what are your biggest criticisms of the new beta

[nimzowitsch10]

Here are the list of the changes we have received.

 

New plinth boomerang and axe that can be levelled up

patched void walk, added cave bridges that can build to 3 tiles

rabbit npc that can trade things and also fight

new shadow mobs that drop pure horror, new depth dweller variant

[Anis5240]

I don't even wanna know what Klei thinking about putting the rabbit king, but it's just there.

That wood bridge costing TONS of grass YET ONLY WORKS FOR 3 TILES OR LESS. NOT EVEN EARTHQUAKE PROOF.

STILL NO UPGRADE TO BUG NET.

[Waoling]

4 minutes ago, Anis5240 said:

I don't even wanna know what Klei thinking about putting the rabbit king, but it's just there.

That wood bridge costing TONS of grass YET ONLY WORKS FOR 3 TILES OR LESS. NOT EVEN EARTHQUAKE PROOF.

STILL NO UPGRADE TO BUG NET.

I ask for the rabbit king. 

Isn't grass and wood the most inexpensive thing in this game? 3 tiles is pretty long, and why do you expect a wooden bridge to withstand an earthquake?

Why would there be a bug net upgrade in the Cave?

[chirsg]

Bridge is too expensive. Literally the lazy explorer is cheaper than the bridge.

At this point, klei won't do it, but stone bridges with unlimited placement is honestly fair. 

Considering how absurdly expensive plank bridges are, it's extremely safe to assume that stone bridges would be comparatively expensive, thus the production would be hyper regulated. 

 

This is one of the worst updates I've ever seen, all to pacify the anti void walking mafia.

[Theukon-dos]

I dunno. What is there to say that I haven't said about the last year worth of updates? It's just another cog in the machine built to sell skin packs and keep shareholders happy. A directionless mush of content with no rhyme or reason.

 

I'm sure someone will say "just let [Klei] cook." Just like they always do. But at this point Klei and DST updates feel analogous to Sisyphus. We've been watching them push that rock up the hill for years now. And no matter how much people insist that we just need to be patient, the boulder will never reach the top of the hill. Damned to gorever roll up and down. Up and down.

[BalkanCockroach]

Artstyle for some of the mobs is weird honestly. Not bad but very hmmmmmmm... 

Voidwalking will be missed... even though it made me feel like a naughty boy when doing it.

New axe weapon seems very strong and cool but it only does what batbat does but better... 

It's more like a rift and story progression update than a cave update (which we knew was gonna be the case), and we needed a cave update (not that this doesn't qualify as lil bit of both).

And i refuse to believe i'm not hallucinating about the rabbit king. I'll just delude and gaslight myself into thinking it's not real (cause it's very out of place).

These may look harsh but i like the update a lot, it was needed honestly. QoL after QoL can only get you so far. 

1 minute ago, Theukon-dos said:

I'm sure someone will say "just let [Klei] cook." Just like they always do. But at this point Klei and DST updates feel analogous to Sisyphus. We've been watching them push that rock up the hill for years now. And no matter how much people insist that we just need to be patient, the boulder will never reach the top of the hill. Damned to gorever roll up and down. Up and down.

Yeah but they need to add content before they can add more progression. If they ended the game progression line tomorrow with a finale would you be content with the amount of stuff you can do towards progressing?

[HeatAndRun]

Newly added cave mobs look cool, but lacks their unique loots. Also no shadow rift raid boss. Besides that, I'm content with everything they added!

[zhangsheng]

This is not an update specifically for the 'cave', it's just a QOL update. At least 80% of the content in the cave is empty and useless, and the things displayed this time have not filled the cave at all. There is not even a skill tree update this time, and the skill tree we are "looking forward to" may not be completed until 2026.

[Pep61]

we need pre rift stuff....biome overhauls and more mob/boss variety 

 

saddle needs knockback resistance. and beefalo bell is too pricey for a one time use bell that can't be repaired (that also means loses the bond and will be troublesome)

 

 

[BabaFisi]

The new Void Maul is really aggrovating to me, because they had the chance make the Shadow Reaper better.

The Shadow Reaper already looks sort of like an axe, so use it's reap animation as a slower chopping animation, and you have the perfect tool for collecting Forest items (Grass, Twigs, Logs).

But no, they have to make it so it's a whole seperate thing that doesn't do anything special, other than upgrading itself, which is... Eh?

So the gameplay question would be: "Do I use Glass Axes? Which take up more durability and take up more space, but are faster, or do I take the Shadow Reaper, and have my chopping tool only take up one slot, but has a slower animation."

