Cave Update Ideas/Suggestions.

[DegenerateFurry]

The latest update to the ocean was a significant one and it wasn't the first QoL/additional content update the sea has seen. I've seen pretty universally positive reception to Staying Afloat and I like the update myself. Especially the pirate-themed skins! The caves, however, have seen little that's new aside from Nightmare Werepig and the shadow rifts, and that's lacking any counterpart to Host of Horrors (since the Ink Blights are equivalent to brightshades). I've seen the sentiment elsewhere on this forum recently, but I'm hoping that the next major update is to the caves, and here's some things I'd very much like to see happen in said update. 

Ruins Overhaul
This is the most important one: I want to see the ruins have the generation they have in singleplayer Don't Starve. There's a mod that does this and it makes them so much more challenging, fun, and interesting, and additionally, there's a lot more resources in them. Why does having more resources in the ruins matter if we can just regen them by killing Fuelweaver, you might ask? Simple: this is a multiplayer game! More people means more need for resources, and with DS-style ruins gen, everyone in a server could have their own Star Caller if they wanted to do a full clear (and doing full ruins clears would be far more challenging for all the speedrunner types). Below is a comparison of ruins generation between what we currently have and the mod I mentioned. As you can see, in the mod, there's far less empty stretches of bridge and far more... actual content to interact with. I've highlighted the ruins in red. I don't even think the ruins needs new content! It's already the focal point of the caves. It just needs to be better, and a simple way to do that is to change it back to what it once was.

Atrium-Hunting QoL
Finding the Atrium is either an exercise in abusing the voidwalking glitch or an obnoxious game of trial and error with tentapillars. I don't think this should be the case. There's an easy solution, though! Just either add a visual difference to the Atrium tentapillar on both sides or give us an item that works like an astral detector to find the correct tentapillar. The latter solution is the better one, I believe. Maybe it could even be the ancient key? You put it on the ground for a few seconds and it conjures some kind of shadowy pointer-arrow with a tip edged in the red of pure horror, maybe with a couple random nightmare creatures spawning to balance out the fact that it never breaks.

Fuelweaver Rework
This one's probably going to be the most controversial part of my suggestions, but I'd like to see Fuelweaver reworked to suck less to fight solo and to be less of a resource sink like Crab King was. I'm not going to go into detail because that'd warrant its own thread, but I think it'd be a nice part of an update chain to the caves, one that many players would appreciate. As a compromise, perhaps we could get some kind of "woven memory" item to use on the shadow atrium to make it use the current fight for those people who prefer how it is now? Sort of like how you can add nightmare fuel to the Terrarium to make it summon the Twins instead - but the default fight would be the reworked one.

Toadstool Rework
This one is probably less controversial: I want to see the big frog dude be improved. At the very minimum, Toadstool needs better loot than lamps, especially now that we have much more accessible alternatives thanks to the sawhorse. Aside from having a poor reward for such a lengthy fight, I'd say the biggest problem is how you're almost required to abuse his AI by leading him behind a pond so he can't path correctly or do most of his moves (at least if you're doing it solo or without a couple Wolfgangs). It's also a bit too easy to get locked into a cycle of chopping down sporecaps and only having a minuscule window to actually fight him. Keeping his fight largely as-is in terms of his attacks would be fine with me, but I'd like to see the number of sporecaps or the frequency of the move that summons them lowered if only one person is in render distance, and it might be worth considering a reduction to his health pool.  

Post-Rifts Shadow Bosses
We need an equivalent to the Host of Horrors update for the shadow side, and the best way to do it is to add it to the caves. I don't, however, want it to just be the exact same! Having them possess dead cave bosses wouldn't really be that interesting, nor would it really be doable in the first place. The Ancient Guardian is already shadow-infused and the Nightmare Werepig already has pure horror powers and doesn't die. No, I think we need one to three fully new bosses instead. I could maybe see a Horror Guardian working as something Ancient Guardian turns into if he's alive when the rifts are active, that said.

