Fix for wildfires?

[Reiko24]

Every time something starts smoldering in summer, the character will say something similar to "Smells like something is burning...".

Gives enough time to react, and to not make your base a torched mess. If someone doesn't react in time, it's on them. It still doesn't show the exact location, just gives you info more obvious than smoldering sounds that can easily be misheard or just not heard.

[Mike23Ua]

You know how sometimes you’ll start a hunt to look for a Koalephant and you’ll end up sometimes NOT finding the correct path for the next print sometime?

Its going to be the same situation here..

which is exactly why in the past I suggested something more like this (yes I’m stealing a feature straight out of Fortnite.. When it works it works regardless of what “bad” game it’s from, get over it guys.)

in DST it would look more like this (top left corner barely visible)

This tells the player that something is about to start burning north west of their current standing position.

Your suggestion however- Would have me just as frustrated as when I can’t find the right direction to run in to find my next hunt track, and will cause more Frustration than it would in helping locate the thing that’s about to go up in a blaze.

A few things to note: Even things that ARE fully on fire can be saved if the player has a Watering Can, Water Balloons, Willows Lighter, or Wickerbottoms rain book, but you have a limited time to save them before they fully burn up.

[Wormboi]

Make it so that that theres a period of time were things will start burring instead of all the time.

[Mike23Ua]

8 minutes ago, Wormboi said:

Make it so that that theres a period of time were things will start burring instead of all the time.

It already is! Things can only catch fire at day (Yellow portion of the day) and at Dawn & Night (Red & Blue) Wildfires can’t happen at all.

[Wormboi]

Just now, Mike23Ua said:

It already is! Things can only catch fire at day (Yellow portion of the day) and at Dawn & Dusk Wildfires can’t happen at all.

No I mean like, I want something similar to "heatwaves" in UNCOMP were you have a couple of days to prepare for when things are gonna start burning during the day.

[benfroyobro9381]

Go to world settings-> wildfires -> none.

I honestly can't get behind a mechanic like wildfires. There's no benefit and the only way a player's playstyle changes is to straight up avoid it. I don't care that the oasis exists; i don't want to be forced to base in one area just to mitigate a downside that occurs for a fourth of the year. If klei can't find a way to make it fun then they should just remove it like disease. No one will miss it. 

 

[Sir Noel]

6 minutes ago, benfroyobro9381 said:

Go to world settings-> wildfires -> none.

I honestly can't get behind a mechanic like wildfires. There's no benefit and the only way a player's playstyle changes is to straight up avoid it. I don't care that the oasis exists; i don't want to be forced to base in one area just to mitigate a downside that occurs for a fourth of the year. If klei can't find a way to make it fun then they should just remove it like disease. No one will miss it. 

 

I can't see it working either, at least with how it currently spawns aka all the time everywhere on everything. There is a clear reason it doesn't happen in oasis or caves: they want you to avoid it entirely. I don't like having to change things in world settings, but I don't blame people who do.

Funnily enough wildfires were one of the main points in my post about summer that kept getting brought up, and rightfully so. It's the most controversial mechanic of the season by far.

[Gotheran]

As I've mentioned in other threads I made a suggestion which is now archived to have wildfires reworked to function somewhat like Lunar Rifts and Forest Petrification, an area of trees becomes engulfed in an endless inferno, the turfs can take on a charred burnt appearance, random fires not connected to a tree start and go out in the area and its largely inhospitable to be there, but it causes an ash cloud to extend to a radius outside the effected area that causes embers to rain from the sky which then wander around like mushroom spores and seek out flammable objects that they attach to and cause the object to start smouldering, the embers can be put out before they find something, and despawn pretty quickly if no players are around, could be caught with a bug net to have some use so it encourages the player to maybe let the fire go to collect embers. Outside the ash cloud embers would not spawn, and a normal length summer would cause about 2 wildfires at default settings. With incredibly aggressive world regrowth following the events end (if the player didn't intervene so you don't just end up with zero dense forests after one summer.

[RozeMeteor]

Even since i discovered wildfires in a not so nice way on my first run that i got to summer, i learned to base in caves and never changed since.. sure use flingos..bla bla.. but it's range is too small, if you plan to set up a good amount of structures it simply won't do resulting in resource sink. Not to me mention the enviroment damage, which depending of what was destroyed will take long to regen naturally most of the surface bases have to be like those blueprints packs from factorio/mindustry(if you haven't played it´s like efficiently small). Sometimes i desired base on surface, but i can't bear having the idea to lose my base because i wasn't alert for 5 seconds. The character alert is a good idea but it will need some sort of message priority because like, if you examine something and receive a hound wave alert for example, the later will override the quote.

[Captain_Rage]

Haven't fires and wildfires been tweaked enough already? In earlier versions of DST fires were indeed unforgiving and could devastate a normal base in a few moments but with more recent tweaks to how fire works and spreads you really have to neglect fire protection completely for it to cause any significant damage (assuming we are talking about a normally sized base without every structure clumped up in one spot).