[Mr Giggio]

38 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

I dunno. What is there to say that I haven't said about the last year worth of updates? It's just another cog in the machine built to sell skin packs and keep shareholders happy. A directionless mush of content with no rhyme or reason.

 

I'm sure someone will say "just let [Klei] cook." Just like they always do. But at this point Klei and DST updates feel analogous to Sisyphus. We've been watching them push that rock up the hill for years now. And no matter how much people insist that we just need to be patient, the boulder will never reach the top of the hill. Damned to gorever roll up and down. Up and down.

quit and be happy ffs this negativity, geez

[BabaFisi]

They also could've made the Great Depths Worm a special drop. Maybe something to reflect the fact that it's a retextured Pugalisk, so Worm Bones, for Worm Bone Soup (as opposed to Snake Bone Soup)

And the new Shadow Creatures could make for some interesting interactions, aside from fighting them. Like the Shark-like one, maybe if you lead it to a pond, it gets all giddy and jumps in and looks happy, giving you a blueprint or something, like the Resting Horror does. And the Blob thingy could be a demonstration for how Lunar things affects Shadows, so it could be harder to beat it w/ normal or shadow weapons, but it would have unique interations with Lunar aligned things. The Brightshade Bomb in particular could be something that it swallows, and then promptly instakills it.

[Waoling]

35 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

I dunno. What is there to say that I haven't said about the last year worth of updates? It's just another cog in the machine built to sell skin packs and keep shareholders happy. A directionless mush of content with no rhyme or reason.

 

I'm sure someone will say "just let [Klei] cook." Just like they always do. But at this point Klei and DST updates feel analogous to Sisyphus. We've been watching them push that rock up the hill for years now. And no matter how much people insist that we just need to be patient, the boulder will never reach the top of the hill. Damned to gorever roll up and down. Up and down.

That kind of a negative way to look at the last year worth of update, care to explain why you feel this way?

My biggest criticisms is that the bridge should cost 9 Board, and 6 Rope, and can traverse 4 tiltes.

And that there is still no love for the Bunnymen.

[chirsg]

57 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

I dunno. What is there to say that I haven't said about the last year worth of updates? It's just another cog in the machine built to sell skin packs and keep shareholders happy. A directionless mush of content with no rhyme or reason.

 

I'm sure someone will say "just let [Klei] cook." Just like they always do. But at this point Klei and DST updates feel analogous to Sisyphus. We've been watching them push that rock up the hill for years now. And no matter how much people insist that we just need to be patient, the boulder will never reach the top of the hill. Damned to gorever roll up and down. Up and down.

I don't know what the hell they're doing with skins. The most lucrative skins are victorian theme, yet the don't expand on it. I have no idea why they're not releasing more hamlet/gorge adjacent skins. 

 

[Mike23Ua]

28 minutes ago, Waoling said:

That kind of a negative way to look at the last year worth of update, care to explain why you feel this way?

My biggest criticisms is that the bridge should cost 9 Board, and 6 Rope, and can traverse 4 tiltes.

And that there is still no love for the Bunnymen.

I mean, to me personally it feels like Klei just isn’t putting enough time into developing high quality updates (Aka new biomes, new world puzzles, new content that isn’t locked behind rifts etc..) even though they are now taking longer months between updates, they still feel “Bite-Sized?”

The developers of Trinity Fusion is a development team consisting of a grand total of 4 Total Developers, and yet the (free) updates they put out seem to be coming from the heart.

And what I mean by that is- How many years will it take before I finally get to see the Long Term Effects of what Lunar Hail and Acid Rain do to the games Mobs, Resources and Biome Look????

I thought Klei selling majority of their company to Tencent and taking several months longer between updates was so we could get larger more coherent updates.

But and to keep this as generous as I possibly can- I’m not liking what I’m Seeing.  

[Waoling]

Acid Rain does do something to do mobs, like the Acid Bat, it's also cause new Nitre formation. I think they still figuring out what to do with lunar hail, but it does spawn Mutated Frog. But the theme of the update are more coherent.

[Mike23Ua]

18 minutes ago, Waoling said:

Acid Rain does do something to do mobs, like the Acid Bat, it's also cause new Nitre formation. I think they still figuring out what to do with lunar hail, but it does spawn Mutated Frog. But the theme of the update are more coherent.

They could’ve allowed acid rain to hit the new giant worm and cause it’s flesh to leak out liquid ooze (slurtle slim) making it easier to get the stuff for TnT purposes.