One new boss could be a reimagining of an old boss: the Ancient Herald. Think about it: it'd fit just fine! Obviously he'd need more health and his moves and drops would have to be changed to suit DST rather than Hamlet, but the concept of a shadow-ified Ancient summoner boss emerging from the rifts to wreak havoc is a good one. The design for the way the boss looks could be outright reused if Klei wanted. His frog summon attack could be replaced with summoning fused shadelings. The dragoon eggs one could instead cause an earthquake that drops boulders. Maybe he'd also make a trail of lingering miasma, so you have to be careful where you walk. If you hit him with a weapon that has planar damage during one of his summon animations, it stuns him for several seconds like a Host of Horrors boss and scares his shadelings (similar to how Bee Queen scares mobs). 
I do think his main loot item would need to be changed away from the vortex cloak, since not only is that one a bit overpowered, it fills the same niche as bone armor. As for what it is, though, I'm not certain - probably something quality-of-life-related and powerful, going by the Host of Horrors bosses.

Bunnyman Additions
Merms have received quite a lot of love lately in the form of Wurt's skill tree, but bunnymen haven't changed since their introduction. While I think asking for a bunnyman character is sadly unrealistic at this point and would probably intrude too much on Wurt's niche, I would like to see them get at least something! One idea is, to play into their Beardlord form, that they become hostile to lunar-aligned creatures and players in the caves and get a stronger pure horror-empowered when a rift is active - they're clearly cursed by the shadows in some fashion already, so adding pure horror to that should mess them up even more. They could drop pure horror as a result.

Pre-rifts, maybe we could see their villages become more functional? Each village could have a farm plot full of rotten carrots and other killjoys, and near the farm plot could be an empty carrot-shaped toolshed that accepts watering cans and hoes (and also, each village now has a pond somewhere near it). If you put in the effort by keeping the toolshed stocked and plant the first crop of carrots, the bunnymen will automatically water, till the soil, tend to the carrots, and (at night) harvest and replant the carrots as long as you keep them supplied with tools (and refill the watering cans, which they'll drop near the farm plot when they're empty). If you take all the carrots, though, you'll need to give the carrot seeds to any bunnyman near the farm plot.
I don't think that'd be too powerful since it still requires player intervention and initiation - mushroom planters provide veggies even more passively (and likely faster if you're Wormwood with the relevant perks). 

Biome Additions
The biggest thing the caves need at the moment is more pre-rifts content. I don't think, however, that adding new biomes would be a very good idea. We already have several cave biomes that have little going for them, such as the mushtree forests: they have spiders you can find elsewhere and trees that drop mushrooms when chopped, and that's kind of it. I'd love to see them updated! Maybe each one gets a new mob that plays into the theme of its fungus (sanity/insanity for green caps, health for blue, and damage for red). Adding some kind of green cap-parasitized mob to the green mushtree biome, which drops meat that lowers your sanity by 50 with no other negative effects, would be great for Wigfrid against Celestial Champion, for example. Maybe Warly could use it in a new sanity-lowering crock pot recipe, too.

I think we should be able to raid bat caves for guano. Like, you click on it and your character does the harvesting animation, and then you get several (up to 8) guano (obviously aggroing any batilisks that are in it in the process). The bat cave is cleaned of guano for a while, but it regenerates over time like a bee box. It'd give at least a small reason to visit the biome you find those in rather than avoiding it entirely. Also, since it has the right color, maybe asbestos outcroppings could be added to the batilisk biome? Something you can pick (doing so damages you like picking a cactus since it's hazardous in reality), and it can be applied to any structure to make it fireproof.

 

Other Stuff
I want Warly to get a new dish that combines glowberries with the new night berries and gives a longer-lasting version of the night berry effect. I also want Warly to be one of the survivors in the next skill tree update. No, this isn't my bias as a Warly main talking, whatever do you mean?

