Why ocean content?

[Captain_Rage]

1 hour ago, Mysterious box said:

In terms of loot yes but in terms of travel I'd say no. I'm not naive enough to think 1 qol update will fix this but hey they're trying at least.

There have been updates earlier which were supposed to be about quality of life yet Klei added new features. Let's hope this will happen even if Klei want to lie low. :d

[AliceShiki]

I mean... I don't think the "extra shard" argument is that relevant... I mean, if your PC can't handle running Caves, then you just play without it.

If your PC can handle running caves, then there is no reason to not run it, because your PC can run it in the first place.

So like... I dunno, I don't feel like it matters much? If you can run it you run. If you can't run it you don't. I don't think anyone runs Caves with a barely-good-enough PC that ends up lagging on the entire game a bit due to running 2 shards? I think those people would just prefer to run without Caves as that would be more convenient for their play experience.

As for what the caves offer VS what ocean offers... Uhn... Well, I dunno how it works for experienced players, but Caves are an easy source of Lightbulbs and Vegetables, which already makes them great for me (I dunno how to make farms, so getting easy mushrooms on caves is great).

Meanwhile Ocean is just... Well, I dunno? I know the Lunar Island exists, and it has things people care for. And I think some stuff related to bananas, monkey raids and whatnot also exist? I dunno a thing about it. It sounds complicated and scary to go after because I'll need to spend I dunno how long making a boat and exploring it and figuring out how to make use of the Ocean stuff, while Caves is as straight-forward as having Lightbulbs and Mushrooms and that by itself already makes it great (and I know the Ruins also have Gears and some stuff leading to Ancient Guardian and whatever, but I never went to Ruins, so I dunno what's the deal with the Ancient Guardian, I just know it exists).

Oh, and Batlisks are an easy source of food too... Not as good as Spiders, but definitely easier to handle than a Tier 3 Spider den and its stupid spider warriors and its occasional queen.

So... At least from a new player's perspective, I'd say the caves offer a lot more than the Ocean does. It's very easy to see what the Caves offer and how to make use of it, while the Ocean feels more complicated and much less intuitive, so... Having a QoL update that gives us something to make new players more willing to go to the ocean sounds like a good idea to me.

Easiest thing on the top of my head would be changing how Lunar Island placement works? Maybe if it's easy to find out where the Lunar Island is just by exploring the ground, it could feel like it's worth it to make a boat to figure out what that thing is... Instead of... I dunno, what was the way to find Lunar Island again? You had to explore the whole map and find out a portion that looked like a "C", and the Lunar Island would be there, making the "C" become an "O" or something? I remember seeing something like it in a video that was a newbie tutorial, but I kinda forgot the details, and the video didn't explain what was so good about the Lunar island anyways, so... I don't know why it is important.

[00petar00]

8 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

In terms of loot yes but in terms of travel I'd say no. I'm not naive enough to think 1 qol update will fix this but hey they're trying at least.

The same can be said about caves, I think that you can get away with less updates for ocean because it is part of surface shard, it just needs more content/islands and hopefully travelling in one corner will allow you to move to the opposite corner, I don't see why this isn't a thing. We did get bootleg getaway but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be moved when getting to end of the map to the other side.

5 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

If your PC can handle running caves, then there is no reason to not run it, because your PC can run it in the first place.

So like... I dunno, I don't feel like it matters much? If you can run it you run. If you can't run it you don't. I don't think anyone runs Caves with a barely-good-enough PC that ends up lagging on the entire game a bit due to running 2 shards? I think those people would just prefer to run without Caves as that would be more convenient for their play experience.

It is very relevant because that shard could be used for a DLC or anything else and running another shard may make a PC lag while a lot of players can host surface only worlds and not have any lag and have better response times.

Why do you think players are saying we can't have any more shards? Because a lot of players can't host any more than 2 and even this is stretching it as it is normal for majority of pc users to have low end pcs.

Also this isn't purely pc issue, every console is going to have much harder time compared to pc users with hosting shards.

