hot takes Your Dont Starve Together Hot Takes

[GhostyToasty]

Maxwell is the most boring character to play. I'd much rather play Wes than him 

[YourWorstNightm]

10 hours ago, GhostyToasty said:

Maxwell is the most boring character to play. I'd much rather play Wes than him 

So real, so true.

[Jakepeng99]

Game is difficult and interesting when you are too lazy to use bundles all the time.

[mmmmmmmmmmm]

On 10/29/2023 at 1:29 PM, Jakepeng99 said:

Most (key word on most, not all) Wanda players are toxic. (From my experience and other friends experiences)

i'd oppose, but i have seen like, 6 wanda mains including me, and they have been pretty chill, usually its the players personality thats a problem, and i think it had just happend that a person who was wanda had a bad personality it your experience

[Jakepeng99]

19 minutes ago, mmmmmmmmmmm said:

i'd oppose, but i have seen like, 6 wanda mains including me, and they have been pretty chill, usually its the players personality thats a problem, and i think it had just happend that a person who was wanda had a bad personality it your experience

Lol i have tons who horde stuff. One jumped in on my twins of terror fight, won the roll shield i was hoping for, then said they would give it to me for my bone armour, and then locked if away in their personao chest confirming they will never yse it.

I see alot who horde tons of stuff in a hidden spot in caves.

[mmmmmmmmmmm]

1 minute ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Lol i have tons who horde stuff. One jumped in on my twins of terror fight, won the roll shield i was hoping for, then said they would give it to me for my bone armour, and then locked if away in their personao chest confirming they will never yse it.

I see alot who horde tons of stuff in a hidden spot in caves.

hording  isn't necessary bad, but jumping into a fight uninvited and stealing the loot is, probably again, just a chance thing that the bad people you saw happen to be wanda

On 12/27/2023 at 4:30 PM, Jakepeng99 said:

Gold is cheaper than flint.

says the person with wurt pfp (otherwise the statement is true, but as wurt..)

[Jakepeng99]

44 minutes ago, mmmmmmmmmmm said:

says the person with wurt pfp (otherwise the statement is true, but as wurt..)

Its still cheaper. Use other players or ocean fish. 

[Mike23Ua]

I’m going to use this thread as a way of venting some of my anger and frustration towards DST, and I’m just going to hope that Mr JoeW is okay with that and what I say doesn’t offend anyone.

Rather your an actual developer working at Klei, or your just a DST player who has a different point of view than my own, I truly mean no disrespect to anyone in what I’m about to say.

*Warning there’s probably a long rant coming ahead, consider yourself warned!*

Okay so first of all let me just state that i do not devalue or discredit any of Klei’s previous work, I am sure it has to be exhausting both on their mental & physical well being to churn out the content updates they pump out for us the fans.. And game development has become well to be quite bluntly to the point: A little scary in this generation.

What do I mean? Well surely a studio behind the excellent and well received award winning Hi-Fi Rush did not suddenly expect to be shutdown after releasing what to many would be considered a success.

It simply leaves me worried about who is actually in charge, who developers are making their games for, what drives and motivates them etc…

Are they doing it to create a project from their heart that their super passionate about (like many No named indie developers) rather it’s a success or a flop they just want to create and release a game? Maybe they’re doing it to release something popular & successful to establish & make a name for themselves? Or maybe they’re just in it for the money?

What is driving these people to make and create, and when something successful like hi-fi was ends up having the people developing it without jobs, what does that say about the gaming industry as a whole?

I refuse to dive further into that so I’ll just leave you guys to think about that, and I want to instead vent my angers and frustrations toward DST.

The devs keep reassuring me that they have this “it will all make sense and go together in the end” plan for DSTs updates, but it has been literally several years and the updates we get are (not to complain..) small, and don’t really seem to connect much with previous updates.

Then there’s the one thing that really seems to get under my skin when it comes to a game like DST.. 

In the nicest and shortest way I can put this: It’s a game that even its own developers can’t seem to make up their minds what they want it to be…

is it an open world sandbox? Is it a RogueLite? Is it a survival game? Or maybe it’s a raid boss brawler?

But my question that I would wish to purpose to the devs is why does it have to be defined under one or the other, why can’t there be dedicated server settings, game modes or even purchaseable DLC add ins that change and shake up the gameplay experience? 
 

I will use TMNT Shredders revenge as an example, when this game first released it released as an arcade level based classic true to its roots side scrolling beat ‘em up game, and it was easy to beat said game with endless lives, unlimited continues, & of course the ever so abused character taunt to fully charge up and spam your most powerful special moves..

But later a DLC came out and a patch that shakes that formula up a bit, it added a survival based RogueLite mode where enemy encounters per stage were randomized, health carried over from one stage to the next, you had limited lives, and most importantly- Taunting now only looked cool but didn’t fully charge special moves so you could spam your way through the games stages.

In other words, it took a familiar gameplay formula and turned it on its head..

When I see the arguments in posts on these forums on rather or not enemies should have visible health bars and bosses should be scaleable based on players playing, to see that people can be completely against that sometimes it’s completely baffling to me..

Again, I’m not trying to single anyone out here I’m just simply trying to share my view point. 

