We need a Biome Re-design update

[GhostyToasty]

Alot of the older biomes have gotten a little outdated when compared to the newer ones. I mean, Waterlogged, Lunar Grotto and Moon Quay look absolutely beautiful. They're filled with tons of little details, colours and shapes that complement each other, and things hanging from the ceiling, giving the biome extra depth, and it really makes the biome all the more stunning. But after you're done with those biomes, you go back to the Grasslands, Forest, Savanah and Deciduous, and you realize they're all practically the same biome with different coloured grass. And don't get me wrong, I LOVE the art of Don't Starve, but seeing the old biomes kinda makes me feel sad for them. They take up most of the map. And yet, they're some of the most visually barren biomes out there, I personally think we need a re-design for them, but what do you all Think? 

[xhyom]

Even a different variation of normal trees would do wonders to some biomes, or put a squirrel or any small critter that spawns and lives on that new tree a new turf and there it is, a new biome... It doesn't need to be useful or with a deeper meaning, just a new things to see while exploring is just what we all need  

[Mike23Ua]

I bought a next Gen Xbox to play enhanced versions of last Gen games, and I’d like to see DST eventually get this same treatment, even in just the smallest of details, such as how Birchnut trees just transform from full of leaves to bare & empty- the newer consoles should have the extra little animations of having leaves actually fall off the trees and then slowly changed the green grassy turf, to a Multi colored (leaves fallen all over) Fall Season turf, additional interactions can be added if Klei desires such as having small gusts of wind blow leaves off the ground dancing around in the air before landing back on the ground and becoming part of the map again, Catcoons can see said wind blown leaves and chase after them.

The TL:DR is that DST is still running on tech built in 2015, & I hope that by the time we get to 2025 (ten year anniversary of DST) that Klei will updated and refresh the game with a new 2025 look & feel.

[_zwb]

9 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

DST is still running on tech built in 2015

Actually DST is running on tech built in 2006, never changed, still runs fine

Spoiler

I'm referring to Lua 5.1, which was released in 2006

 

[Harrowick]

I would *adore* seeing little bits of grass blowing in the wind in the grasslands and leaves flying past in the deciduous. Little atmospheric changes would be so nice! (I would also LOVE if the world got even creepier the lower your sanity, always wished that impacted visuals more hehee)

[Wurtstool]

While I do agree that the old biomes are very boring compared to newer ones, I don't think they should change functionally snice they are the backbone of how DST is built off. People relied on these biomes for their ever so important early days and they held up in usefulness ever since. However they defiantly could use some polishing up with new visuals, effects, and atmosphere like some others suggested in this thread. A new look and some polish goes a long way.

Completely new biomes are always welcome though.

[somethin]

It would be cool if the savahnah has a few natural spawing hound mounds. Currently it's the single most boring biome in the game since the only thing remotely worthwhile in savahnah are beefalos.

[Antynomity]

Lmao I wish!

[arubaro]

there are many biomes that could be removed to make room for new ones

also there are world gen stuff that could be better like placing gekkos in their own biome instead of spawning them in place of grass or twiggy trees replacing twigs

there are biomes like the mandrake one or the forest with the moon base and mctusk igloo that could feel more mystical than just c&p the spider forest

[Retepeter]

On 12/10/2023 at 11:20 PM, _zwb said:

still runs fine

  Reveal hidden contents

I'm referring to Lua 5.1, which was released in 2006

 

eeeeh erm hmm meh

yeah  I wish

[SapoLover]

That's an idea that has been around here for some time already. Maybe tomorrow...

[GhostyToasty]

I know I'm late to re-comment

 

But I just checked out the Uncompromising mod, and I am SHOCKED we don't have a Hooded Forest biome in Vanilla dst. It seems like such a perfect biome for a game like this

[Mike23Ua]

I think with as much space as some of the old highly outdated biomes take up in the game world, that they ALL could use complete redesigns in what type of content you can experience within them.

A player should not EVER at any point of the game be able to simply clear out an entire MASSIVE Swamp Biome and turn it into their own personal playground area.

Merm huts should be like Catcoon Dens, if there aren’t enough of them in the world new ones should respawn in the area.

Year of the Catcoon teased us with Kitties that looked appropriately themed for the biomes you found them in- I was expecting the ENTIRE GAME to get this overhaul at some point, and was extremely let down when it remained exclusively a YoTC event thing.

[GhostyToasty]

3 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

I think with as much space as some of the old highly outdated biomes take up in the game world, that they ALL could use complete redesigns in what type of content you can experience within them.

A player should not EVER at any point of the game be able to simply clear out an entire MASSIVE Swamp Biome and turn it into their own personal playground area.

Merm huts should be like Catcoon Dens, if there aren’t enough of them in the world new ones should respawn in the area.

Year of the Catcoon teased us with Kitties that looked appropriately themed for the biomes you found them in- I was expecting the ENTIRE GAME to get this overhaul at some point, and was extremely let down when it remained exclusively a YoTC event thing.