5 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

Meanwhile Ocean is just... Well, I dunno? I know the Lunar Island exists, and it has things people care for. And I think some stuff related to bananas, monkey raids and whatnot also exist? I dunno a thing about it. It sounds complicated and scary to go after because I'll need to spend I dunno how long making a boat and exploring it and figuring out how to make use of the Ocean stuff, while Caves is as straight-forward as having Lightbulbs and Mushrooms and that by itself already makes it great (and I know the Ruins also have Gears and some stuff leading to Ancient Guardian and whatever, but I never went to Ruins, so I dunno what's the deal with the Ancient Guardian, I just know it exists).

There's not much difference from caves, there's only a few biomes and a few items that you really care about. Most biomes are completely useless in caves and I don't even want to see them or care about finding them. It seems like you are biased towards caves  having more value with lightbulbs and mushrooms? I don't see mushrooms as something that most people care about, I don't ever want to see a mushroom biome and don't use them unless it happens that I find the biome when I need it.

I don't think you are fit to discuss this topic If you never went to ruins, the best and most profitable part of the caves for the players.

5 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

Oh, and Batlisks are an easy source of food too... Not as good as Spiders, but definitely easier to handle than a Tier 3 Spider den and its stupid spider warriors and its occasional queen.

This just shows that you have no idea what kind of a game DST is, food is never an issue and anyone can survive on almost anything. Everything you kill gives you food, there's so many food sources in the game that don't require you to do much besides transplanting them so you don't even need to kill things.

5 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

So... At least from a new player's perspective, I'd say the caves offer a lot more than the Ocean does. It's very easy to see what the Caves offer and how to make use of it, while the Ocean feels more complicated and much less intuitive, so... Having a QoL update that gives us something to make new players more willing to go to the ocean sounds like a good idea to me.

No one has food issues after they play the game for a few hours, it just depends how much time you need to invest to satisfy hunger bar and it probably won't be as efficient as someone with over 1000 hours played. Don't starve is in the name but it is very easy to solve and it needs to be that way.

I do agree that it is easier for new players to get into caves compared to ocean where they need to learn what to do, caves are compared to surface but you just need light and this increases difficulty by a quite big margin but it doesn't make it as bad as ocean where you are going to have to ignore everything you've learned until now.

Both ocean and caves need to be the focus of the development for at least 1-2 years, I just believe that caves should be the focus.

6 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

Easiest thing on the top of my head would be changing how Lunar Island placement works? Maybe if it's easy to find out where the Lunar Island is just by exploring the ground, it could feel like it's worth it to make a boat to figure out what that thing is... Instead of... I dunno, what was the way to find Lunar Island again? You had to explore the whole map and find out a portion that looked like a "C", and the Lunar Island would be there, making the "C" become an "O" or something? I remember seeing something like it in a video that was a newbie tutorial, but I kinda forgot the details, and the video didn't explain what was so good about the Lunar island anyways, so... I don't know why it is important.

You don't really need to explore the whole map, it really depends on your luck but that is part of the problem of the ocean, caves are a much bigger problem that a lot of players seem to ignore.

[AliceShiki]

14 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

It is very relevant because that shard could be used for a DLC or anything else and running another shard may make a PC lag while a lot of players can host surface only worlds and not have any lag and have better response times.

Why do you think players are saying we can't have any more shards? Because a lot of players can't host any more than 2 and even this is stretching it as it is normal for majority of pc users to have low end pcs.

Also this isn't purely pc issue, every console is going to have much harder time compared to pc users with hosting shards.

I don't see how any of this matters for what content to prioritize.

If your PC can run both caves and surface, you run both. If you can't run both, you don't run both. That's all. That doesn't change anything about development priority.

If anything, the content that not everyone can run because they don't have a great PC would naturally be a lower priority. Because not everyone can run it.

And yes, of course the game won't add a 3rd shard. It will just increase necessary PC specs to run the game with 3 shards. it would just be a silly development decision to do that.

And why are you bringing consoles into this? Unless your console in question is a Switch, any console would have a much easier time running multiple shards than a PC, unless you happen to be a person with a super gaming PC, and at this point you could probably run 10 shards with ease.

And again, I don't see how this impacts development priority in any way.

14 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

There's not much difference from caves, there's only a few biomes and a few items that you really care about. Most biomes are completely useless in caves and I don't even want to see them or care about finding them. It seems like you are biased towards caves  having more value with lightbulbs and mushrooms? I don't see mushrooms as something that most people care about, I don't ever want to see a mushroom biome and don't use them unless it happens that I find the biome when I need it.

