Impressions about the recent direction of the game

[Falkenpelz]

Hey.

I just hopped back into the forums after being gone for a while and now I wanna share some impressions and ask some questions.

I did some catching up on the updates since the start of skill trees, and god... I probably can't judge yet, but to me it seems... not very fun. My first thought was "Is this an RPG now?" - don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with RPGs, I just don't feel like I would enjoy DST turning into one, as I bought it for being a survival game. So my first question would be, can you still play the game in the old survival spirit, mostly ignoring the skill tree stuff, or has the gameplay been changed too much? What is the vibe on public servers, can you still play a character as their "old self", or are people annoyed if you don't utilise the new buffs?

I hope that my worries are just overreacting in the face of new content, but I noticed I while ago that I really miss the "original vibe" of Don't Starve, that was a lot darker and morbid at times, but always with that slight wink. The way the characters are written resonates with me quite a lot - a group of average misfits, all with mighty mental issues, fighting their fears incarnate with stones on sticks. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'll grow to like the skill trees and new updates, I just want to say, I LIKE these characters for exactly their silly quirks, like being allergic to bees, being an insomniac or getting bad indigestion from raw food and having to deal with some of their issues without any remedy for them, because thats part of the character. I'm so tired of seeing another iteration of "Legendary heroes throw the spells of light and dark at their enemies" and I fear that this is where the updates are currently going. It isn't all the skilltrees (Wilson learning to stash stuff in his beard is incredible), but the general vibe of the latest updates.

The lore has honestly been quite lackluster lately and seems to be mainly "Wagstaff builds another portal and Charlie walks dramatically through the scene somewhere". Wagstaff's first appearance after years was great, but then he became a simple explanation for any new content and I wish his appearance was a bit more sparse and impactful. Somehow, the general impact of the Alter's awakening also feels a bit... shallow. There is a war between two eldritch forces boiling up, both of which are known to not be too healthy for humans. Yet choosing to join either side comes with technically no conesquences. Back then it was so well established through the messed up person that is Maxwell, how utilising shadow magic comes with a price and now, it comes with a power upgrade? (Gestalts attacking nightmare-gear wearers is perfect though, I gotta mention that!)

I gotta end it here because this essay is getting out of hand and I hope that some of you have the energy to read and discuss this. It should be clear by default, but keep it peaceful, I just want to share some thoughts and see if others share my sentiment or not.

[GenomeSquirrel]

as far as pubs go, Woody's helmets are very appreciated, but it's still a low expectations environment;

post fuelweaver / celestial champ content is extremely rare there, most players aren't interested in even intermediate steps like getting the heart

 

33 minutes ago, Falkenpelz said:

There is a war between two eldritch forces boiling up, both of which are known to not be too healthy for humans. Yet choosing to join either side comes with technically no conesquences. Back then it was so well established through the messed up person that is Maxwell, how utilising shadow magic comes with a price and now, it comes with a power upgrade?

A mix of getting accustomed to the awful things, and the immediate threat that brightshades and others melting through your armor and hp in seconds forcing a radical approach

[chirsg]

1 hour ago, Falkenpelz said:

Is this an RPG now?

No. This seems like standard roguelike progression. 

In Noita, you die, your end runs. But whatever you discovered in the run where your run ends, things get unlocked in your next playthrough.

 

E.g. You discover nuke in a noita playthrough and it will be unlocked as a random drop in the next one. 

 

The logic is consistent with OG DS. Don't starve, you accumulated exp for dying. You gain insight in dst and when your run ends, you carry over points for the next run.

[Mike23Ua]

In single player don’t starve you started with only Wilson unlocked, and the longer you stayed alive you unlocked new more powerful characters that made staying alive even easier in future play attempts.

In DST- The same logic applies here with Skill Trees.

You play you stay alive, you unlock skill points, to make your characters better.

Currently only Wilson, Woodie, Wolfgang, Wormwood, Willow & Wigfrid have skill trees.