I actually came up with a great idea for a swamp redesign 

 

In the middle of the swamp, there's a destroyed merm village, with leaky shacks, destroyed merm guard huts (which don't spawn guards) and a destroyed Royal tapestry, surrounded by broken king statues. and you can see a couple merms trying to re-build the broken structures (but failing) 

 

Basically, the village is supposed to look like it was reacently destroyed by a pig army.

[Uedo]

8 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

A player should not EVER at any point of the game be able to simply clear out an entire MASSIVE Swamp Biome and turn it into their own personal playground area.

But why tho? It's not feasible to use tools which cost resources and time to make, spend a large amount of time clearing it out, returfing and placing structures but it's perfectly acceptable to stand next to a bunch of spiders, after summoning the ghost of your sister, and gather a large amount of healing items with minimum input?

[arubaro]

1 hour ago, Uedo said:

But why tho? It's not feasible to use tools which cost resources and time to make, spend a large amount of time clearing it out, returfing and placing structures but it's perfectly acceptable to stand next to a bunch of spiders, after summoning the ghost of your sister, and gather a large amount of healing items with minimum input?

because he thinks swamp is ultimate challenge...

[grm9]

9 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

A player should not EVER at any point of the game be able to simply clear out an entire MASSIVE Swamp Biome and turn it into their own personal playground area

what do you even gain from this in comparison to building stuff in other biomes that don't require clearing everything out, you can replant reeds from moon quay, also, there are areas that have genuinely dangerous stuff that you can't simply kill or break, like nightmare lights and fissures, why aren't you talking about them? 

[Mike23Ua]

14 minutes ago, arubaro said:

because he thinks swamp is ultimate challenge...

Because the “Swamp” should have mobs that spawn under its map from its Marshy Turf, such as for example: Flurp fish from the Shipwrecked DLC.

Its not about “Ultimate Challenge” it’s about not having every biome in the game become a barren empty wasteland after 50,0000 days of the player existing within it.

[Kubicska]

One of the reason why they can’t make the old biomes look like the Moon Quay, Lunar Grotto or the Waterlogged biome is because those biomes have their own special characteristics to them that you cannot change (hanging things from the ceiling, and irremovable structures)

And the normal/usual biomes basically have none of that (other than Mactusk Camps, Ponds/Lava Ponds and Moonstone, ect) which makes it so that you can just replace your “boring rocky biome” with a Deciduous Forest and almost nobody would notice a thing other than the lack of catcoons.

And while basic biomes being highly customizable can be nice because of the lack of features that are exclusively only tied to them or cannot be changed, as of now it basically translates to: “Oh your world has a second Deciduous Forest? You know that it’s an objectively bad thing right?” (And don’t come and tell me that “ACTUALLY second Deciduous Forest is good because you can get all three mushrooms types there” because realistically nobody’s gonna be taking a trip there  more then a few times just to harvest mushrooms)

My solution: give these biomes special visual effects/properties (gusts of wind, leaf piles) that are tied to only appearing on that kind of turf that they are associated with and only work if the number of that kind of turf hits a certain number that enables these characteristics so that you don’t get punished by leaf piles at your base for having two tiles of Deciduous turf. (This would work similarly to how biomes work in Terraria)

Another thing: Adding a lot of additional irremovable structures to common biomes (forests, savanna) might just ruin them a little because it wouldn’t make sense to be walking around giant indestructible trees all the time if a player decides to end up tweaking the biome’s look a little by changing the turf for example, so the Devs would have to be careful with adding more mayor aesthetic changes if they do so choose to do so. (But I wouldn’t worry about that happening since Klei always does a good job at designing their biomes)

[Uedo]

On 12/13/2023 at 7:32 PM, Mike23Ua said:

Because the “Swamp” should have mobs that spawn under its map from its Marshy Turf, such as for example: Flurp fish from the Shipwrecked DLC.

Its not about “Ultimate Challenge” it’s about not having every biome in the game become a barren empty wasteland after 50,0000 days of the player existing within it.

Post has been edited as Antynomity has had an adverse reaction to normal conversation

[arubaro]

11 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Because the “Swamp” should have mobs that spawn under its map from its Marshy Turf, such as for example: Flurp fish from the Shipwrecked DLC.

Its not about “Ultimate Challenge” it’s about not having every biome in the game become a barren empty wasteland after 50,0000 days of the player existing within it.

better be a barren wasteland with offscreen wildfires, rifts, boulders falling and other stupid stuff you support and want

incoherence hitting hard

[Evelo]

Catcoons being my favorite critter after all so the biome is my favorite, love the colors too.

So as far as Deciduous is concerned, it is already chock full of stuff compared to other biomes. It has Unique Trees, Pig King, Catcoons, Klaus Sack, Glommer, and Moleworms. So it doesn't actually need anything. Hell I would say all the RoG biomes dont need anything, those being Deciduous and Desert. Basic Forest though is so aggravatingly boring though. There are 2 in every world minimum, one has the Lunar Stone with MacTusk and the other is the Mandrake Forest which has a few Mandrakes, the Terrarium, and typically more spiders because nothing else is going on there. The one with the Lunar Stone and MacTusk is fine but the other one really could be removed I would argue.