I don't think you are fit to discuss this topic If you never went to ruins, the best and most profitable part of the caves for the players.

Why does it matter if it's only a few biomes that matter? Lightbulbs are the main and most important resource that the caves offer for the average player, and that's literally next to every cave entrance. The Ocean has nothing like it.

And did you not read the post you just quoted or something? Vegetables are good for people who don't know how to make farms work, because it helps them make Pieroggi and stuff. If you are making your giant farms then you obviously don't care about an easy source of vegetables in the wild.

And oh no, I'm new to the game, so I can't discuss about what makes more sense to focus development on for a game? Because obviously Klei doesn't care in the slightest about new player experience and only wants to focus their development towards the players with 100+ hours played that actually try tackling the harder content of the game instead of just trying to survive, right? Because ignoring the new player experience would certainly be a logical move for any developer, right?

14 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

No one has food issues after they play the game for a few hours,

For a few dozen hours, you mean.

If you play the game for a few hours, you're probably dying on your first winter because you never made a crockpot and now you can't find berry bushes anymore, nor can you get birchnuts to cook and make some food out of cutting trees.

You seem to be completely oblivious to what a new player experience is like in this game. It's probably been too long since you first played the game and you now can no longer get out of the experienced player mindset.

14 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

I do agree that it is easier for new players to get into caves compared to ocean where they need to learn what to do, caves are compared to surface but you just need light and this increases difficulty by a quite big margin but it doesn't make it as bad as ocean where you are going to have to ignore everything you've learned until now.

Both ocean and caves need to be the focus of the development for at least 1-2 years, I just believe that caves should be the focus.

So, you agree that the caves are not only more new-player-friendly, but that you also need way more stuff to try exploring the ocean than to explore the caves... And you believe the caves should be the focus?

I don't get your argument at all. It seems to rely entirely on the "needing another shard" thing to justify caves being the focus, when the Ocean situation seems to be a lot worse.

14 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

caves are a much bigger problem that a lot of players seem to ignore.

Elaborate? What are the problems with the caves? And how are those problems bigger than Ocean?

Easily accessible region with frontloaded important assets available (lightbulbs primarily, mushrooms and batlisks to a smaller extent), and a very important dungeon that basically every experienced player does (Ruins)... And on top of that it also gives you an easy cheatcode to ignore the entirety of Summer mechanics if you just wanna base on caves.

Versus... A hard to access region that requires specific resources, requires bigger game knowledge, has bad navigation, has plenty of bad rewards in it, has one of the bosses that people complain the most about... And has some specific good stuff in it too.

How is the Ocean a smaller problem than the caves? I don't get it.

[00petar00]

9 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

I don't see how any of this matters for what content to prioritize.

If your PC can run both caves and surface, you run both. If you can't run both, you don't run both. That's all. That doesn't change anything about development priority.

If anything, the content that not everyone can run because they don't have a great PC would naturally be a lower priority. Because not everyone can run it.

And yes, of course the game won't add a 3rd shard. It will just increase necessary PC specs to run the game with 3 shards. it would just be a silly development decision to do that.

And why are you bringing consoles into this? Unless your console in question is a Switch, any console would have a much easier time running multiple shards than a PC, unless you happen to be a person with a super gaming PC, and at this point you could probably run 10 shards with ease.

And again, I don't see how this impacts development priority in any way.

It simply makes caves more important because you are using more resources to host but with surface you are going to host ocean anyway.

Game is completely different without caves that I wouldn't suggest for any new player to play without them and you wouldn't even be able to kill CC, it isn't as simple as it once was to just disable caves and not care that much besides losing lanterns.

So you say that there won't be a third shard but seem to be fine with caves being in a terrible state or ocean taking a priority when players already have to host caves or they are losing out on so much because they can't progress CC questline, kill FW or get ruins gear.

I don't have experience with consoles but they are basically worse PCs, anyone with a decent PC has a better time running the game. How can you argue that any console has easier time running the game when consoles are basically minipcs designed by console developers to drain your money with other options, that's why their "pcs" are cheaper, you have to pay for internet access monthly or exclusive games and everything else they decide to shove down your throat.

