK Container - Such an awesome little idea that will finally make use go to the archives again. It's just so fitting too! I really hope we will have even more reasons to go the archives in the future. (Any chance we can finally have the archives biome in HD ? )
- Hunt Visuals - I really love the new paws tracks when doing a hunt. I would really love for this to be expanded to all the other hunts and future ones.
- Wagstaff new Armor - I'm putting this on the positive side because i really enjoy the idea of both the chest and head piece but there is a lot of tweaks needed to be made in my opinion so i will tak about it further down the post.

The Bad:
- New Warg - Don't get me wrong, i love the Undead Warg itself, but unfortunetely suffers from the same problem as the previous Warg, that was never a cool mini boss to fight but instead always a drag, therefore always being cheesable or just tankable. I think its good to remember that hounds are one, if not the fastest mobs on the game. A Warg being able to constantly call hounds that also attack very fast, makes it incredible hard for you to deal with the hounds while trying to kite and at the same time having window to damage the Warg. Yes we can deal with the Warg, i mean the community will always find a way to kill something the Devs put onto us, but just because we find a way doesn't mean that its not possible to make a fight more fair for 1vs1 encounters and for people that actually do love kitting pattern in this game. The mix of moronic AI of the hounds, with the constant revival of them, with the new Breath of the Warg makes it for very uninteresting fight as it stands right now.
My suggestion would be to up the damage of the bite of the Warg, give the Warg more health, but make it so in his UNDEAD FORM he takes a lot more time to call in hounds, giving you more window to actually fight the WARG without cheasing it by baiting hounds, or by force only his breath, but to actually fight the WARG.
- Deerclops - I love the concept but i think its just to easy and i dont think it's the firestaff that is the problem but maybe the fact that it goes instantly into stun phase after it. I think it would be cooler that after burning the Ice, deerclops doesnt get stuned instantly, but the freezing puddle around disapears for a while and she goes into melee attack that you need to dodge and then hit on deerclops back to get it stuned. This would make the fight more interesting than what it currently is (dodge the circle, fire staff, and instantly F while stunned) Just an idea.
- Wagstaff structures - I really enjoy the idea, but as it is right now is boring. Wagstaff can appear and you folllow his direction just to discover that afterall the structures werent even in the way he was running and are literally in the other side of the map. This makes it for boring exploration in late game that serves barely any purpose. I don't mind having to travel farway for something, but its the not having a clue where thw thing is, that makes it for tedious gameplay. Would be nice to have an item that would allow you to know if you getting near or not. Maybe even his potato hat. As it stands i think its not good, and taking in consideration we will have to find a lot of them before we get all of the blueprients makes this an even worse feeling.
- Wagstaff Blueprints - After the awesome changes done to Deserhat and other pointlessly hard to obtain blueprints, do we really need yet another 3 like this? 20% chance on each, makes it really bad if you are a) out of luck and b) if you play with other people. At the very least bump drop chance a lot more, seems awfully low, on an item that will already cost a Celestial champion shard per craft.
- Wagstaff Scrap - I would prefer he would drop a lot more scrap, but just the SCRAP, than we then have to use gears and wires to transform to the scrap to what it is now. This would mean that we would have access to more SCRAP as long as we have gears and wires to use, which makes them play a bigger role since they are only renewable via Fuelweaver/Ruins.
- Crystalyzer - I was going to speak about this in detail but @splorange already made an excellent post about the same exact concerns i have with this item, so here