Over all I would like biomes to be smaller and more dense compared to what we have now with everything so spread out. The Bee Biome is something I can't live without, at least the bridge portion before you get to the rest of it which is just a relatively empty Grasslands. It feels dangerous and has a purpose. It is great.

The swamp is fine as is, it has reeds which makes it have a use to return and it is deadly. I would prefer more regrowth there so once you killed everything it isn't just a landscape with reeds but I think that is more of a biome size issue rather than an issue with the environment. I like it because it is meant to be super hostile, and it is. Could always add more things to have the incentive to clear it out some more since once you get access to the Moonquay Island there isn't ever a reason to go back since you got all the reeds you could ever need. Or use Wormwood for the crafting but that is boring and I don't use it. You do you.

The Savannah and the Grasslands I think the most work done to them. The Savannah is just this mono-colored blegh with a few rabbits, beefalo and grass tufts. I think this would be a great place to add some hostile enemies that maybe are just Vargs but patrol an area so they don't chase you endlessly. Like how if you bring a beefalo super far it will attempt to return to its herd. Something like that would be cool.

As for the Grasslands, one of them has more of an Identity because of the Stage being added, for me it is attached to the same biome as the Bee Queen so that one is fine. Little boring because Grasslands just have a mixture between Pine and Birchnuts but Grasslands are meant to be relatively save considering the default start location is a Grassland Biome (with a little savannah sprinkled in for rabbits and grass). I don't know what I want to change in the Grasslands but I want something. It feels too lifeless. It has the occasional rabbit and bee hive but it needs some more. Deserts have Hounds or Volt Goats, Deciduous has Catcoons and Pigs, need some hearty passive critters I think. Idk entirely just feels a little bland.

Oh and Mosaic. It visually is gross and I have never been a fan of it. I like that it has the identity of "this is where the Meteor Field is" which, just remove the Mosaic and make it a meteor biome? Graveyard can be moved to one of the forest biomes honestly. Also why are Tallbirds resigned to die to Meteors all day? Why on Charlie's shadow would they decide to live there?!

Holy crap I had a lot to say. Wasn't expecting that, just started typing. Sorry for the rant.

[GhostyToasty]

12 hours ago, Kubicska said:

One of the reason why they can’t make the old biomes look like the Moon Quay, Lunar Grotto or the Waterlogged biome is because those biomes have their own special characteristics to them that you cannot change (hanging things from the ceiling, and irremovable structures)

And the normal/usual biomes basically have none of that (other than Mactusk Camps, Ponds/Lava Ponds and Moonstone, ect) which makes it so that you can just replace your “boring rocky biome” with a Deciduous Forest and almost nobody would notice a thing other than the lack of catcoons.

And while basic biomes being highly customizable can be nice because of the lack of features that are exclusively only tied to them or cannot be changed, as of now it basically translates to: “Oh your world has a second Deciduous Forest? You know that it’s an objectively bad thing right?” (And don’t come and tell me that “ACTUALLY second Deciduous Forest is good because you can get all three mushrooms types there” because realistically nobody’s gonna be taking a trip there  more then a few times just to harvest mushrooms)

My solution: give these biomes special visual effects/properties (gusts of wind, leaf piles) that are tied to only appearing on that kind of turf that they are associated with and only work if the number of that kind of turf hits a certain number that enables these characteristics so that you don’t get punished by leaf piles at your base for having two tiles of Deciduous turf. (This would work similarly to how biomes work in Terraria)

Another thing: Adding a lot of additional irremovable structures to common biomes (forests, savanna) might just ruin them a little because it wouldn’t make sense to be walking around giant indestructible trees all the time if a player decides to end up tweaking the biome’s look a little by changing the turf for example, so the Devs would have to be careful with adding more mayor aesthetic changes if they do so choose to do so. (But I wouldn’t worry about that happening since Klei always does a good job at designing their biomes)

I mean, they could add a feature on world settings that let's you revert back to the old biomes if you want 

 

So there would be a world Gen option that's titled “Biome design” 

And the two choices will be “Classic” or “Reworked” 

[grm9]

2 hours ago, GhostyToasty said:

I mean, they could add a feature on world settings that let's you revert back to the old biomes if you want 

 

So there would be a world Gen option that's titled “Biome design” 

And the two choices will be “Classic” or “Reworked” 

there already is one, no one uses it though since it only has DS biomes without RoG, ANR, RoT and FB iirc

[Kubicska]

4 hours ago, GhostyToasty said:

I mean, they could add a feature on world settings that let's you revert back to the old biomes if you want 

 

So there would be a world Gen option that's titled “Biome design” 

And the two choices will be “Classic” or “Reworked” 

Great Idea 

Most of the visual only changes could be disabled in the settings just like the Waterlogged Canopy’s leaves and the rest could just be tossed into the world settings I guess