Sonic Origins Plus featured a Retro game mode where players could play the games in their mostly original versions with limited lives and continues, but it also featured a more relaxed casual mode where a player could continue to retry stages over and over and over again until they finally were able to get past them.

Evil West or Dead West or whatever the heck that Xbox Gamepass game that’s available right now, on default game mode you can have saved game files & checkpoints, but there is also an option to attempt to beat the entire game with a single life..

My point should be fairly obvious, but gamers of various skill levels and playstyles, really enjoy having more variety in the ways they interact with and engage with the games their playing.

And that frustrates me beyond belief when it comes to DST because if Klei took the time to actually sit down several different groups of developers each team focused on a different project or part of the game, WE could have that with DST too….

Here I’ll try my best to explain what I mean, we could have people exclusively working on Relaxed mode and how to make the game more accessible to players wanting a more relaxing experience which would probably extend to stuff like slower hunger drains, and more powerful character skill trees.

BUT we can also get a much more difficult game mode where the game becomes more unforgiving and punishing, such as a storm wave that spoils foods quicker, or even downsides we have to pick in our “this mode exclusive” skill trees.

I’ve been playing a lot of other different games that aren’t DST in between the content drought DST has (there’s nothing wrong with the devs taking time to develop cool new stuff for us so please take all the time you need and don’t rush things, we will get it when it’s ready.. I have no problem with waiting..) Anyway like I said I’ve been playing a lot of other games to occupy my time inbetween the juicy stuff Klei releases for the game.

Games like the free mobile app Soul Knight which is well at its core, it’s a RogueLite Bullet hell shooter game where you move from corridor to corridor blasting away at enemies, but the longer you play the game you’ll eventually unlock new modes and difficulty settings.

The two modes I want to single out here are standard mode (default) and challenge mode- see in challenge mode your character skills and character exclusive weapons aren’t available, instead.. in this mode every dungeon you enter will have randomized map conditions and the weapon your given to get through the level is a completely random one.

I have no idea how this could work in DST but I’d imagine If an “Adventures Mode” like Solo DS had was to ever be added to DST then Klei could get super creative with that by literally changing the RULES in which we play the game by.

See on these forums I get so frustrated that the community doesn’t want to think outside of the box, they hold back ideas & topics like these because, many people are afraid of change.. and that’s perfectly fine however, at the same time it shouldn’t ever shove creativity under a bus tire.

**Please go download and play soul Knights if you’ve read this far, it’s FREE and it’s on both Apple and Android devices**
 
the above suggestion is so that you can actually get a “feel” for what I’m about to say, I think in this current year (2024) and beyond Klei needs to branch out of their comfort zone with DST, yeah they have a formula that’s sort of popular and it works I guess… but for me I see so much more potential.

Its like Charlie with a stage play doing cute magic tricks but yet she hasn’t lifted the curtains behind her to reveal the full stage display yet.

If Klei was to ever add a “Adventures mode” into DST, or to create a RogueLite game mode, then the entire structure or foundation of the game would need to be well “reconsidered” for example- DST is a game that allows us to craft many many different tools, weapons and structures, but What if in a new game mode, we couldn’t just build what we wanted to? What if much like challenge mode in Soul Knight we spawned into the world with a random weapon, what if chests were scattered about the game world map with various randomized loots inside?

Klei’s game is more than capable of doing that- and if they EVER release a map creator mode I will gladly show case how it all could possibly work.

Ruins rushing gives you a small taste of that loot chasing adventure.. 

And there’s many things already in DST (such as curio cabinet mini games) that suggest that this games creativity levels shouldn’t be ground by what it currently is… we need to instead be thinking of all the things it could be..

I love Soul Knight because while the core mode itself is fun and always enjoyable, the OTHER game modes give me something slightly different to enjoy while still playing and investing my time on the same game, when I’m “burned out” of the default mode.

This Klei, is exactly why you have so many threads popping up on your forums where fans want Shipwrecked and Hamlet DLC compatibility or the return of Gorge & Forge events.

Fortnite, as successful as it already was, knew it needed to branch out and offer new ways to play, that’s why there’s now options in a game that was all about building large forts into the sky (hence the name) now has modes like ZERO BUILD where you can’t build forts at all, Lego Survival, Racing & Music.

Which aren’t just tacked on mini games, they rival actual racing games & music games, with their own battle passes and unlockable contents.

Gamers get bored of playing the same experience over and over and over again, that’s why I personally am so fond of RogueLites/likes, no matter how many times I play them, level lay out, enemy placement, even my own abilities or weapons I can find in a run, may not be the same.

So it’s understandably extremely hard to “burn out” on those type of games.

I’ll end this rant by stating that I’m not asking Klei to turn DST into Mario Party where it’s a mixed mess of a bunch of different mini games, I instead want something like Fortnite, like Soul Knight, heck like Klei’s OWN previous works with Gorge/Forge/SW/Hamlet.

we want new experiences that flip the script and change the rules.

(thanks for reading if you actually read down this far, I hope I didn’t offend anyone, and I hope you all have a nice day.  <3) 

[Wonz]

Chests cost too much wood for amount of items there is to quickly organize storage.

Skippable comfort items shouldn't cost so much or take very long time to obtain like sawhorse and chests.

Bundling wrap and food like stonefruits are mistakes, they make food, sanity, health problems too easy and reduces amount of warly players you could see.