Also some skills are “locked” behind needing to kill Ancient FuelWeaver or Celestial Champion.

It’s nowhere near as broken and OP as people claim.

Especially for a game that’s about cooperation and no longer just single player suffering.

[somethin]

DST is definitely going through a phase change. For better or for worse, it's only up to the player's opinion.
Personally, even if they add more stuff that are completely unbalanced or a bazillion new 'character rework-pocalypse' tomorrow I would not even bat an eye and just keep playing. I consider I got my money's worth of content since the end of CC arc. Everything else that comes after are just bonus content I get to fool around with, like if terraria would to add post-moonlord content.

[Spino43]

I find the current storyline kinda meh.

Wagstaff being a shady old man doing shady stuffs.

Charlie being a shady woman doing shady stuffs.

And none of them do anything that makes me interested aside from the drops/loot which are admittedly interesting.

It's just me, but the skilltrees aren't really that necessary imo, and klei probably better off spending the time and effort making those skilltrees into ironing out the problems dst currently has (mainly how boring and empty caves and ocean are atm).

Finally this may start a mob riot but Klei shouldn't listen too much to the players. The massive nerf to willow's abilities in beta branch showed that. I appreciate they listen, but listening and implementing too much is not a good idea. They need to stand their ground and make decisions that work best, even if it means annoying a couple of players, then so be it.

 

[grm9]

7 minutes ago, Spino43 said:

I find the current storyline kinda meh.

Wagstaff being a shady old man doing shady stuffs.

Charlie being a shady woman doing shady stuffs.

And none of them do anything that makes me interested aside from the drops/loot which are admittedly interesting.

It's just me, but the skilltrees aren't really that necessary imo, and klei probably better off spending the time and effort making those skilltrees into ironing out the problems dst currently has (mainly how boring and empty caves and ocean are atm).

Finally this may start a mob riot but Klei shouldn't listen too much to the players. The massive nerf to willow's abilities in beta branch showed that. I appreciate they listen, but listening and implementing too much is not a good idea. They need to stand their ground and make decisions that work best, even if it means annoying a couple of players, then so be it.

 

they should listen to players that actually play the game and whose statements make sense and weren't disproven by other players       

[arubaro]

is a weird direction but still i prefer it over the rest of 3737261 sandboxes

i hope klei could deliver a real hard mode so all of these weird decisions are worth and we can be entertained for long while after it they can focus on improving ocean, caves and surface 's biomes which, imo, should have been the priority 

they would need a lot of updates to make all the moon shenanigans feel complete..hsving just few mutations (hounds, birds and pengulls) makes the previous arc feel very incomplete and they moving on to possession feels like they abandoned the idea

also the enlighten mechanic is really underdeveloped

moon rifts feels like a vague thing to make a mirror mechanic to shadow rifts. An excuse to add planar when that makes no sense since everything comes from a other plane (shadows spawn from fissures, alter spawning gestals), is arbitrary to make some having planar mechanics and old ones no

all new bosses can throw you far but not old ones like bearger feels not well though and repetitive. Is a good mechanic that should be added to old bosses too, not simply adding it to 99% of new enemies

for once, finish one thing klei...you started many stuff at the same time and now dst feels like an early access 

[JustAFlower]

Well, I like it.

[Paxtonnnn]

11 hours ago, Falkenpelz said:

I'm so tired of seeing another iteration of "Legendary heroes throw the spells of light and dark at their enemies" and I fear that this is where the updates are currently going.

Don't agree with all of this post but this is definitely something I'm a bit worried about, though from what I've seen it's only really been an issue with a few skills in the Willow skill tree. I still find that skill tree really fun, though. She desperately needed the boost

[Hornete]

11 hours ago, Falkenpelz said:

I hope that my worries are just overreacting in the face of new content

That's an okay thing to feel! Honestly! When the recent beta originally released, I was very disheartened to see Willow treated as a generic fire mage character. So much so that it gave me the push to return to playing original Don't Starve for a bit, haha.