On a 3200 day world with default settings I have only had 2-3 fire mishaps that caused any noticeable harm and it was still very minor. Above-Average Trees get you pretty far and with one or two Ice Flingomatics there really shouldn't be any cause to worry, and later still when you obtain the Ice Crystaleyezer nothing can really go wrong.

Well, Willow might have it easier than other characters to keep things under control. Wildfires just feel like a part of DST. It's there, together with Snurtles and other things you technically could get by without.

[Gotheran]

42 minutes ago, Captain_Rage said:

Haven't fires and wildfires been tweaked enough already? In earlier versions of DST fires were indeed unforgiving and could devastate a normal base in a few moments but with more recent tweaks to how fire works and spreads you really have to neglect fire protection completely for it to cause any significant damage (assuming we are talking about a normally sized base without every structure clumped up in one spot).

On a 3200 day world with default settings I have only had 2-3 fire mishaps that caused any noticeable harm and it was still very minor. Above-Average Trees get you pretty far and with one or two Ice Flingomatics there really shouldn't be any cause to worry, and later still when you obtain the Ice Crystaleyezer nothing can really go wrong.

Well, Willow might have it easier than other characters to keep things under control. Wildfires just feel like a part of DST. It's there, together with Snurtles and other things you technically could get by without.

I'm gunna just say it, Fling-o's are just badly designed. Their range is pitiful they get overwhelmed easily and the eat fuel like crazy for what little they do, outside of using them to keep your grass twig and berry farms hydrated they are a pain to use and annoyingly expensive with the ice cost requiring a 2 season ahead of time stockpile which also effectively gates fling-o's behind having a fridge which is just blatantly odd on its own. The only real way to not need a fridge beforehand is be WX and pelt yourself with waterballoons with the chilling circuit. And ice is so insignificant otherwise it could pass your radar to even remember to grab some before its all melted by the end of spring.

So yeah fire spread has been powerfully nerfed and thats frankly a good thing, its basically instant in solo and i wish the slow temperature ramp up they do in DST was ported back. (along with a great many other qol changes)

Also don't get the comparison to Snurtles, snurtles aren't destructive and kind of very sought after for their shell armor, as fragile as it is, but there's also other options available as effective or better depending on your character, WX and Wolfgang could easily rock marble armor for example. You can live without it but you can't live without doing something about wildfires.

[Mike23Ua]

Wait, why are you using ice to fuel flingo matics anyway? Maybe I’m misunderstanding you but, They can be refilled with grass, grass tufts, twigs, logs, or best use boards?? The Ice in a Flingo Machine never has to be restocked.

You only need the Ice to craft the Flingo itself, I mostly use my ice to create Meatballs or Bunny Stews with lol

[Gi-Go]

Wildfires are pretty cool. You can stay at base at dusk and night but leave in the morning. You can hang out in caves. You can carry water can around and you should because you can also use it to cool off your thermal stone. You can base at oasis if you want, which has additional benefits like the fact that trees won't regrow there on their own, and this biome is immune to moon storms. 

They do have flaws too but overall it's not a disease - mechanic that has no redeeming qualities. 

[Gotheran]

28 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Wait, why are you using ice to fuel flingo matics anyway? Maybe I’m misunderstanding you but, They can be refilled with grass, grass tufts, twigs, logs, or best use boards?? The Ice in a Flingo Machine never has to be restocked.

You only need the Ice to craft the Flingo itself, I mostly use my ice to create Meatballs or Bunny Stews with lol

I never said i did, but a single flingo needs, what 12 ice to craft? its alot for what benefit you get out of it and how little ice most glaciers give, granted pengulls will spawn tons of them so its less of an issue but it still means stockpiling a fair bit, usually over a stack in my case as I like to have wiggle room and 4 fling-o's is like bare minimum coverage to me.

I fuel them with wood but the upfront cost is a fair bit and only worse the more you plan to use.

[Bumber64]

7 hours ago, Gi-Go said:

They do have flaws too but overall it's not a disease - mechanic that has no redeeming qualities. 

What are the redeeming qualities? You've listed ways to avoid or combat the feature, not why it's any good for the game.

Summer already has overheating, plant withering, and red hounds. (And antlion, but that's not heat-related.) Wildfires are just an annoying addition to those, as it stands.

If wildfires were periodic events that happened with warnings (like hound waves), that'd be a serious improvement at least. A GUI indicator for the fire start location would fix the issue of not knowing where the fire is. I'm still not sure what that adds over red hounds, though.

[Reiko24]

9 hours ago, Gi-Go said:

They do have flaws too but overall it's not a disease - mechanic that has no redeeming qualities. 

tbh, i would want disease to come back if they gave us a way to cure our plantation, or late game gave us a way to get some sort of a vaccine that makes plants resistant to disease

[Wormboi]

6 hours ago, Reiko24 said:

tbh, i would want disease to come back if they gave us a way to cure our plantation, or late game gave us a way to get some sort of a vaccine that makes plants resistant to disease

brighshades are basically just disease 2.0

[Well-met]

it's a good idea

however the best fix is to disallow summer smolders on player-made structures

[SaltyPepper2231]

Make the air wavy when wildfires are about to happen. Like heat haze in real life.