Chester should be available from rock den like other critters while other critters would come with new abilities to compete with him and so everyone can have a chester.

Players joining in spring and summer need better kickstart

Turf skins would sell great.

Klei could get away with Woodie transformation skins even if they were only for moose form.

Body armor is almost as good as head armor, you can just drop backpack and pick it up after fight but vests will be considered bad by most players as long as we can't wear them together with backpack. They either need something worth exchanging those inventory slots for or stay as they are in separate slot from backpack. Anyway both are no competition to thermal stone at current state.

Bosses should be more durable the more people fights them and yield rewards for everyone like in terraria.

All bosses should have aoe attacks to force every participant to dodge.

Wormwood's saladmander's are unfixable with their current speed and no way of them being commanded to avoid attacks.

[arubaro]

Just now, Wonz said:

Bundling wrap and food like stonefruits are mistakes, they make food, sanity, health problems too easy and reduces amount of warly players you could see.

Precisely warly is stronger and more confy to play because bundle wraps. I wont play him if them didnt exist...

[Uedo]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

I’m going to use this thread as a way of venting some of my anger and frustration towards DST, and I’m just going to hope that Mr JoeW is okay with that and what I say doesn’t offend anyone.

Rather your an actual developer working at Klei, or your just a DST player who has a different point of view than my own, I truly mean no disrespect to anyone in what I’m about to say.

*Warning there’s probably a long rant coming ahead, consider yourself warned!*

Okay so first of all let me just state that i do not devalue or discredit any of Klei’s previous work, I am sure it has to be exhausting both on their mental & physical well being to churn out the content updates they pump out for us the fans.. And game development has become well to be quite bluntly to the point: A little scary in this generation.

What do I mean? Well surely a studio behind the excellent and well received award winning Hi-Fi Rush did not suddenly expect to be shutdown after releasing what to many would be considered a success.

It simply leaves me worried about who is actually in charge, who developers are making their games for, what drives and motivates them etc…

Are they doing it to create a project from their heart that their super passionate about (like many No named indie developers) rather it’s a success or a flop they just want to create and release a game? Maybe they’re doing it to release something popular & successful to establish & make a name for themselves? Or maybe they’re just in it for the money?

What is driving these people to make and create, and when something successful like hi-fi was ends up having the people developing it without jobs, what does that say about the gaming industry as a whole?

I refuse to dive further into that so I’ll just leave you guys to think about that, and I want to instead vent my angers and frustrations toward DST.

The devs keep reassuring me that they have this “it will all make sense and go together in the end” plan for DSTs updates, but it has been literally several years and the updates we get are (not to complain..) small, and don’t really seem to connect much with previous updates.

Then there’s the one thing that really seems to get under my skin when it comes to a game like DST.. 

In the nicest and shortest way I can put this: It’s a game that even its own developers can’t seem to make up their minds what they want it to be…

is it an open world sandbox? Is it a RogueLite? Is it a survival game? Or maybe it’s a raid boss brawler?

But my question that I would wish to purpose to the devs is why does it have to be defined under one or the other, why can’t there be dedicated server settings, game modes or even purchaseable DLC add ins that change and shake up the gameplay experience? 
 

I will use TMNT Shredders revenge as an example, when this game first released it released as an arcade level based classic true to its roots side scrolling beat ‘em up game, and it was easy to beat said game with endless lives, unlimited continues, & of course the ever so abused character taunt to fully charge up and spam your most powerful special moves..

But later a DLC came out and a patch that shakes that formula up a bit, it added a survival based RogueLite mode where enemy encounters per stage were randomized, health carried over from one stage to the next, you had limited lives, and most importantly- Taunting now only looked cool but didn’t fully charge special moves so you could spam your way through the games stages.

In other words, it took a familiar gameplay formula and turned it on its head..

When I see the arguments in posts on these forums on rather or not enemies should have visible health bars and bosses should be scaleable based on players playing, to see that people can be completely against that sometimes it’s completely baffling to me..

Again, I’m not trying to single anyone out here I’m just simply trying to share my view point. 

Sonic Origins Plus featured a Retro game mode where players could play the games in their mostly original versions with limited lives and continues, but it also featured a more relaxed casual mode where a player could continue to retry stages over and over and over again until they finally were able to get past them.

Evil West or Dead West or whatever the heck that Xbox Gamepass game that’s available right now, on default game mode you can have saved game files & checkpoints, but there is also an option to attempt to beat the entire game with a single life..

My point should be fairly obvious, but gamers of various skill levels and playstyles, really enjoy having more variety in the ways they interact with and engage with the games their playing.

And that frustrates me beyond belief when it comes to DST because if Klei took the time to actually sit down several different groups of developers each team focused on a different project or part of the game, WE could have that with DST too….

Here I’ll try my best to explain what I mean, we could have people exclusively working on Relaxed mode and how to make the game more accessible to players wanting a more relaxing experience which would probably extend to stuff like slower hunger drains, and more powerful character skill trees.

BUT we can also get a much more difficult game mode where the game becomes more unforgiving and punishing, such as a storm wave that spoils foods quicker, or even downsides we have to pick in our “this mode exclusive” skill trees.