OR that same feature could’ve been given to that weird Blob Thingy that’s in Shadow Rifts.

Either way, it just feels like Moon Glass related content or Lunar Horror Mobs to me, - Content they start, it never goes anywhere.. and then it abruptly gets forgotten about while they bounce to something else.

I hate to feel like that.. but I prefer being open and honest, rather than just nodding my head in agreement that all things they do is great!

[Theukon-dos]

8 minutes ago, BalkanCockroach said:

Yeah but they need to add content before they can add more progression. If they ended the game progression line tomorrow with a finale would you be content with the amount of stuff you can do towards progressing?

 

2 minutes ago, Waoling said:

That kind of a negative way to look at the last year worth of update, care to explain why you feel this way?

 

well, just saying "the last year" is a bit of a generalization. It's probably a bit longer than that, though the feelings have gotten much stronger in that time.

As for why, well in truth there are several reasons. For starters, I should make it clear that I did have faith in Klei at one point. For as much as I dragged on people who say "Let them cook", there was a time where I was right along side them saying the same thing, bar the fact that this specific term hadn't entered popular vocabulary yet.

Return of Them was my first big update arc. And let me tell you, I was enamored. I was excited by every update to see what they would add. And I was certain that by the time the arc ended, the ocean would be a fantastic addition to the game that people would wonder how they ever played without.

But... It wasn't. The Eye of the Storm update released and that was it. The ocean started as a mostly empty void that was difficult to navigate and wasn't worth exploring. And it ended as a mostly empty void that was difficult to navigate and wasn't worth exploring. Given that seafaring was the biggest selling point of the update chain, it just felt wrong for Klei to go "welp, that was fun. See you guys soon!" while it was still just sitting there unfinished. The updates we've gotten for the ocean sense then have helped (Mostly. Monkey Raids are still the single worst mechanic in DST), but it's still missing a real capstone. A selling point that makes exploring the ocean a must-do in every world. The story also didn't really go anywhere. We never really learned who "they" are. I guess they're the moon? I assume they're the moon. But DS also called "them" the shadows. So who really knows?

 

Then we have the From Beyond arc itself. It's kind of hard to summarize why I don't like these updates on account of how much about them I don't like. I suppose, not for the lack of tying. My problem is that they feel like they're in the wrong game.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those sticklers who considers any form of change to be a bad thing and gets up in arms about the game updating at all. But past a certain point, I at least expect those updates to be consistent with what I've come to expect from a game. Don't Starve Together is very old at this point. I started playing about 7 years ago and I was a late arrival to the party. So what the game is and wants to be is fairly firmly established.

Despite this though, the From Beyond arc; particularly rift content and skill trees; mark a very clear shift to giving the game a stronger emphasis on combat. And by that I mean that Klei outright said that they want to make every character a combat character.

Obviously combat has always been part of the game, and has been getting more and more prominent as the years have gone on. But it's never felt like the central theme of DST. It's just been something that gets in the way of your survival or something to do once your world has gotten fairly old. In fact, I would say that combat is the weakest part of DST. It's extremely simple, the player's capabilities in combat are limited to a whole 2 actions, armor lacks any nuance and the game is balanced around armor's protection being so high that it's effectively required at all times, and any interesting fights are less the result of the fight itself and more the fact that it was balanced around Multiplayer and people trying to do them solo anyways. Trying to make DST focus on combat would be like if they tried to make Minecraft a Dungeon Crawler. It just doesn't make sense because that's just not what most players are here for.

 

On top of that, even looking at the features in a vacuum. I feel like they just... aren't very good. Atleast not in my opinion.

Rifts where sold as a way to "Balance" combat characters. Because Planar Damage ignores a character's damage modifiers, it theoretically means that there's a much smaller difference in damage between characters without modifiers and characters who do have them.

...Buuuuuut rifts are locked behind bosses themselves. Several in fact, sense the Celestial Champion and Ancient Fuelweaver are each gated by atleast one other boss before them. Meaning that if you want your non-combat character to be as good as fighting as combat characters, you need to go through several trials that combat characters are way better at. Planar weapons are also only required against planar enemies. And unless they wanted to make opening rifts give every enemy planar defense, that means combat characters can just go back to whatever weapon they where using before the rifts open to be just as effective as they where before. A mechanic meant to nerf combat characters ultimately does nothing to them for 99% of the game's content.