About your earlier question, I think in a pure gameplay sense, you can absolutely ignore the skill trees. Though you might have issues progressing in the Post-rift era, might depend how much further they push the alignment thing. Currently the alignments are mostly for combat purposes, allowing the characters to fight back against the planar forces through their own kits.

It does feel really weird to see another form of meta progression in a game like this, so late in development too! There was something really special about playing a game like DS/T for me, and the only thing that was locked out were the character unlocks in singleplayer(which came fairly quickly in my experiences!), the rest was purely on how much you as a player, in real life, has grown and learned about the game. And I get giddy just thinking about that! It's a very fun experience.

I don't mind (most of) the extra perks the trees brought on, but a very special part of a game like DS/T was just progressing through doing the content. Webber and Wx-78 aren't necessarily powerful characters, but wow the way they as characters progress was genuinely really fun to me! Webber's gameplay involves exploring every corner of the world because that's just how spiders were designed, to be found in practically every place, making for the fun switcherdoodle unlocks for Webber. Or Wx-78, scanning creatures and discovering new circuits. To go from these really interesting progression systems that felt natural to... merely surviving and investing perk points, feels like such a big downgrade!

12 hours ago, Falkenpelz said:

The way the characters are written resonates with me quite a lot - a group of average misfits, all with mighty mental issues

One last note and maybe getting a little off topic. But I absolutely love, adore and share your sentiment here. The early 20th century setting makes for such a fun dynamic, they don't have the words for whatever mental illnesses they might have, but they're trying their best!

This was probably a very 'rambly' emotion-filled reply, but I had to get my words out there! Cheers and hope the rest of your day goes well!

[Wurtstool]

12 hours ago, Falkenpelz said:

I just don't feel like I would enjoy DST turning into one, as I bought it for being a survival game. So my first question would be, can you still play the game in the old survival spirit, mostly ignoring the skill tree stuff, or has the gameplay been changed too much? What is the vibe on public servers, can you still play a character as their "old self", or are people annoyed if you don't utilise the new buffs?

I hope that my worries are just overreacting in the face of new content, but I noticed I while ago that I really miss the "original vibe" of Don't Starve, that was a lot darker and morbid at times, but always with that slight wink. 

The game over the years still retained the survival spirit that haven't changed much, but we did

The is why I will always believe that we active forum users (including myself) are always going to biased in how we view the game, because our mindset have far been past the "survival" phase because we are experienced, thriving, and know everything there is about DST. We are now only able to judge the games as "sandbox" now.

I know it's sad to hear but unless we are able to wipe our memory of the game, we are never able to go back. New updates can only temporary bring back the survival feel as it would be new, until we inescapably figures everything out.

[EthanTheMime]

honestly completely reasonable to feel apprehensive about the direction they’re taking the game in. the introduction of skill trees was bound to be really divisive—the introduction of permanent progression is a little strange, although i honestly don’t really mind it that much? i do think that bringing up the old character XP system is a good point, even though in both cases, “days survived” is a pretty shallow metric (wait a minute, didn’t one of the developers make a forum post about that a super long time ago?) (i guess i’m just glad they’re willing to experiment with some alternative unlock methods for certain skills). overall, i think i’m just willing to embrace the change and see how they fit new content into the game in the long run. i don’t think skill trees are the most egregious approach by any means. if the question is ever “can i just skip this new stuff” the answer is yes nine times out of ten, and it seems like that has always been a philosophy for DST’s content. really, i kind of respect klei for being willing to shake the foundation of the game in such a way so far into its development, although i also respect the players who don’t like the changes they decide to make.