I’ve been playing a lot of other different games that aren’t DST in between the content drought DST has (there’s nothing wrong with the devs taking time to develop cool new stuff for us so please take all the time you need and don’t rush things, we will get it when it’s ready.. I have no problem with waiting..) Anyway like I said I’ve been playing a lot of other games to occupy my time inbetween the juicy stuff Klei releases for the game.

Games like the free mobile app Soul Knight which is well at its core, it’s a RogueLite Bullet hell shooter game where you move from corridor to corridor blasting away at enemies, but the longer you play the game you’ll eventually unlock new modes and difficulty settings.

The two modes I want to single out here are standard mode (default) and challenge mode- see in challenge mode your character skills and character exclusive weapons aren’t available, instead.. in this mode every dungeon you enter will have randomized map conditions and the weapon your given to get through the level is a completely random one.

I have no idea how this could work in DST but I’d imagine If an “Adventures Mode” like Solo DS had was to ever be added to DST then Klei could get super creative with that by literally changing the RULES in which we play the game by.

See on these forums I get so frustrated that the community doesn’t want to think outside of the box, they hold back ideas & topics like these because, many people are afraid of change.. and that’s perfectly fine however, at the same time it shouldn’t ever shove creativity under a bus tire.

**Please go download and play soul Knights if you’ve read this far, it’s FREE and it’s on both Apple and Android devices**
 
the above suggestion is so that you can actually get a “feel” for what I’m about to say, I think in this current year (2024) and beyond Klei needs to branch out of their comfort zone with DST, yeah they have a formula that’s sort of popular and it works I guess… but for me I see so much more potential.

Its like Charlie with a stage play doing cute magic tricks but yet she hasn’t lifted the curtains behind her to reveal the full stage display yet.

If Klei was to ever add a “Adventures mode” into DST, or to create a RogueLite game mode, then the entire structure or foundation of the game would need to be well “reconsidered” for example- DST is a game that allows us to craft many many different tools, weapons and structures, but What if in a new game mode, we couldn’t just build what we wanted to? What if much like challenge mode in Soul Knight we spawned into the world with a random weapon, what if chests were scattered about the game world map with various randomized loots inside?

Klei’s game is more than capable of doing that- and if they EVER release a map creator mode I will gladly show case how it all could possibly work.

Ruins rushing gives you a small taste of that loot chasing adventure.. 

And there’s many things already in DST (such as curio cabinet mini games) that suggest that this games creativity levels shouldn’t be ground by what it currently is… we need to instead be thinking of all the things it could be..

I love Soul Knight because while the core mode itself is fun and always enjoyable, the OTHER game modes give me something slightly different to enjoy while still playing and investing my time on the same game, when I’m “burned out” of the default mode.

This Klei, is exactly why you have so many threads popping up on your forums where fans want Shipwrecked and Hamlet DLC compatibility or the return of Gorge & Forge events.

Fortnite, as successful as it already was, knew it needed to branch out and offer new ways to play, that’s why there’s now options in a game that was all about building large forts into the sky (hence the name) now has modes like ZERO BUILD where you can’t build forts at all, Lego Survival, Racing & Music.

Which aren’t just tacked on mini games, they rival actual racing games & music games, with their own battle passes and unlockable contents.

Gamers get bored of playing the same experience over and over and over again, that’s why I personally am so fond of RogueLites/likes, no matter how many times I play them, level lay out, enemy placement, even my own abilities or weapons I can find in a run, may not be the same.

So it’s understandably extremely hard to “burn out” on those type of games.

I’ll end this rant by stating that I’m not asking Klei to turn DST into Mario Party where it’s a mixed mess of a bunch of different mini games, I instead want something like Fortnite, like Soul Knight, heck like Klei’s OWN previous works with Gorge/Forge/SW/Hamlet.

we want new experiences that flip the script and change the rules.

(thanks for reading if you actually read down this far, I hope I didn’t offend anyone, and I hope you all have a nice day.  <3) 

@Mike23Ua - that was a really well explained post Mike, cheers for that. I agree with a lot of what you say in regards to lack of clear understanding on what the actual roadmap for DST IS, what's the long term aim etc.

Ultimately I don't think it's a great outcome to be honest, I think we'll see further degradation in a cohesive experience because your confusion clearly comes from a very valid place - The game is a hodgepodge of random lightbulb moments and promise of it all coming together in the end. It wouldn't be so bad if this wasn't history repeating itself over and over again.

I don't think it's a good thing or a bad thing, it just is what it is. Maybe it's time for the team to put their efforts into new IPs and allow DST to conclude. Tencent has different aims to the creative teams of the games they acquire, so eventually quality will be chipped away bit by bit as arguments around marketing, monetisation and time/cost investment come into play.  

The term 'Jumping the shark' literally comes from a certain tv show introducing an incohesive storyline that wasn't true to the narrative, Klei should stop jumping the shark. Nobody is expecting anything that's suddenly gonnna change the gaming space from DS.  It's like trying to fix a broken watch with a sledgehammer; sometimes a delicate touch is all it takes to set things right.

[Copyafriend]

7 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

we want new experiences that flip the script and change the rules.

mike, your post WAS well thought out and explained. I totally get what you're saying, and it's very reasonable to WANT what you are asking for.

 

I just don't think klei entertainment could feasibly put out the level of content you seem to wish for.