Suggestions
- Wagstaff ARK and Boss Drops- Right now this is one of the most annoying parts of the update, specially if playing with friends. The fact that we are locked one year to be able to get ONE item i don't think its a good design. It's not good for a solo player, its even worse the more people you play with. In the DEV stream you showed individual drops for each of the 3 new bosses and i think this should be the answer, we still have to kill the 3 bosses if we want each on of the items but we get fo farm them as much as we want, when we want, without being time gated, which is never fun. And Wagstaff gives a Spark Container after each of those bosses death instead of forcing us to go kill the other 2. Also opens some really interesting designs for those who would love to use that spark container with the ARK inside it, looks awesome So it general:
Kill Undead Boss -> Get Speical Drop + Wagstaff appears to drop a container
- Bearger- Please add bearger to the hostile flare, heck if you want even a different one that would be more fifting, instead of glommer goop, to call bearger we craft a triple flare with honey. But with this new change, and specially for long term worlds i think its mandatory to have the same mechanics from the goop flare to be applied to bearger too, during autumn.
- New Frogs - I really like this idea but would love to see more to it. Since each frog will now hit harder and have more health, doesnt seem like just an extra frog leg is enough. What about a 25% chance of them dropping a charged glass? The new Hail has them ,the frogs are part of the Hail during spring, so it would be nice if they were a fussion of both. That charged glass can be used for future celestial champions or lunar bombs and anything being added in the future. Would be a nice QoL.
- Hail - Currently Hail is messing up with the Rain cycles and instantly stops them. I think if it's rainning, and hail starts, it should still continue to rain, no matter the season. Also currently if its rainning, hail starts, once it stops, it will also stop the rain, i don't think its intended, but if it is i would suggest not to work in this way. Hail should be an addition not a replacement. Also, as many already stated, hail currently affects all creatures, unecessarly killing critters and creatures that long established base builders take sometimes hundreads and hundreds of days to set up. I don't think this would break any game balance whatsoever and would be a very good change for people that stick around and take pride in their builds.
- Blue Fire Staff - The blue fire is an excelent idea that i hope you expand in the future. Would be nice to have a fire staff that doesnt spread burning fire but applies the same debuff. Will open a lot of potential awesome ways to deal with creatures, specially when in the presence of a lot of them.
- Wagstaff new Armor - As it currently stays, and knowing that you did this more for bosses than creatures, i still think it takes way too long to reach the full level. After a lot of testing i think cutting to half the time would be really good. As it stands, if you are tanking you can do a total of 4,000 damage as a regular character without buffs, before you reach the max level. I think that is way too much, even if we consider kitting, lets say 2k damage before we have the helm and chest at max level seems way too long for a buff.
I think the chest is already even if i would have enjoyed it to still have the 10 planar defense as-well, but i can understand the trade off with the 85% damage reduction.
As for the helm, currently the buff is very very low to be worth it, specially when taking in consideration how intrusive the UI is, both the crossair and the lock system. I know you still working on the UI so i will wait for updates on it before getting further with suggestions.

Keep up the amazing work,

Best Regards,

Glermz
 

[Mr Giggio]

38 minutes ago, GLERMZ said:

Blue Fire Staff - The blue fire is an excelent idea that i hope you expand in the future. Would be nice to have a fire staff that doesnt spread burning fire but applies the same debuff. Will open a lot of potential awesome ways to deal with creatures, specially when in the presence of a lot of them.

Oh boy yes

+1 

I'm all about a good bad status to crowd control that would be super cool

[Valase]

I agree with about everything you said.

1 hour ago, GLERMZ said:

- Bearger Bin - I don't know who had this idea but praise that individual!! Such an awesome game changer, it has also a gorgeous artwork. Simply kudos!!

I used my first ark on this one to run some tests(I still haven't finished) of its efficiency vs. Bundle wrap, and from what I gathered, hunger wise, they both are good in preserving the freshness, but the bearger bin is way more pratical and less dangerous(as there is no chance that a mob will eat the food out of it, but still be careful of monkeys, as they can steal the entire item), said that, if you want to keep any "special food" (Warly's cold, hot and light dish)in there, it is better to use both things (AKA keep it bundled until you need it for the season, them unbundle and keep it on the bin, after the season ends, bundle back). While Warly seasoned foods are better to keep on the bin(if they are corn cake, that is).

My current bin has Meaty stew, chilli and garlic corn cakes, dragon salad, that aspargus drink and a glowberry mousse, as I still have not finished the test. And for sanity food, it is better to keep on the bundles, as you are less likely to eat it every day, on most cases eat them in bulk and they are worthless once they are yellow.

But in conclusion, If they want it to be a complete upgrade over using bundle wraps, they still need to buff it a little bit. Otherwise, it still is an upgrade on your everyday meal!

And obviously this is ignoring the three cut grass tax. So if you aim to eat less hunger intensive meals for their other stats, the bearger bin is the absolute best.