[Mike23Ua]

13 hours ago, Well-met said:

it's a good idea

however the best fix is to disallow summer smolders on player-made structures

If Klei EVER did that it should probably be a world Gen setting, not everyone wants to play a game where “My base is safe and nothing can ever dare to scratch it.”

[Szczuku]

Wildfires are very much thmatically appropriate for the game and I wouldn't want them gone

...hooooowever, there's no denying that it is one of the most disliked mechanics in the game. Even with dst's weaker fire spread and auto-extinguishing once not loaded, the very thread of a lot of structures/plants catching fire is enough to deter most players from ever engaging with summer/wildfires

This would weaken them significantly but I propose that wildfires should be treated in a more cartoony way - now a smoldering thing will burn down instantly within a second. It will smolder like normal but once it catches fire, it's ashes after a second.

That way even if a wildfire starts off-screen it will only consume a single thing. That should, hopefully, fix wildfires as rebuilding a single thing is much better imo than having to constantly worry about multiple thing burning down

[Gotheran]

On 6/16/2024 at 2:08 PM, Gotheran said:

As I've mentioned in other threads I made a suggestion which is now archived to have wildfires reworked to function somewhat like Lunar Rifts and Forest Petrification, an area of trees becomes engulfed in an endless inferno, the turfs can take on a charred burnt appearance, random fires not connected to a tree start and go out in the area and its largely inhospitable to be there, but it causes an ash cloud to extend to a radius outside the effected area that causes embers to rain from the sky which then wander around like mushroom spores and seek out flammable objects that they attach to and cause the object to start smouldering, the embers can be put out before they find something, and despawn pretty quickly if no players are around, could be caught with a bug net to have some use so it encourages the player to maybe let the fire go to collect embers. Outside the ash cloud embers would not spawn, and a normal length summer would cause about 2 wildfires at default settings. With incredibly aggressive world regrowth following the events end (if the player didn't intervene so you don't just end up with zero dense forests after one summer.

I've said it before, but other things to consider for this proposed change would be base location is now more strategic, finding an area as far away from large forests as possible will reduce the likely hood of you even being directly impacted without having to specifically go caves or oasis. It also could produce valuable charcoal as a bonus for fuel which is useful in all seasons and is thematic to summer to help load you up on supplies for the longer nights ahead, large scale ash production without having to burn your own supplies, granted ash isn't greatly useful but healing salve is always nice to have.

There's room to spice things up as well, flaming tree guards that spawn in the area, drop some living logs but maybe also living charcoal as a unique resource. Enflamed Birchguards, similar idea. Level three spider nests could spawn into flaming spider queens who spawn firespitters (fire spitting variant of spitters) and flamebite spiders (variant of spider warriors, bites cause an effect like fire nettles but weaker) both tameable by webber if they survive their queen. all flaming enemies would be immune to flame damage and freezing but also radiate flame damage auras (maybe not the spiders), they also can't be wet.

[chaosmonkey]

A late game consumable to summon rain would solve the pain of wildfires in a progressed world. I think it's a good mechanic in the survival setting, it's just that there's no way to overcome it other than avoiding most of the world.

[Captain_Rage]

5 hours ago, chaosmonkey said:

A late game consumable to summon rain would solve the pain of wildfires in a progressed world. I think it's a good mechanic in the survival setting, it's just that there's no way to overcome it other than avoiding most of the world.

Don't clump structures and plants en masse, stay alert and carry an Ice Staff. It is really that simple.  Why people still keep exaggerating the threat wildfires pose is beyond me. They are not difficult to combat.

[Swiyss]

I think wildfires are perfectly fine for what they are.

There's a very simple fix, you can spend the summer in the oasis or the caves. If you don't wanna do that, you can easily craft a flingomatic early game and a crystaleyezer late game.

Please do not let this be a crab king situation. I don't even trust the devs at this point.

On 6/17/2024 at 2:50 AM, Bumber64 said:

What are the redeeming qualities? You've listed ways to avoid or combat the feature, not why it's any good for the game.

Summer already has overheating, plant withering, and red hounds. (And antlion, but that's not heat-related.) Wildfires are just an annoying addition to those, as it stands.

If wildfires were periodic events that happened with warnings (like hound waves), that'd be a serious improvement at least. A GUI indicator for the fire start location would fix the issue of not knowing where the fire is. I'm still not sure what that adds over red hounds, though.

Summer without wildfires is like spring without rain. But spring is on day 36 and summer is on 56, you have literally 7 and a half hours of gameplay to prepare for that LOL. Also forgot to mention but giant trees will also prevent wildfires from happening. Removing wildfires or reworking it would mean the death of summer.

If they change anything substantional from RoG like wildfires then they have no excuse to simply rework everything in the game. They can delete pigs and bring a new mob in place or even make spiders deal less damage. I don't want this door to open. Klei has to bring a survival games veterans (like The Forest players) and souls-like veterans to demo DST and make them give their opinions about the mechanics in the game.

If it's working on another game, let's see why.