 

yes, FORTNITE one of the worlds most popular games ever has the staff capacity to put out a half dozen fully realized game modes, and while I haven't played it myself, i have seen the list, and it IS impressive. but klei entertainment could not and should not even try matching that level of content. I don't know how many developers they have actively working on don't starve. it could be around a dozen to two dozen developers, but that does not mean fast updates.

 

I'll explain this to you from the perspective of an indie game developer. To develop a game, is actually fairly simple at first. the bare bones "gameplay" can be done in under a week. Most people who make indie games do this with games they thing might be fun, to test whether or not actually playing the game is as fun as they imagined. (by bare bones, I mean movement, the basic movement, and the "core feature" like switching gravity at will) (for don't starve this would be walking around, picking berries, and hunger mechanics, maybe sanity and a day/night cycle aswell)

but as you continue to develop the game, things slow down tremendously. going from a barebones game to test if something is playable to a demo you might show another person can take a month, with very little changes outside of tweaking exactly how the gameplay works. Maybe your particular implementation of movement caused bugs, or maybe the core feature was oversimplified for the testing. the art and graphics DEFINITELY slowed everything down a lot, even making a single well drawn campfire can take me 20 minutes before i LIKE how it looks. an animation? 2-3 hours easily. This is of course at an indie level, a professional artist can produce animations much faster than I can, but a game like don't starve needs much better animations than I could produce, and more animations too. everything then still needs to be hooked up to the in game animation systems and tested.

enemies need AI, which means a branching tree of decisions that they might make at any given moment. dragonfly's AI is simple. "am I within x of the player" if yes: swing and check health. if no: fly towards the player and swing when they reach them, then check if they're below the next "health threshold" to enrage. if they should enrage, then they enrage, and the enrage AI takes over, which now also has to decide whether or not to ground-pound, and has to react to being slept or frozen.

this is a simple AI.

The new bosses have much more complicated ai because of their various abilities and their reactions based on where the player is.

And every time they develop ANYTHING, they have to run through tests. is it broken, does the creature react appropriately when x happens, is there a bug when y happens.

if there's a bug, the bug gets added to a list to be patched, then after the patch, the testing process restarts until they reach an acceptable number of bugs (which means no game or ai breaking ones, and none that are common typically)

this process gets repeated with every single new addition to the game.

Klei just doesn't have the manpower to feasibly produce quality content when they need to go through all these checks to make sure the content IS quality. when you ask for an overhaul, a lot of times, you are asking for them to make effectively a new game and abandon their preexisting plans for updating the game.

 

it's okay if you like fortnite, and the content drip style they have more. but don't starve shouldn't try to emulate that. They tried with the monthly releases, and from what they said, it lead to a lot of crunch-time where they had to constantly overwork themselves, while they still honestly didn't produce great content. don't be mistaken klei is still a comparatively indie studio. don't starve is a success, but they are not fabulously wealthy, and they don't have unlimited manpower to accomplish stuff.

 

and I am aware you didn't literally mean you wanted fortnite level updates constantly, I was just more using fortnite as a point of comparison. klei doesn't have the people fortnite does, and if they did have that many people, they'd have to fire them because survival/roguelite/bossrush games aren't nearly as popular as multiplayer shooters of any variety.

[AliceShiki]

Wilson without Skill Tree is the most fun non-modded character of the game. The plain, simple and straightforward gameplay with no real gimmicks other than the beard is more fun than playing with the unique gimmicks of each character.

[Mike23Ua]

5 hours ago, Copyafriend said:

mike, your post WAS well thought out and explained. I totally get what you're saying, and it's very reasonable to WANT what you are asking for.

 

I just don't think klei entertainment could feasibly put out the level of content you seem to wish for.

 

yes, FORTNITE one of the worlds most popular games ever has the staff capacity to put out a half dozen fully realized game modes, and while I haven't played it myself, i have seen the list, and it IS impressive. but klei entertainment could not and should not even try matching that level of content. I don't know how many developers they have actively working on don't starve. it could be around a dozen to two dozen developers, but that does not mean fast updates.

 

I'll explain this to you from the perspective of an indie game developer. To develop a game, is actually fairly simple at first. the bare bones "gameplay" can be done in under a week. Most people who make indie games do this with games they thing might be fun, to test whether or not actually playing the game is as fun as they imagined. (by bare bones, I mean movement, the basic movement, and the "core feature" like switching gravity at will) (for don't starve this would be walking around, picking berries, and hunger mechanics, maybe sanity and a day/night cycle aswell)

but as you continue to develop the game, things slow down tremendously. going from a barebones game to test if something is playable to a demo you might show another person can take a month, with very little changes outside of tweaking exactly how the gameplay works. Maybe your particular implementation of movement caused bugs, or maybe the core feature was oversimplified for the testing. the art and graphics DEFINITELY slowed everything down a lot, even making a single well drawn campfire can take me 20 minutes before i LIKE how it looks. an animation? 2-3 hours easily. This is of course at an indie level, a professional artist can produce animations much faster than I can, but a game like don't starve needs much better animations than I could produce, and more animations too. everything then still needs to be hooked up to the in game animation systems and tested.

enemies need AI, which means a branching tree of decisions that they might make at any given moment. dragonfly's AI is simple. "am I within x of the player" if yes: swing and check health. if no: fly towards the player and swing when they reach them, then check if they're below the next "health threshold" to enrage. if they should enrage, then they enrage, and the enrage AI takes over, which now also has to decide whether or not to ground-pound, and has to react to being slept or frozen.

this is a simple AI.