 

Any thoughts on any of these suggestions? Any ideas of your own? Leave them in the replies!

[Wormboi]

A thing I would want changed it having the overworld biomes (like savanna and swamp) to look slightly different in the caves. I also heard something about giving rocklosbters (remember those guys?) pure horror which will cause them to grow dreadstone over time.

[grm9]

no FW rework, by far the most fun fight in the game, toad's also fine, just needs less hp, it had 30k at some point

39 minutes ago, DegenerateFurry said:

less of a resource sink like Crab King was

you can kill FW with only armor and a weapon and sanity and insanity food if you want it to be consistent and you could kill CK with only a weapon, an oar and a few boats

39 minutes ago, DegenerateFurry said:

I'd say the biggest problem is how you're almost required to abuse his AI by leading him behind a pond so he can't path correctly or do most of his moves

that's not how that works, you can do the fight solo without weather pains and damage and work multipliers and it only tries to get to the middle for 15 seconds every time before starting spawning shrooms that you need to chop and if you meant pushing it away through placing stuff on top of it and getting it stuck for it to not do anything except trying to walk and spawning shrooms, that isn't required

[Cyrefy]

17 minutes ago, DegenerateFurry said:

give us an item that works like an astral detector to find the correct tentapillar. The latter solution is the better one, I believe. Maybe it could even be the ancient key?

Yes.

6 minutes ago, Wormboi said:

I also heard something about giving rocklosbters (remember those guys?) pure horror which will cause them to grow dreadstone over time.

Good idea.

 

My suggestion is an ancient queen spider as the new boss, with a design more similar to cave spiders. maybe a stationary boss like CK.

[DegenerateFurry]

1 hour ago, Cyrefy said:

Yes.

Good idea.

 

My suggestion is an ancient queen spider as the new boss, with a design more similar to cave spiders. maybe a stationary boss like CK.

Ancient spider queen sounds like a neat boss. If she's stationary, maybe she'd shield herself in rock like a spilagmite and you have to mine it away to make her vulnerable? 

[Pet Rock]

2 hours ago, grm9 said:

you can kill FW with only armor and a weapon and sanity and insanity food

You can beat elden ring without summons, but that doesn't mean it should be set as a standard for all players

[grm9]

6 minutes ago, Pet Rock said:

You can beat elden ring without summons, but that doesn't mean it should be set as a standard for all players

these players can either get more stuff to make it easier or get better instead of complaining about being forced to get more stuff even though they aren't

[Wormboi]

10 minutes ago, grm9 said:

these players can either get more stuff to make it easier or get better instead of complaining about being forced to get more stuff even though they aren't

I mean, no one wants to spend 10 minutes on a boss with crappy loot.

[Gashzer]

Hell yes to AFW rework.

Even something as simple as him only summoning one wave of woven shadows per set of shadow hands.

That way you can focus on killing all woven shadows before needing to worry about the shadow hands.

[Evelo]

Nice post, I don't think caves should be next but if it is, I won't say no. It needs it eventually. I will give my own critique on your suggestions because I am a human and able to provide unsolicited opinions.

Ruins Overhaul
As you stated, this isn't really a remake of the Ruins, just changes how the World Generation... generates. Which is something I want for the entire world, both caves and overworld. World Generation is far too predictable and really needs a redo entirely for everything imo, not just ruins.

Atrium finding QoL
Yep, nice little detail could be dreadstone visual rocks around the base of the sinkhole the tentacle pillar sits in since it is touching the heart of the shadow corruption after all. Simple little fix (I think, idk I don't code.)

AFW Rework
I think it is welcome at some point, but I feel if we are going for an over all Cave touch up, focus on one of the 3 bosses in the caves. (We only have 3? Sheesh) Toadstool is older and the most dull compared to AFW. Eventually AFW deserves some attention to make him less stressful for solo players who haven't memorized it yet, refuse to cheese the hell out of it, or have a disability that makes it difficult to impossible to solo.

