Are content arcs not the way to go?

[Yuuko]

44 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

If Klei wanted to for example, create a NPC you need to approach as WONKEY in order to obtain progress towards From Beyond Content, then it would make sense.. but as it stands right now- Moon Quay got shoved aside and mostly forgotten.

 

More likely it would be tied in through the unstable portal on the island, not through Wonkey.

Personally I prefer updates that make existing content better.  We have so much in this game that is kinda just there.  Lots of biomes have no real purpose, especially in the caves.  Lots of items had questionable value like Thul club, a very fun and interesting weapon that was always just a bit too low damage to be worth it (of course completely cast aside now with planar.)

I don't think having a story-arc is wrong, lore is a big driver of players and sales - but its not like every patch NEEDS to be part of some RPG arc, and really if they don't fix some under-the-hood stuff things will never get better.  Used to lag from seeds and rot, now we get random glass shards too...  So much clutter.  And what purpose is there for glass now?  Who is going to make glass swords with BS stuff available??  Which themselves are overflowing...  Husks are the new hounds teeth.

[arubaro]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

A story arc needs to have cohesion it needs to have a plot, a point, a purpose, and when it comes to DST and particularly some of the Return of Them updates.. it just seems to be content for the sake of content, and doesn’t actually serve any greater story narrative or purpose.

Like okay for example Klei labeled Reap What You Sow as a Return of Them story Arc update but what did a farming overhaul have to do with RoT? Does Pearl require me to create giant crops and give them to her to get recipes or progression?nope RWYS while everyone obviously loved it… was just sorta tacked on with a RoT label when it had nothing to do with Them or their Return.

Curse of MoonQuay is another example: the only story narrative this seems to provide is that Wagstaffs “experiments” are having Unforseen Consequences after he has already left the area, As if he is unaware of or rather doesn’t even care what he’s causing to happen.

But unless Klei plans to tie Curse of Moon Quay content into everything else- it’s sorta just content for the sake of content.

Currently the From Beyond arc has focused exclusively on late game world rifts, but that bigger picture Klei says we will understand when they’re done, has yet to be brought to light.

If Klei wanted to for example, create a NPC you need to approach as WONKEY in order to obtain progress towards From Beyond Content, then it would make sense.. but as it stands right now- Moon Quay got shoved aside and mostly forgotten.

Its great if Klei wants to do content just for the sake of doing content, but I and I’m sure others would prefer progression & purpose.

Crab King as bad as his fight already is… could’ve only been damageable by CanonBalls, which would have given Moon Quay Pirate Canons & Canonballs an actual story driven purpose within the games narrative.

As it stands right now however… I virtually have no reason whatsoever to even want to craft canons and Canonballs.

Hopefully someday Klei ties everything together nice and pretty like with a bow & ribbon.. but I fear we’re gonna be waiting a LONNNGGG while on that while they focus on Character Reworks Part 3 (skill trees) and maybe even non-DS related games like Mind over Magic or RotWood.

is just an island and used wagstaff as an excuse to add said island with a theme that doesn't fit DST climate, that is it. Doesnt need to be more

actually is a great biome, you unlock many recipes, unless you block/destroy the houses, is fun to fight monkeys and you can farm critters and plants to farm or decorate using gleams. I wish more biomes were as useful, alive and fun as it is

[Frosty_Mentos]

Content arcs are nice because they focus on a single concept and try to deliver it. RoT was a massive arc by scale needing to redo the ocean, add new lands and boarders for the surface work. They did a fairly good job at delivering it, reworking technical aspects of the game till they finally moved to last year's QoL year. For the fact that they have tried to incorporate these things into existing worlds  like landmasses and such is a massive feat for what they've done. Many aspects don't feel finished because they likely are open for more possibilities in the future, but there's a bigger thing to focus on than everything at once like finishing the lategame option of a lunar path. They've added massive storms, spooky visuals and minigames compared to where you need to go into the depths of darkness to slay many things till you get to the ancient fuelweaver. A whole different path with lunar, being more or less passive one.

A new reign was an introduction to new multiplayer based creatures and mechanics for the sake of having the proper means to survive with more convenience and have something to test your combative or technical level against. It's relatively smaller arc than lunar, but they had to add whole caves, ruins and atrium to achieve that.

Then... Came the events like forge and gorge. Those were wonderful, fun, and I hope to see those again but they probably partially were a waste of time on instead of creating new game mechanics since it took up most of their resources to try doing any of it. Hope with the growing audience they can try again, maybe also release new good batch of skins and some form of competitiveness for the game which was definitely an exciting field to tackle. (I pray for gorge season 2 to happen, best event but I want more in-depth cooking and rewards expansion for it eventually.)

Content arcs are there to provide a story and progression to give a sense of accomplishment to that progression. It takes a lot of time to make that and work, new things that are much different than we are used to are scary and or unbalanced till the right setup is made. The reason to why RoT took that long because there was just A LOT of things they tackled to make it happen. And I'm glad it happened and it's over now. We now are at the time where the is only there to flourish and get much more interesting than the old classic constant we had.