The new bosses have much more complicated ai because of their various abilities and their reactions based on where the player is.

And every time they develop ANYTHING, they have to run through tests. is it broken, does the creature react appropriately when x happens, is there a bug when y happens.

if there's a bug, the bug gets added to a list to be patched, then after the patch, the testing process restarts until they reach an acceptable number of bugs (which means no game or ai breaking ones, and none that are common typically)

this process gets repeated with every single new addition to the game.

Klei just doesn't have the manpower to feasibly produce quality content when they need to go through all these checks to make sure the content IS quality. when you ask for an overhaul, a lot of times, you are asking for them to make effectively a new game and abandon their preexisting plans for updating the game.

 

it's okay if you like fortnite, and the content drip style they have more. but don't starve shouldn't try to emulate that. They tried with the monthly releases, and from what they said, it lead to a lot of crunch-time where they had to constantly overwork themselves, while they still honestly didn't produce great content. don't be mistaken klei is still a comparatively indie studio. don't starve is a success, but they are not fabulously wealthy, and they don't have unlimited manpower to accomplish stuff.

 

and I am aware you didn't literally mean you wanted fortnite level updates constantly, I was just more using fortnite as a point of comparison. klei doesn't have the people fortnite does, and if they did have that many people, they'd have to fire them because survival/roguelite/bossrush games aren't nearly as popular as multiplayer shooters of any variety.

I think there’s maybe roughly a team of 5 people working on updates for Soul Knight, there is only ONE developer for a game called Outbreak Endless Nightmares, and I know for a fact from working with them personally before they ever signed a deal to join Microsoft, that Undead Labs dev team consisted of less than 30 devs.

My point is that the amount of developers you have working on something, doesn’t guarantee its quality, what guarantees quality is when people are passionate about the current project that their actually working on…

Take this upcoming Ocean QoL as an example, Will Klei be making all the changes to that based almost entirely on community feedback? Or will some devs who are actually passionate about cool ocean content updates, hop on board & surprise us with something you’ll know just by playing, someone poured their heart and soul into for us to enjoy?

Klei is taking longer periods to put together these updates & not feel so rushed, and that to me is a GOOD THING, but will it make a significant difference? Will the Updates they put out have more concrete ideas and features that loop in with pre-existing features, will they maybe rework something that they weren’t completely satisfied with? Etc…

it has nothing to do with being as popular as Fortnite, it’s got everything to do with having the right people who put their heart into what their creating.

And if say for example: Developer A is tired of making boss content, maybe they’d be happier working in a different project? Perhaps new Cawnival mini games for the mid summers Cawnival? Or maybe even an entirely different game altogether.

When you look at the massive triple A flop that was Suicide Squad, did that game come from developers who were passionate about the product they were creating? Developers who choose to retcon and crap on the very franchise that put them on the map in the first place.. did you see the same heart & attention to detail in SSKJL as you did 10 years ago with Arkham? And if you did… why is the graphics quality of a game released 10 years later.. not up to par with one they released 10 years prior?

When developers start to feel disheartened by the products they’re putting out, it shows in quality & quantity.

I’m not expecting much when it comes to this upcoming ocean QoL/content update, but I atleast expect them to actually use some of the ideas they’ve always had for oceanic mobs and content, that they haven’t had time to add or didn’t have the desire to work on until now.

[Swiyss]

13 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

When I see the arguments in posts on these forums on rather or not enemies should have visible health bars and bosses should be scaleable based on players playing, to see that people can be completely against that sometimes it’s completely baffling to me

After playing for years without healthbars on original ds, to then constantly use epic health bar (only bosses) for a long time, I realized that what I liked about the game is the customization possibilities that I can have while playing.

But after one day I randomly removed all mods from the game (including client), I realized how the devs wanted me to play the game all along. If they want me to calculate enemies health in my head, if they think health bars doesn't fit the game's style, and If they want me to get surprised everytime I kill bosses with large health points with different weapons then I am more than willing to play the game how the devs want me to. If they want me to use compasses and fireworks to find my friends instead of using global positions then I'm happy with that. If they want me to use the thermal measure structure to know in which season I am when I lose track of how many days I'm in then I won't use combined status, same for the temperature, I just look at the character and see if they do the animation of when they're cold. If they want me to know which bundle has what, and they gave us skins to organize them, then I won't cheat. If they gave us wormhole skins to know which one is which, then I won't cheat.

I am simply playing the game how the devs intended me to, that's called respect.

If I modify the game way too much, I am basically saying that their job doesn't mean anything to me and that I know better, so I'll make a modification to it. Now to erase ANY counter arguments against me, I said "..too much..". It's ok if you use some mods cause the game is not perfect, I don't condemn that. Just don't try to make the modded version of the game the actual version we should play. 

That's why I was sad at first with infinite chests, felt like the devs finally made a contract with the enemy (modders) in my head. That's just an analogy. I was very upset at first. But after experiencing I realized it was just another feature, and what they did with it was very clever locking it behind killing celestial champion multiple times, they did the Klei way and that's what I like about the game.