Toadstool Rework
Yes plz. The fight is already decent especially as a solo player but good lord that health pool makes it interesting for the first phase then dull after.

Post-Rift
No comment since I haven't actually experienced it yet despite it being around for so long now. (Kind of waiting for everything to finish before I delve all in).

Bunnymen
I think upping drop rate of bunny puft (specifically) would do them wonders since the harsh nerf so long ago. Pigs are pretty simple and are the staple follower. Bunnymen are just slightly upgraded versions of Pigs, so unless Pigs get something I don't think Bunnymen should get something first.

Biome Additions
The whole world both caves and overworld could benefit. Last real biome we got was the Lunar Grotto.

Other Stuff
I still want skill sets removed but yknow, we all have our own preferences.

[Cyrefy]

5 hours ago, DegenerateFurry said:

maybe she'd shield herself in rock like a spilagmite and you have to mine it away to make her vulnerable? 

Perfect.

[Cassielu]

No I don't want the ruins background room back at all, they are much better and look more man-made now.

[DegenerateFurry]

6 minutes ago, Cassielu said:

No I don't want the ruins background room back at all, they are much better and look more man-made now.

In what way are they better? They're smaller, have far less stuff, are safer, and are connected by a loose spaghetti of bridges with natural rock texture. I don't see how the DS ruins seem any less 'man-made', putting aside the fact that they were made by an ancient race of bizarre corrupted insectoids and not anything that could reasonably be deemed 'man'. 

[Gameplayer143]

Anyone ever really bother exploring the cave swamps? Idk it just seems better to just use the surface swamp for swamp resources, unless you're really scrapping the barrel for reeds and tentacle spots. Maybe there could be some merm houses that spawn near cave lights in swamps so then Wurt can recruit some Merms down in caves. Maybe there can be a tentacle boss you can fight in swamp that's a stronger version of the giant tentacle with more moves and attacks, and defeating it will drop a fair amount of tentacle spots and tentacle spikes and reveal the giant tentacle location to attrium on your map. Maybe even cause all giant tentacle spots to be open without needing to kill the giant first for a set amount of days, after killing the boss.

[grm9]

8 hours ago, Wormboi said:

I mean, no one wants to spend 10 minutes on a boss with crappy loot

i do, i don't mind the loot getting changed though

7 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Hell yes to AFW rework.

Even something as simple as him only summoning one wave of woven shadows per set of shadow hands.

That way you can focus on killing all woven shadows before needing to worry about the shadow hands

i'd consider that as trolling considering how many times we've already talked about that and concluded that it's a bad idea

[Jakepeng99]

Pure horror version of ruins for shadow riffs.

New biomes.

New resources.

[GreenBowers]

Give me a ghost king boss in the caves, and flesh out ghosts as a concept in anticipation of a Wendy Skilltree. Make killing the ghost king reset all graves in the world so you can dig them up again, like killing AFW resets the ruins.

[arubaro]

8 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Hell yes to AFW rework.

Even something as simple as him only summoning one wave of woven shadows per set of shadow hands.

That way you can focus on killing all woven shadows before needing to worry about the shadow hands.

Characters are getting so damn strong, we dont need boss nerfs on top of that 

[Gashzer]

8 hours ago, grm9 said:

i do, i don't mind the loot getting changed though

i'd consider that as trolling considering how many times we've already talked about that and concluded that it's a bad idea

I'd consider this trolling as previously discussed this nerf doesnt effect pro players who would kill the last shadow woven with the last shadow hand anyway therefore would never notice the nerf.

7 hours ago, arubaro said:

Characters are getting so damn strong, we dont need boss nerfs on top of that 

We do need bosses to become more fun. And also no point giving characters powerful affinities if the average person cant kill AFW.