[Swiyss]

On 11/12/2023 at 6:38 AM, Rhovious Aran said:

When it comes to the ocean, I do think more islands would help. But imo the bigger problem is that the ocean and the regular landmass are just so disjointed, they might as well be two seperate games. And well, I think it was designed that way intentionally. As in "noo, new players, and players who love DST don't have to interact with the new evil content if they dont want to") You have to actively seek it out. 

I kinda think that philosophy is wrong. Did anyone scream "oh no, not my vanilla DS World getting ruined by the introduction of, Bee Queen, Klaus, Shadowpieces & Fuelweaver" during a new reign? I think if we don't open ourselves up to the idea of the world evolving a bit away from what it was 10 years ago. None of the empty content is ever gonna feel more alive. Not the continent, nor the ocean, nor the caves.

Shipwrecked is more about the islands. But the way the DST Ocean, boats and the content in the ocean is the designed it's more like the movie "waterworld" than about islands. 

I've said this before and maybe I am wrong but I think what could really help make the ocean feel a bit more alive and accessible is by splitting up the regular continent a bit. I dont mean turn it into seperate islands that you have to sail to. But all those little "rivers" that seperate the different biomes, should be 2-3x as wide. Just so you can somewhat comfortable sail or row your boat through it.

And instead of being connected via actual land the biomes could be connected via "shallow water". Deep enough to sail over, and shallow enough to still walk through with your character. Maybe it would look a bit disjointed, I don't think we'd need these shallow water seperations between every single biome. But it would definitely add some flavour to the world if let's imagine, there is a river cutting off the swamp, the decidious and a desert. Just as an example. This would also solve the problem of always having to sail around the entire continent if you wanna go anywhere on the ocean, which I find devastatingly annoying. Instead you could just sail from the center of the island into any direction.

And then they could bring the ocean content a bit more "into" the world, some salt formations in the rivers. The shallow water itself would make for a beautiful mini biome with salt, wobsters or some other small stuff in there. maybe the Gnwarwhales or even Sharks show up occasionally (It's not like you couldn't easily avoid them in the shallow water by going back to land). The in my opinion very interesting and beautiful seaweeds could be in the rivers as well. Even the Waterlogged biome squashed into a "river" could make for a super interesting amazonian river feel. And well, while I am here making wishes and daydreaming about updates that are likely sadly never to come, I'd also love a Lily Pad Biome, that you can actually walk and build on *sigh* haha
How about a "lake" biome

*daydreaming off*

 

That shallow water idea is absolutely amazing! Maybe in winter the waters could freeze and turn into a beautiful ice river. Imagine a gigantic flow of water every spring that brings new thing from very far away (hinting on gorge/original powder monkey world).

[Hungry French]

4 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Choose between nothing and no arks. Where did the nothing come from?

DS = nothing

[Queron81]

22 hours ago, Sanitar said:

Depriving seasons of exclusive content is not the best idea. This will kill the uniqueness of the seasons and the uniqueness of the game itself. 

But the uniqueness of the seasons will remain as the season's mechanics affects the whole map for a certain time. Nothing will change, the game will stay the same. But why not giving the players the possibility to get to the content earlier instead of waiting up to 6 hours? Why not giving them the choice? They could make it so that the respective islands only spawn with a certain chance and could be kinda affected by the seasons too. Dragon Fly was also seasonal content, but they added it as a boss that's avaiable the whole year around. This added more uniqueness to the game. Content locked so strictly behind seasons was a Don't Starve thing.

[Sanitar]

2 hours ago, Queron81 said:

But why not giving the players the possibility to get to the content earlier instead of waiting up to 6 hours? Why not giving them the choice?

This will remove all the rewards of the season and leave only danger. The absence of dragonfly in summer was compensated by the addition of antlion, an oasis. The choice is given. You can change the season in the world settings

[Mike23Ua]

2 hours ago, Sanitar said:

This will remove all the rewards of the season and leave only danger. The absence of dragonfly in summer was compensated by the addition of antlion, an oasis. The choice is given. You can change the season in the world settings

I believe what this user is wanting (and I covered once or twice before in one of the many archived threads I’ve posted over the years) is something similar to what I suggested with this particular thread-

the TL:DR was that each “Island” would have its own mobs, gameplay mechanics, and Weather Hazards. Which reminds me…

I encountered THIS yesterday while playing DST.

While this is merely just a berry bush and iceberg spawning too close to one another.. it did get me to thinking what if Klei was to update old seasons with new gameplay?

Such as with the above image actually being able to “freeze over” berry bushes?

It’s GOOD to provide constructive feedback like this, and I for one would enjoy having areas of the game (the above mentioned Isles) that are permanently under one of the games various weather effects so that items like the Eyebrella/Umbrellas, or even the more useless items like Wigfrids Fireproof scroll or Dragonfly armor see more frequent usage.