Ocean content buffs

[Masked Koopa]

On 12/25/2023 at 2:38 PM, CuteC said:

What if they also asked for barnacles? That would give them some use and perhaps you could have small amounts of barnacles growing on random sea stacks while seaweeds yield bigger rewards, I dunno just throwing ideas out there.

I think if it were one of many possible options then yes, but as a general option I think it would disincentivise ocean fishing.

 

On 12/22/2023 at 2:30 AM, arubaro said:

i think waterlogged biome is the least in need of something biome out there

I definitely wouldn't say no to some buffs to fig dishes though, the only halfway decent one is figatoni, and it's still inferior to dragon pie in my opinion.

[Gotheran]

Just skimming the OP but it sounds like mostly good buffs to me. I like the Rockjaws dropping rocks idea, they aren't really common enough that them dropping rocks would imbalance other means of getting them, it'd just be a bit of extra rock income you weren't expecting. It routinely baffles me when people say like "well stone fruit exist" or "what about forest petrification" like there can't be more alternatives to typical farming methods in a survival game, variety is what makes DST so more appealing than solo and a big reason I'd love some version Parity so that that gap is less extreme, like if the solo game had petrification it would be a nicer way of getting mass stone than world hopping or farming cave earthquakes, and it would still leave rockjaws and stonefruits as DST exclusive benefits.

I wonder if adding an ocean based version of pig king would help make the ocean a bit more interesting, not counting Queen Moonquay or Pearl, but maybe a roaming trading npc you can find randomly as you sail around, something a bit more like Beedle from Wind Waker.

[Masked Koopa]

On 12/26/2023 at 8:20 PM, Gotheran said:

I wonder if adding an ocean based version of pig king would help make the ocean a bit more interesting, not counting Queen Moonquay or Pearl, but maybe a roaming trading npc you can find randomly as you sail around, something a bit more like Beedle from Wind Waker.

I think something like that would at the very least better justify the existence of foods like seafood gumbo or ceviche. Perhaps it could pertain to some new blueprints, or simply be a source of gold or other materials scarce on the ocean. My main concern is that this would be similar to waterlogged where it doesn't introduce a new resource to the ocean so much as it introduces a resource to a very specific part of the world.

[JJ0264]

On 12/26/2023 at 12:20 AM, Gotheran said:

I wonder if adding an ocean based version of pig king would help make the ocean a bit more interesting, not counting Queen Moonquay or Pearl, but maybe a roaming trading npc you can find randomly as you sail around, something a bit more like Beedle from Wind Waker.

Like the yarrchopous from SW, or what if there was a island with a "friendly" pirate monkey who you can trade treasures for blueprints (trinkets/gems/banana dishes)

[Cockroach Lily]

Almost nothing in the game pushes you to change your strategies between worlds. You favoured basing biome might generate in a corner of the map, and some setpieces provide farm opportunities, but other than that, the resources available to you are pretty much the same every run. I don't see how making ocean content superior to land based alternatives would better the game, but if it stays inferior, the buffs will just make sailing easier, which I am against, as dying is fun (please don't take this out of context ;w;)

Also, the current sunken chest loot table makes the items feel more like actual possessions, which is part of the fun of uncovering lost treasure!

Edit: I think giving unique functions to ocean content (as opposed to making it compete with the rest of the game) is a better approach.

[Masked Koopa]

On 1/7/2024 at 3:46 AM, Cockroach Lily said:

Almost nothing in the game pushes you to change your strategies between worlds. You favoured basing biome might generate in a corner of the map, and some setpieces provide farm opportunities, but other than that, the resources available to you are pretty much the same every run. I don't see how making ocean content superior to land based alternatives would better the game, but if it stays inferior, the buffs will just make sailing easier, which I am against, as dying is fun (please don't take this out of context ;w;)

Also, the current sunken chest loot table makes the items feel more like actual possessions, which is part of the fun of uncovering lost treasure!

Edit: I think giving unique functions to ocean content (as opposed to making it compete with the rest of the game) is a better approach.

To your first point, I think the novelty of doing things differently is incentive enough, at least for me.

Personally, the sunken chest loot table thing seems like a pointless novelty to me - at the end of the day they have a pretty high time investment for a usually junk reward, if klei really wants to make it story-based i'd at the very least like to see something like a journal added to these chests.

As for your edit, I think the problem is that requires Klei make drastic changes to existing content, which is much more work than numbers-based tweaks would be, which seems unrealistic given how infrequently they change items to begin with.