If klei suddently add health bars, they'll probably lock behind a very mechanical wagstaff:dontstarve equipment locked behind rifts that show some creatures health points. And if they do that I'll be more than fine with it because I'll know this time it's the Klei way, not a revaluation of morals like I thought it was in the beginning.

Tldr my vision of the game changed when I stopped using mods in my gameplay and now I enjoy the game better without health bars. My vision of the game changed again when I realized we should be more open to adding QoL that affects the game a lot, since I'm confident that Klei will make a good job with it.

Lesson of the day, never tilt too much at any extreme as you'll probably hurt yourself

13 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

And that frustrates me beyond belief when it comes to DST because if Klei took the time to actually sit down several different groups of developers each team focused on a different project or part of the game, WE could have that with DST too….

Here I’ll try my best to explain what I mean, we could have people exclusively working on Relaxed mode and how to make the game more accessible to players wanting a more relaxing experience which would probably extend to stuff like slower hunger drains, and more powerful character skill trees.

I agree with that because that's basically what I've been summarizing on many of my older posts. If we could have people at Klei working on specific groups of people then they'd the focus more on making it a great idea for every type of person, rather they think the game should be slower, easier, harder, faster, complicated, simple etc..

I myself would absolutely love and cry of happiness to the floor like it's thanksgiving if klei made a system skilltree-like that was more conplicated. I love complicated and gigantic shrouds and amalgamations of content put together. The path to unlocking late game for example is what I love the most in the game, the fact that is complicated tickles my brain in the perfect spot. That's why I think skill trees should be more developed and complicated and big.

But then back to my point, I WANT people that like it simpler to have their space also, and I think adding rifts as an in-game option was a perfect solution for those who like it easier since it wouldn't really bother the hardcore people since it's an option, kinda considered cheating for some.

They know what their doing for 90% of people I guess. But it's just that this 10% of people also exist. That's not a huuge problem, but it should definitely be looked at.

The farming system is hella complicated to come up with designs on your own, it's not an easy thing. And I love that. But some might find it tedious and too conplicated and I really really put myself in their shoes and it's not fair really. Loving a game but not finding a space for yourself in that game might hurt a lot.

If we could get more complicated numbers and logical battle systems like planar damage but made into an applicable thing in-game, again, I would crumble like it's thanksgiving. But we need to think about the relaxed buddies, the "I just wanna socialize in a hub made for me to chill and play puzzles and minigames like gorge and forge" buddies.

13 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

two modes I want to single out here are standard mode (default) and challenge mode- see in challenge mode your character skills and character exclusive weapons aren’t available, instead.. in this mode every dungeon you enter will have randomized map conditions and the weapon your given to get through the level is a completely random one.

I have no idea how this could work in DST but I’d imagine If an “Adventures Mode” like Solo DS had was to ever be added to DST then Klei could get super creative with that by literally changing the RULES in which we play the game by

I don't really see dst having too many variant modes. I feel like having no difficulty is kinda like elden ring, it's its own thing and I like it that way. Having options to change that is already a big plusplus.

[Copyafriend]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

what guarantees quality is when people are passionate about the current project that their actually working on

*I am reading your entire posts, I just don't like quoting entire posts*

I disagree with this statement, a lot of talented passionate people make bad products because of poor management/goals. I am not trying to turn this into a debate, I just wanted to point out that it's a pretty common problem in the game industry, most people who make games do it for the love of making games, it's not exactly a well paying job generally speaking. Lots of people want to be a game designer/programmer/artist, so the market is a bit oversaturated.

 

But on your actual post though, I just don't personally know anyone at klei enough to say that any of the developers are personally tired of working on x y or z. it just feels like a bit of an assumption when you imply that some developers at klei entertainment are getting tired of working on don't starve.

maybe they are, maybe they aren't it's not really something either of us really know.

and you ARE absolutely correct. manpower does not equal quality automatically, I wasn't trying to imply that it does, though I can see how it might sound like I was. but manpower does equal more ability to do multiple things simultaneously. While 9 women can't make a baby in 1 month, 9 (well organized) specialized game developers (one might focus on the ai, while one hooks up the animations, one probably focuses on balance, etc etc) can push out an update slightly faster than 8 game developers. Epic games have over 2300 staff members in the U.S alone (while they do not reveal how many work on fortnite, it is likely a significant margin, in the hundreds)

all I'm saying with that, is that fortnite (and most double A titles) have much more staff to work with than don't starve ever will have. and it's unfair to klei to expect them to be able to pump out content at a even slightly competitive rate.

(we've moved on from that, I was just trying to explain what I was saying from before with a little more clarity)

 

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

Or will some devs who are actually passionate about cool ocean content updates, hop on board & surprise us with something you’ll know just by playing, someone poured their heart and soul into for us to enjoy?

this is the only thing that actually kind of bothers me.

 

it takes a lot of work to make ANYTHING man. Even if ocean content isn't made by someone who dreams about making the ocean better because it's their favorite part of don't starve, people put a lot of time effort and energy into it. it's impossible not to work on something that hard and not put your heart into it. making games is inherently art, and you can't make art without putting a piece of yourself in it.

maybe they can't prioritize doing a full RWYS style overhaul that makes us fall in love with the ocean right now, but they're obviously aware we're not yet happy with the state of the ocean, and they're trying to improve it. I appreciate it a lot, and that comment just ends up sounding kind of snobby I suppose. "unless someone who ACTUALLY cares steps up, this update will be trash" kind of vibes. If they still work on don't starve, they almost certainly care a lot. you don't make games because you want to make money, and you don't apply at a particular gaming company unless you want to work on what they already make and klei is KNOWN for don't starve. ONI is probably their second most popular IP, and it's tiny by comparison.