[Castiliano]

I really hope we can use ARK Container more often. Something like Wanda's "Clockmaker's Tools" or, as a friend suggested, have it rechargeable in the archives!

They could take advantage of this lunar-themed update to apply improvements to the excessive grinding of the lunar storm (to summon the Celestial Champion). So boring to do that three times, every time.

[chaosmonkey]

2 hours ago, GLERMZ said:

Wagstaff new Armor - As it currently stays, and knowing that you did this more for bosses than creatures, i still think it takes way too long to reach the full level. After a lot of testing i think cutting to half the time would be really good. As it stands, if you are tanking you can do a total of 4,000 damage as a regular character without buffs, before you reach the max level. I think that is way too much, even if we consider kitting, lets say 2k damage before we have the helm and chest at max level seems way too long for a buff.

There's two changes to the armor that I think would make it feel a lot better

1. Make it so that attacking the target increases the buff more quickly. It would be thematically on point for the armor to "figure out" the weakness faster if you're beating up the target.

2. Give some grace period when leaving the target range before resetting the buff. With some bosses, it's common to leave that target range during combat. Thematically, I don't understand why moving more than a couple tiles from the target would make the armor derp out, but maybe Wagstaff just isn't that good of an engineer. 

[Jakepeng99]

They should also make the wagstaff headpiece grant planar damage it is currently the hardest armour to obtain, is post riff, and yet it is bad with everything related to the post riff content and planar.

I would also like the sawhorse to be way more accessable and not super hidden for something as trivial and as simple as wooden furniture.

[Archswifter]

I always wanted more applicable uses for endothermic fire in general, seeing the Varg using it along with use of the regular fire staff on Clops also makes me hopeful we'll be seeing more of it in general either in the form of items or naturally in the world. Or maybe even from someone's eventual skill tree...

[GLERMZ]

I forgot to add one QoL update:

Klei keeps giving us decorations but we still can't put flowers inside vases without them spoiling. Please allow us to have non perishable flowers otherwise its pretty pointless to decorate with them since they look horrible when dead.
Also maybe time to bring back imortal birds ? I think the sleep is fine, but having birds dying is pointless in terms of game balance, even more now with the new farming system. Having birds being immortal again would allow us to showcase different birds, and those yet to come, in their different bird cages as-well.

[chirsg]

6 minutes ago, GLERMZ said:

I forgot to add one QoL update:

Klei keeps giving us decorations but we still can't put flowers inside vases without them spoiling. Please allow us to have non perishable flowers otherwise its pretty pointless to decorate with them since they look horrible when dead.
Also maybe time to bring back imortal birds ? I think the sleep is fine, but having birds dying is pointless in terms of game balance, even more now with the new farming system. Having birds being immortal again would allow us to showcase different birds, and those yet to come, in their different bird cages as-well.

I'll add the bird part to my signature

 

We should be able to feed the fruitfly fruit to bird to make bird immortal. That's my story and I'm sticking with it. 

[dois raios]

1 minute ago, GLERMZ said:

Also maybe time to bring back imortal birds ?

Nah, if you dont feed bird, it will starve.

I am not against having them as decorations, but I don't want a mechanic to be gone because of this reason.

[GLERMZ]

1 minute ago, dois raios said:

Nah, if you dont feed bird, it will starve.

I am not against having them as decorations, but I don't want a mechanic to be gone because of this reason.

What does this mechanic do to you ? It was not a mechanic in DS, it was not a mechanic at the start of DST. Why does a bird dying bring wahtsoever when its so easy to catch one? All it did was make it pointless to have more than one birdcage.

[Jakepeng99]

19 minutes ago, GLERMZ said:

I forgot to add one QoL update:

Klei keeps giving us decorations but we still can't put flowers inside vases without them spoiling. Please allow us to have non perishable flowers otherwise its pretty pointless to decorate with them since they look horrible when dead.
Also maybe time to bring back imortal birds ? I think the sleep is fine, but having birds dying is pointless in terms of game balance, even more now with the new farming system. Having birds being immortal again would allow us to showcase different birds, and those yet to come, in their different bird cages as-well.

Yeah birds dying is generally pointless. It is easy to fix with a random seed or morsel, immortal birds would be cool.