[Cockroach Lily]

15 hours ago, Masked Koopa said:

To your first point, I think the novelty of doing things differently is incentive enough, at least for me.

Then what are the buffs for?

15 hours ago, Masked Koopa said:

Personally, the sunken chest loot table thing seems like a pointless novelty to me - at the end of the day they have a pretty high time investment for a usually junk reward, if klei really wants to make it story-based i'd at the very least like to see something like a journal added to these chests.

I don't think your original suggestions are going to fix this. however, I do agree with the inclusion of a lazy explorer, as looting the chests is something I considered for getting a walking cane outside of winter. I think it's too random to rely on outside of season/moon phase specific items. Oh, and on the topic of buffs I think are fine, Broken Shells stacking to 40 makes sense.

15 hours ago, Masked Koopa said:

As for your edit, I think the problem is that requires Klei make drastic changes to existing content, which is much more work than numbers-based tweaks would be, which seems unrealistic given how infrequently they change items to begin with.

I didn't suggest they change anything, I just think it's a nice approach for a sandbox game. It's pretty much what Klei have been doing this whole time, even if some items are *very* niche.

Thanks for the response :>

[Masked Koopa]

On 1/10/2024 at 2:36 AM, Cockroach Lily said:

Then what are the buffs for?

To make the act of doing something differently feel less like a deliberate self imposed handicap.

 

On 1/10/2024 at 2:36 AM, Cockroach Lily said:

I don't think your original suggestions are going to fix this. however, I do agree with the inclusion of a lazy explorer, as looting the chests is something I considered for getting a walking cane outside of winter. I think it's too random to rely on outside of season/moon phase specific items.

I'd be interested to know what you reckon would fix this, since my chest suggestions were mostly a proof of concept rather than something id thought about extensively.

 

On 1/10/2024 at 2:36 AM, Cockroach Lily said:

I didn't suggest they change anything, I just think it's a nice approach for a sandbox game. It's pretty much what Klei have been doing this whole time, even if some items are *very* niche.

I think to me the issue is that when unchanged the state of this content is that it feels actively unrewarding to engage in, which I think is a shame given a lot of it is pretty cool.

[Cockroach Lily]

10 hours ago, Masked Koopa said:

To make the act of doing something differently feel less like a deliberate self imposed handicap.

I don't see anything wrong with those

10 hours ago, Masked Koopa said:

I think to me the issue is that when unchanged the state of this content is that it feels actively unrewarding to engage in, which I think is a shame given a lot of it is pretty cool.

I think it has more to do with the low density of it. It also seems pretty expensive, but I need to experiment with grass rafts more...

On 12/8/2023 at 6:47 AM, Masked Koopa said:

Seedshell:

• Stack size: 20->40
• Damage: 23.8 -> 68

These things suck. Any balance concerns Klei or the community might have had were unwarranted, they are so awful, good god. This honestly probably won't even make them worth the effort, so if ya'll have any additional ideas, by all means pitch them.

They can stun critters, allowing them to be picked up. Increasing the damage to 68 will make them too deadly to collect rabbits, birds, etc. I think increasing seedshell aoe range will make them better at what they already do. Some people use these to kill woven shadows, apparently, which would be less fidgety with bigger range. Agree with increasing stack size.

On 12/8/2023 at 6:47 AM, Masked Koopa said:

Spectackler Box :

• Fishing items will now be automatically put in here instead of the inventory. (Excludes things like seeds, figs, twigs, etc)
• Equipping an ocean fishing rod will automatically open this
• Now has a storage slot dedicated to an ocean fishing rod, visually puts the rod next to it.

Ocean fishing is currently way too annoying in terms of inventory management. This item alleviates the issue slightly, but it should honestly just solve it. Ocean fishing is never going to be competitive with other food sources, so it should at the very least be easy on the inventory and seamless. This would let you avoid lures and bobbers in your inventory, as well as let you hold all fishing items in a single slot when not in use.

Yeah.

[ShadowDuelist]

On 12/7/2023 at 9:47 PM, Masked Koopa said:

Strident Trident

I think this item should allow you to stick a gem of your choice and add different effects to it, depending on the gem used, mostly customizing its use.
Casting rain could be just one of its uses with one particular gem, but it could become a decent damage self repairing weapon, or an AOE of freezing, or other effects as well.