Someone that has low end PC probably can't afford console If they consider that they'll have their money drained over time to make up the difference.

Ocean is in a a similar state to caves but caves should be a priority because they have a whole shard that you are basically required to host and a lot more free space, ocean is around the mainland on the surface so there is much less space to add stuff even though most of it is empty but at the same time ocean is completely different gameplay as you need to learn how to use a boat and sail.

9 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

Why does it matter if it's only a few biomes that matter? Lightbulbs are the main and most important resource that the caves offer for the average player, and that's literally next to every cave entrance. The Ocean has nothing like it.

Because it doesn't matter If there's 1 thing that is strong when most of the caves are empty, it is almost a waste of resources to host caves. Surface has a lot more powerful and useful items but content keeps getting added there while caves are forgotten.

9 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

And did you not read the post you just quoted or something? Vegetables are good for people who don't know how to make farms work, because it helps them make Pieroggi and stuff. If you are making your giant farms then you obviously don't care about an easy source of vegetables in the wild.

Why would someone chop trees in caves to make pierogi instead of just eating blue mushrooms? Why not go to lunar island and get stone fruit bushes?

9 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

And oh no, I'm new to the game, so I can't discuss about what makes more sense to focus development on for a game? Because obviously Klei doesn't care in the slightest about new player experience and only wants to focus their development towards the players with 100+ hours played that actually try tackling the harder content of the game instead of just trying to survive, right? Because ignoring the new player experience would certainly be a logical move for any developer, right?

It is not about being new but never exploring caves and maybe visiting ocean so you are biased. Basically your arguments are less valid If you don't know what you are talking about, how is this hard to understand?

Klei should care a lot about new player experience but that doesn't mean that your opinion would be more valid for something like caves or ocean that most new players avoid.

9 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

If you play the game for a few hours, you're probably dying on your first winter because you never made a crockpot and now you can't find berry bushes anymore, nor can you get birchnuts to cook and make some food out of cutting trees.

You seem to be completely oblivious to what a new player experience is like in this game. It's probably been too long since you first played the game and you now can no longer get out of the experienced player mindset.

So me saying a few hours translates to you saying winter? I should've said dozen hours but that's basically what I meant and a few hours can be 20-30 for me that has over thousands of hours in the game.

I know that players struggle with winter but as soon as they get better food sources are bountiful and no one has issues with food.

9 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

So, you agree that the caves are not only more new-player-friendly, but that you also need way more stuff to try exploring the ocean than to explore the caves... And you believe the caves should be the focus?

I don't get your argument at all. It seems to rely entirely on the "needing another shard" thing to justify caves being the focus, when the Ocean situation seems to be a lot worse.

Ocean requires you to learn to sail but for caves you can play as you did on surface but the only requirement is to have light.

9 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

Elaborate? What are the problems with the caves? And how are those problems bigger than Ocean?

90% of biomes are empty or not worth visiting once, every ocean island is worth visiting. Ocean is a much recent addition compared to caves and yet the content ocean has is already comparable to caves.

9 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

Easily accessible region with frontloaded important assets available (lightbulbs primarily, mushrooms and batlisks to a smaller extent), and a very important dungeon that basically every experienced player does (Ruins)... And on top of that it also gives you an easy cheatcode to ignore the entirety of Summer mechanics if you just wanna base on caves.

Versus... A hard to access region that requires specific resources, requires bigger game knowledge, has bad navigation, has plenty of bad rewards in it, has one of the bosses that people complain the most about... And has some specific good stuff in it too.

How is the Ocean a smaller problem than the caves? I don't get it.

It isn't any sort of cheat to base in caves and If you feel that way it just proves that wildfires mechanic is bad for the game because a lot of players that base in caves are there purely for this reason and not because summer is difficult to survive.

Navigation isn't bad but made for multiplayer and most rewards you can get outweigh the rewards from caves beside star caller staff/gems. Banana bushes solve your sanity issues, stone fruit bushes solve your hunger and rock needs (you basically need like 5 to survive permanently off of them), monkeytails = reeds, palmcone sprouts more wood and docks while no treeguards, anenemy can be used to kill AG, clockworks and mainly volt goat farm. Basically ocean solves 2 of your bars that you need to manage permanently.