[dois raios]

Just now, GLERMZ said:

What does this mechanic do to you ? It was not a mechanic in DS, it was not a mechanic at the start of DST. Why does a bird dying bring wahtsoever when its so easy to catch one? All it did was make it pointless to have more than one birdcage.

It does nothing to me, I just like it by what it is.

I don't have a reason to like it. I just like it, and I wont be mad or something if birds become immortal again. As I said, I am not agaisnt using them as decoration.

[HeatAndRun]

7 hours ago, GLERMZ said:

We still have to kill the 3 bosses if we want each on of the items but we get fo farm them as much as we want, when we want, without being time gated, which is never fun.
 

I sincerely agree with you. Recent rift contents ask too much unnecessary waiting to players. There should be more ways to deal with it.

[HowlVoid]

4 hours ago, GLERMZ said:

What does this mechanic do to you ? It was not a mechanic in DS, it was not a mechanic at the start of DST. Why does a bird dying bring wahtsoever when its so easy to catch one? All it did was make it pointless to have more than one birdcage.

I think the bird starving is a funny inconvenience. It feels like the bird is a living thing and not just a structure. 

But I won't claim it adds any difficulty because it doesn't. It's just a realistic touch I personally enjoy.

Maybe wagstaff can make a robot bird that produces eggs and never dies. Maybe if you stop feeding it for a while it just powers down and a doodad/gear/wire/whatever powers it up real quick.

[GLERMZ]

44 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

I think the bird starving is a funny inconvenience. It feels like the bird is a living thing and not just a structure. 

But I won't claim it adds any difficulty because it doesn't. It's just a realistic touch I personally enjoy.

Maybe wagstaff can make a robot bird that produces eggs and never dies. Maybe if you stop feeding it for a while it just powers down and a doodad/gear/wire/whatever powers it up real quick.

I would be happy with just a World Setting for it.

[Lovens]

7 hours ago, GLERMZ said:

I forgot to add one QoL update:

Klei keeps giving us decorations but we still can't put flowers inside vases without them spoiling. Please allow us to have non perishable flowers otherwise its pretty pointless to decorate with them since they look horrible when dead.
Also maybe time to bring back imortal birds ? I think the sleep is fine, but having birds dying is pointless in terms of game balance, even more now with the new farming system. Having birds being immortal again would allow us to showcase different birds, and those yet to come, in their different bird cages as-well.

Couldn't agree more with this.

[00petar00]

These are pretty much my thoughts except that I don't like the new frogs but if they dropped infused moon shards they would be bearable.

The most important changes that should happen are for frogs make them worthwhile with loot like infused moon shards, hail should not hurt mobs and ice crystalyzer the freezing/cooling range shouldn't be bigger than scaled furnace while the wildfire protection should stay the same.

When it comes to Ark we need 3 a year.

[Master_NiX]

20 hours ago, GLERMZ said:

Bearger- Please add bearger to the hostile flare

Yes, please add bearger to the hostile flare.

[Uedo]

3 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

These are pretty much my thoughts except that I don't like the new frogs but if they dropped infused moon shards they would be bearable.

The most important changes that should happen are for frogs make them worthwhile with loot like infused moon shards, hail should not hurt mobs and ice crystalyzer the freezing/cooling range shouldn't be bigger than scaled furnace while the wildfire protection should stay the same.

When it comes to Ark we need 3 a year.

I really like the idea of Lunar Frogs dropping infused shards, My main reason for not getting brightshade bombs is just the commitment to doing another CC if i want to farm some - Not that I mind, but Shadow Pieces are locked out whilst it's in effect and if you're out of Shadow Atriums it's a bit ... oh

[-Nick-]

On 10/2/2023 at 6:50 AM, GLERMZ said:

Would be nice to have an item that would allow you to know if you getting near or not.

Maybe bring back the Divining rod from single player? I mean it is Wagstaff's PR-76 radio slapped onto a stick by Maxwell. Wagstaff could make his own version of it, lunar aligned of course.

[kaTome]

I love the idea of a honey flare for bearger!

[GelatinousCube]

8 minutes ago, kaTome said:

I love the idea of a honey flare for bearger!

Yeah this is a great suggestion, very thematic