Reasons:

- Mimics crab king mechanics
- does not lock the weapon to any specific use
- People may actually try to obtain it as a rare tool/weapon
- Encourages you to have even more than one, since with different gems on each one, they serve different purposes

I also think the ingredients to craft should be tweaked, and crab king should drop not just the BP but an ingredient to craft it.

 

[arubaro]

4 hours ago, Cockroach Lily said:

They can stun critters, allowing them to be picked up. Increasing the damage to 68 will make them too deadly to collect rabbits, birds, etc

Which is pointless

Nobody kills barnacles to catch critters. We already have better, cheaper and less deadly ways of catching critters

Giving them a real use woul be better

[Cockroach Lily]

17 hours ago, arubaro said:

Which is pointless

But another damage-focused weapon wouldn't be pointless?

[Jakepeng99]

18 minutes ago, Cockroach Lily said:

But another damage-focused weapon wouldn't be pointless?

This thing has a large aoe. No it wont.

[Cockroach Lily]

4 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

This thing has a large aoe. No it wont.

And what do you need it for? Woven shadows and baby tentacles have less than 23 hp, spiders and bees are too small of a threat to warrant such expenses and pengulls don't drop anything useful. In phase one of the Bee Queen fight, it is easier to leave just one grumble bee alive, and in phases 3-4, she'll spawn too much of them + you can't attack them with those when they're puffed up without getting stung. This leaves cookie cutters, frogs, splumonkeys and maybe pigs, although I wouldn't go all the way to the ruins for some food.

[Jakepeng99]

11 minutes ago, Cockroach Lily said:

And what do you need it for? Woven shadows and baby tentacles have less than 23 hp, spiders and bees are too small of a threat to warrant such expenses and pengulls don't drop anything useful. In phase one of the Bee Queen fight, it is easier to leave just one grumble bee alive, and in phases 3-4, she'll spawn too much of them + you can't attack them with those when they're puffed up without getting stung. This leaves cookie cutters, frogs, splumonkeys and maybe pigs, although I wouldn't go all the way to the ruins for some food.

The seed shell is the only pre riff non character exclusive aoe weapon in the game.

[Habakkuk]

On 12/7/2023 at 9:47 PM, Masked Koopa said:

Ocean Debris:

For reference, the original loot table:

My reccomended table:

• Much more frequently spawning.
• Spawn in clusters of 2-5.
• If they spawn more in shallow ocean, change this to make them spawn everywhere (not well documented as to whether this is the case).

This aims to remedy the following:

1. The ocean is currently a 'resource drain', in the sense that boating requires resources that cannot be easily found on the ocean. Adding a source gold and flint would greatly lower the materials the player needs to collect before setting sail.
2. In addition, basic resources like grass and twigs are nigh absent on the ocean. Making Ocean Debris more akin to tumbleweeds would definitely remedy this. Grass especially has a lot of uses for boat structures like sails and anchors, so it has been bumped up above kelp.
3. Bull Kelp Stalks are currently essentially nonrenewable due to the absurd rarity, while Sea Weeds and Anenemies are entirely nonrenewable. Sea Weeds are much less 'spammable' than Kelp or Anenemy traps, so giving them the low rarity feels a little more sensible.
4. The fishing gear has also been put into one category instead of being needlessly split between two tiers of rarity.

Sea Sprout Starter should have a 1.1% chance too, it would take thousands of days to find a good quantity of that if it is only 0.22%

 

On 12/7/2023 at 9:47 PM, Masked Koopa said:

Rockjaw :

• Now drops 5-15 rocks.
• Now drops 2-3 Barnacles

Rockjaws clearly have a jaw made of rock, and sea stacks are not the most reliable source of rocks due to the tendency for the rocks to fall in the water, and their nonrenewable nature. Rockjaws are also not particularly rewarding to kill in their current state, so a boost to their drops would be very much welcome.
 

They could drop Shark Fin allowing us to craft the Sleek Hat, in SW whe have a loot of move speed and we need more move speed in DST.

 

 

On 12/7/2023 at 9:47 PM, Masked Koopa said:

Skittersquid:

• Groups are now about twice as large
• Will now prioritise jumping on your boat to eat meat off the floor over chasing fish
• HP 170 -> 100
• Monster meat drop chance 100% -> 50%
• Increased spawn chance if the player is in darkness

Skittersquids are currently more of a funny critter than a viable source of light bulbs, which seems a shame since it'd be a nice alternative to going down to caves to make your first lantern, as well as a way to refill while boating. The change to chase meat is to allow the player to lure them in if the player wants to go fishing.