 

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

When developers start to feel disheartened by the products they’re putting out, it shows in quality & quantity.

This is true, but there are more often than not, other reasons why the quality drops. developer layoffs leading to a smaller team to develop the same sized game, budget cuts not allowing them to work on a game for as long. timelines changing with little notice, you don't enter the polish stage until the end, if the timeline was moved up 6 months, that was supposed to be when you finished polishing the game, now instead you skip something else and start polishing now. etc etc.

 

if you ask me why klei's content can be unreliable in it's quality, it's because they've been rushing to try to meet self imposed deadlines. they don't have time to DO an overhaul, overhauls take a lot more time than "push out another boss and add loot to it" or making any "new" content in general. It's less flashy too, I doubt many people came to don't starve for the FARMING REWORK, but the farming rework has been touted as one of the best updates to the game in recent memory by many. it's just not as flashy, and for a game like don't starve (older), updates are the times when most players join the game.

 

and my honest final point is a question to you:

Do you think klei's quality of content has really decreased by an extreme margin/klei suddenly doesn't care, or do you think that maybe the game is moving in a direction that you just don't particularly like. It's okay not to like where a game is headed yknow.

[Mike23Ua]

No I literally mean that the developers once public proclaimed they were quote “burned out” on doing content for the game and instead shifted their focus to new game modes and ways to play the game.

you can read that here actually:

So my point still stands, if devs are feeling burned out or disheartened while doing certain types of updates they may be feeling burned out on, then perhaps those devs feeling that way can shift their focus elsewhere to other areas of the game, new modes (as mentioned here..) or even new IPs under Kleis Umbrella.

[mmmmmmmmmmm]

22 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Its still cheaper. Use other players or ocean fish. 

other players are not wurt, and ocean fish even though they are not bad, they are not great either, but thats not the point, wurt has a lot of flint mining power, and flint has a higehr drop rate than gold

[Jakepeng99]

45 minutes ago, mmmmmmmmmmm said:

other players are not wurt, and ocean fish even though they are not bad, they are not great either, but thats not the point, wurt has a lot of flint mining power, and flint has a higehr drop rate than gold

Wurts pig king downside barely matters for me because they trade to pig king anyway. It is easy to get gold from merm king too. Flint is rare and tough to renew. Gold is common and extremely easy to renew.

[grm9]

20 hours ago, Wonz said:

Bundling wrap and food like stonefruits are mistakes, they make food, sanity, health problems too easy and reduces amount of warly players you could see

i usually only use bundling wraps for charged moonglass and not replamt anything and i spend even less time on food than people that do

20 hours ago, Wonz said:

All bosses should have aoe attacks to force every participant to dodge

that'd remove minions strats

On 3/10/2024 at 10:58 PM, Jakepeng99 said:

Game is difficult and interesting when you are too lazy to use bundles all the time

getting food is easy and not much fun, even if i would've used bundling wraps the game wouldn't have became less interesting

[mmmmmmmmmmm]

On 3/11/2024 at 1:58 AM, Jakepeng99 said:

Game is difficult and interesting when you are too lazy to use bundles all the time.

not really though, even without bundles, there's tons of ways to remove spoilage from food, even if I want to, Its impossible to have any challenge regarding food spoilage

[arubaro]

Rift gear is to damn cheap

Adding planar mechanics is way more work than simply nerfing volt goat jelly to give a flat damage boost so it adds the same dps for wilson but less with wolf & co. And they could have added enemies with true damage, poison, bleeding or any other mechanic to pierce throw armor instead of planar damage that barelly does any damage if you stack both armor pieces (see how ridiculous are possesed frogs..)

Rift content doesnt feel like hardmode but the opposite.  The weather has little impact (is cool that acid rain affects food but when you experience them we already have bundles or bearger bins), BS are easy and most of the time spawn alone or in couples, is rare to see 3 together,  ink trio is cool but BS destroys them without any skill involved. Actually, anything that comes in groups are destroyed by the BS staff

Moon storms lack a lot of content after these many years. Only few mutations were added

 

All this moon saga will need tons of update to feel cohesive and complete

[grm9]

11 minutes ago, arubaro said:

nerfing volt goat jelly to give a flat damage boost

it's already worthless because it's more effort than it's worth and only really works in spring, so by the time you get to spring to kill whatever you wanted to kill, you could've killed most bosses without it

[arubaro]

2 minutes ago, grm9 said:

it's already worthless because it's more effort than it's worth and only really works in spring, so by the time you get to spring to kill whatever you wanted to kill, you could've killed most bosses without it

Still they are nerfing it by adding an entire set of mechanics so it doesn't affect late game bosses, captain actually 

[grm9]

Just now, arubaro said:

Still they are nerfing it by adding an entire set of mechanics so it doesn't affect late game bosses, captain actually 

what you're suggesting would make it even more worthless against everything instead of only rifts stuff