at the very least, i think the skill trees are very fitting canonically. the character refreshes were written as the characters literally just having survived in the constant for so long that they started to hone their abilities, so its sort of implied that the survivors were listening and learning in the playthroughs you had prior to these updates. in the case of skill trees, you have a much more hands-on approach to what the survivors get to learn and what they don’t, and the survivors naturally are going to remember because that’s just how the game world works with deaths being canon. in a more literal sense, these do seem like actual follow-ups to the character refreshes where they’re trying to fill in some of the gaps they missed the first time around. it’s also just a way to expand the characters’ kits to accommodate some of the new content (especially with the whole planar damage shenanigans). but yeah, like most people, im not entirely sure how to feel about skill trees, but i wouldnt say theyre totally out of place. they’re clearly taking the game in a new direction and there’s bound to be doubt, so don’t take this as me telling you or anybody on here that it’s wrong to feel that way.

[Hornete]

1 hour ago, EthanTheMime said:

“days survived” is a pretty shallow metric (wait a minute, didn’t one of the developers make a forum post about that a super long time ago?)

YES! It's always very fun to read through posts from Kevin especially and see how the game evolved (Didja know the community pretty much worked together on spoilage as a mechanic? Kevin put out a post essentially saying "Hey would you guys think this is a good idea to bring challenge to the game?" and picked up a lot of traction! Fun stuff diving through 2012/2013)

[EthanTheMime]

44 minutes ago, Hornete said:

YES! It's always very fun to read through posts from Kevin especially and see how the game evolved (Didja know the community pretty much worked together on spoilage as a mechanic? Kevin put out a post essentially saying "Hey would you guys think this is a good idea to bring challenge to the game?" and picked up a lot of traction! Fun stuff diving through 2012/2013)

whoa TYSM for pulling that up!!! i vaguely remember spoilage being talked about but i wasnt as active back then. it’s so impressive how much klei listens to their community even now but the way they used to build the game with forum users was nuts. ill for sure take a look at some of those posts

[arubaro]

3 hours ago, Hornete said:

To go from these really interesting progression systems that felt natural to... merely surviving and investing perk points, feels like such a big downgrade!

i feel the same way, more when is applied to things like woodie's curse/sanity drain in were form. You get inmunity to those things by doing nothing in game, not even crafting a moon curse cure potion that wagstaff teach you or whatever 

[Pomato]

16 hours ago, Falkenpelz said:

I hope that my worries are just overreacting in the face of new content, but I noticed I while ago that I really miss the "original vibe" of Don't Starve, that was a lot darker and morbid at times, but always with that slight wink.

It reminds me of that Thesus's ship dilemma. Can Don't Starve franchise still be considered to be the same game after years of updating, changes and tinkering?

Personally I'd say no. I mean, the development staffs in the team probably got shuffled around over the decade. I'd be surprised if they weren't.

But at least the Don't Starve Classic (Singleplayer as most would call it) is always there, and a part of me is glad that original game has not been touched lately and probably never will be again.

[EthanTheMime]

16 hours ago, Falkenpelz said:

I really miss the "original vibe" of Don't Starve

i do think that this game has gone from “horror with a little silly” to “silly with a little cartoonish, light-hearted horror”. there’s definitely been a shift in tone but like @Pomato says the original game is always gonna be around and i personally feel that its vibe has held up.

i think one of the game’s biggest losses was its subtlety; character lore being kept to quotes that you had to dig out of the game yourself, maxwell’s “charlie” death message, ARGs galore, it was all so cool but this era feels largely behind us (probably because it is)

43 minutes ago, Pomato said:

Can Don't Starve franchise still be considered to be the same game after years of updating, changes and tinkering?

Personally I'd say no

i think im just particularly willing to accept that, if a game like dont starve together is going to be continually updated as a service, its identity is going to change. big example of this was when minecraft got that update that replaced all of the original textures—i was pretty sad to see those go but at the same time i knew that what i was playing wasn’t exactly “minecraft” anymore, or at least my interpretation of it, and giving it a new look was a really good way to signify that. old minecraft will always exist, i can always go back to that first version i ever played, but so long as it is going to get content, i’d prefer the developers go full steam ahead instead of play it so safe that nothing ever really gets added!