 

This mob could have a unique drop, I don't know... a ink our something like that that allow us to paint stuff.

 

On 12/7/2023 at 9:47 PM, Masked Koopa said:

Sunken Chest:

For reference, the current loot table:

My suggestion:

Note that this is meant to be a general suggestion to cover the following:

1. Putting in a bunch of Malbatross feathers is incredibly dumb, especially now that the items no longer require blueprints. If Malbatross isn't dropping enough feathers, increase his drops.
2. Putting basic boat items like sails and an anchor makes no sense whatsoever. You have to help pearl to even make the pinch n' winch in the first place, so you're probably already going to have a boat with most if not all of these by the time you have treasure
3. Less random junk that doesn't even feel like treasure and serves no function. Stuff like moonglass, moonrock, cookie cutter shells, salt crystals and dead fish have no place in a treasure chest. If these absolutely must be loot in underwater objects, add them to ocean debris, this is meant to be a treasure box.
4. We already get plenty of lures and such from pearl. Once again, not something that belongs in a treasure box.
5. A way to get more empty bottles would be much appreciated.

I would  add the possibility to use the Sunken Chest as a new kind of loot storage after you open it instead of break it. It could be a movable storage that you can move like a statues (Chess Piece), putting it in your back or with a beefalo.  It could be unbreakable our fireproof and have 12 slots like a Scaled Chest and you could drop it in the sea to hide your loot. 

 

I would like to add another suggestion: all mobs and bosses in the sea always appear wet.

I like all other suggestions, but I think those I commented deserved a bit more love, but this post of yours is very very good and need.

 

[Captain_Rage]

On 12/14/2023 at 1:37 AM, CuteC said:

You're not taking into account availability, you can have goat and lureplant farms next to base while you're doomed to having seaweeds out in the ocean, taking it super long to get there and the dishes that they make are not good at all, so those are two reasons not to go there, if the dishes were like really good then people would go out of their way to get say a better healing item.

I used to love the idea of a barnacle farm and had a hefty one going in my main solo world but didn't end up using it much for the reasons you mention. However, after the Polar Bearger Bin got introduced everything got turned upside down. Now it is really time and resource efficient to head out and harvest a big amount of barnacles and cook a huge load of Barnacle Linguine in one go, since it is a good dish and the Polar Bearger Bin will keep them fresh for super long. I believe this currently is my most efficient setup, considering the general stats and hunger that the dish provides.

[Cockroach Lily]

5 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

The seed shell is the only pre riff non character exclusive aoe weapon in the game.

I provided you a list of situations where AOE attacks might be better than regular ones, and which of them one might be willing to go looking for seedshells for, of which there aren't a lot. Reiterating what you've stated is not going to advance the conversation.

[zhangsheng]

The practicality of the current version of the trident is indeed very low, and there is an urgent need to enhance it to enhance its practicality.

[Jakepeng99]

2 hours ago, Cockroach Lily said:

I provided you a list of situations where AOE attacks might be better than regular ones, and which of them one might be willing to go looking for seedshells for, of which there aren't a lot. Reiterating what you've stated is not going to advance the conversation.

Yeah, that is why we buff them.

 

Who will be willing to go out of there way to get seed shells to capture a few critters?

[Cockroach Lily]

15 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Who will be willing to go out of there way to get seed shells to capture a few critters?

Who will be willing to go out of their way to get seedshells for some meat, bananas and pig skin?

[Jakepeng99]

1 hour ago, Cockroach Lily said:

Who will be willing to go out of their way to get seedshells for some meat, bananas and pig skin?

 Your points are starting to contradict...

[Brago-sama]

Yeah i kinda agree, buffing them damage wise wont do anything unless they hit some major breakpoints, like 1shotting dogs, which I dont see happening.

[Masked Koopa]

1 hour ago, Brago-sama said:

Yeah i kinda agree, buffing them damage wise wont do anything unless they hit some major breakpoints, like 1shotting dogs, which I dont see happening.

I think it'd at least be a start - perhaps they could also stun enemies?

[Popian]

On 1/13/2024 at 2:12 PM, arubaro said:

Nobody kills barnacles to catch critters. We already have better, cheaper and less deadly ways of catching critters

If you are using the Barnacles for Eggs it's not too out of the way.

You could have both abilities depending on the size or other properties of the creature, which is something I think (can't remember) was supposed to happen on release but got simplified to what it is now.