[grm9]

12 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

I'd consider this trolling as previously discussed this nerf doesnt effect pro players who would kill the last shadow woven with the last shadow hand anyway therefore would never notice the nerf

it would, since for a fight to be risky, hard and fun you need to get punished for messing up, since recovering from mistakes's also usually fun and there wouldn't be as much risk if you wouldn't have got punished for messing up

12 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

We do need bosses to become more fun

FW's the most fun fight in the game

12 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

And also no point giving characters powerful affinities if the average person cant kill AFW

they can, using cheese for him was a rarity even before they removed some cheeses

[Gashzer]

2 minutes ago, grm9 said:

it would, since for a fight to be risky, hard and fun you need to get punished for messing up, since recovering from mistakes's also usually fun and there wouldn't be as much risk if you wouldn't have got punished for messing up

FW's the most fun fight in the game

they can, using cheese for him was a rarity even before they removed some cheeses

These are your personal opinions as a skilled player. Which is fair enough.

However you do not come close to accurately representing the average DST player. Especially when including console players.

Afw needs a nerf, toadstool needs reworked, bee queen could do with a small touch up, dfly needs a rework.

[grm9]

4 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

However you do not come close to accurately representing the average DST player

you don't either, people seem to not like most of what you suggest and i haven't seen anyone bring up stuff like "crabby hermit's house requiring cactus flowers was good because they're a "mysterious resource"" except you

4 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Afw needs a nerf, toadstool needs reworked, bee queen could do with a small touch up, dfly needs a rework

they don't

[Gashzer]

2 minutes ago, grm9 said:

you don't either, people seem to not like most of what you suggest and i haven't seen anyone bring up stuff like "crabby hermit's house requiring cactus flowers was good because they're a "mysterious resource"" except you

they don't

Because alot of people on the forums are seasoned veterans of the game who are set in their ways. Skilltrees probably wouldnt be a thing if Klei had listened to the majority of people on the forums when skilltrees first released.

I did like the hermit house requiring flowers, it gave you a reason to engage with the surface and ocean during summer instead of hiding in caves or oasis. But i understand the change and dont have a strong opinion about it.

Anyway the forums can be a dangerous echo chamber for klei to be constantly exposed to which may not accurately represent the DST playerbase as a whole. Atleast my mindset is different than most here which gives Klei more scope for different ideas and feedback. 

[grm9]

18 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Atleast my mindset is different than most here which gives Klei more scope for different ideas and feedback

not really, since almost no one except you wants that

22 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

I did like the hermit house requiring flowers, it gave you a reason to engage with the surface and ocean during summer instead of hiding in caves or oasis

you can't pretend that you aren't trolling, that's as absurd as "wurt's better in comparison to maxwell because you need to press 1 button when fighting as her in comparison to 2 in case of maxwell", do you need more reasons to not sit in place for 15 days?

[Cyrefy]

9 hours ago, GreenBowers said:

anticipation of a Wendy Skilltree

Yes, the anticipation is killing me. 

9 hours ago, arubaro said:

Characters are getting so damn strong, we dont need boss nerfs on top of that

Fr, what woodie and winona can do to AFW, is just spit in his face. The good thing about old bosses is that they practically don't move and don't break structures with the same level of destruction as crystallized bosses, for example, which makes it extremely easy to make cheeses, not just with winona.
And I don't think the next changes (skilltrees) will be different, in a way it's interesting because you have a different way of dealing with the boss with each different character, but in part the battle becomes trivial.

2 hours ago, Gashzer said:

I'd consider this trolling as previously discussed this nerf doesnt effect pro players

Oh mate, I think you don't understand yet, their "fun" is that they feel special when killing a boss that others have difficulty with.

1 hour ago, Gashzer said:

dfly needs a rework

Sometimes I wonder if I'm preparing for a boss or an event. 

I think the fire mode shouldn't be canceled with a pan flute, it could instead have to dodge fire blasts or use a flingomatic.