 

Meanwhile, skill trees and similar mechanics are made to give players the ability to flesh their characters out. You start with a blank slate and built/grow them up to fit your play style. But DST's characters are already fleshed out. We had just gotten off nearly three years of character refreshes when skill trees where introduced, and though there are characters who are simple or weak enough to benefit from skill trees, the vast majority of them just don't have the room they need to grow because they already did all their growing from their refresh.

And despite the fact that skill trees where meant to buff weak characters; a concept I would normally be fully on board with; they committed to giving every character a skill tree. Including the ones that they want the weak characters to be on-par with. This means that by the time skill trees are over, either

A. Every already strong character has a skill tree that's as boring as milk toast.

B. Already strong characters are given equally strong skill trees, and we just end up back at square one with a few top dogs and everyone else scavenging for scraps.

There are absolutely characters who needed and should have been buffed. Woodie, Willow, and Walter just to name a few. But Klei went about this in quite possibly the worst way possible for all the reasons I've listed.

 

As for the part where I claimed that the updates where just to sell skin packs? Well part of that is because- I mean. It's just true. That's not me being cynical or anything. DST is far and away Klei's most popular game and currently their only live service game. I don't have access to their financials or anything of the sort. But I would happily bet that on average DST makes up over 80% of Klei's annual earnings between game sales and microtransactions.

I feel there's also been a bit of... dissonance? Between how Klei's talked about the update and how it's actually ended up. Probably the most notable example is how they claimed that skill trees "aren't power creep" even though they demonstrably are. Trying to bring every other character up to snuff with the strongest character's in the game is in and of itself the textbook definition of power creep. And at one point or another, they outright admitted that they had a lot of changes planned that would be considered controversial.

In hindsight this might have just been me being tired of a post-Reganomics America. Because I'm having a much harder time pinning down why I feel this way than I did my other points. But overall I think that should be why I've grown to feel the way I do.

[Anis5240]

5 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

they claimed that skill trees "aren't power creep" even though they demonstrably are.

I still HATE how Klei doesn't even want to fix Wilson's torch tree, which barely sees anytime where it could be useful. Imagine just asking to either rework it into a better area (light source tree) or add a few more interesting torch mechanics (endothermic torch making trees petrified or refuelable torch) ONLY TO BE REJECTED CUZ OF "we don't want to do powercreep".

Very charming way to keep your players remaining invested onto their favourite characters, Klei.

[Waoling]

38 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Either way, it just feels like Moon Glass related content or Lunar Horror Mobs to me, - Content they start, it never goes anywhere.. and then it abruptly gets forgotten about while they bounce to something else.

That is not really true, Lunar Horror Mobs, and Moon Glass related content are not forgotten, they just get rename to something new or upgrade to something more, did you forget about the Host of Horror update?

11 minutes ago, Anis5240 said:

I still HATE how Klei doesn't even want to fix Wilson's torch tree, which barely sees anytime where it could be useful. Imagine just asking to either rework it into a better area (light source tree) or add a few more interesting torch mechanics (endothermic torch making trees petrified or refuelable torch) ONLY TO BE REJECTED CUZ OF "we don't want to do powercreep".

Very charming way to keep your players remaining invested onto their favourite characters, Klei.

I think Endothermic torch is a cool idea, but I don't get why it would make tree petrified, and the refuelable torch thing is another great idea, but I don't think you should be so passive agressive about it, you use Klei as a way to dehumanize and depersonalized the developer and worker in the company, but what if you actually said their name? I like your suggestion, but I think most people would prefer if it was deliver a little nicer.

[Anis5240]

18 minutes ago, Waoling said:

most people would prefer if it was deliver a little nicer.

plenty of players already being nice by not calling out every flaw klei did in recent years. Wilson players waited patiently for their beloved character's rework yet it's not even a rework. And now he just works as a material grinding character. And if I am to be honest, EVERYTHING in his skill tree has flaws. I just want the torch tree to be fixed, is that too much to ask?

Why can Wigfrid, Willow and Wormwood had parts of their skill trees be revised, not even reaching a year after their release? Why shouldn't Wilson and Wolfgang's skill trees be revised too?

[Waoling]

6 minutes ago, Anis5240 said:

plenty of players already being nice by not calling out every flaw klei did in recent years. Wilson players waited patiently for their beloved character's rework yet it's not even a rework. And now he just works as a material grinding character. And if I am to be honest, EVERYTHING in his skill tree has flaws. I just want the torch tree to be fixed, is that too much to ask?

Why can Wigfrid, Willow and Wormwood had parts of their skill trees be revised, not even reaching a year after their release? Why shouldn't Wilson and Wolfgang's skill trees be revised too?

They aren't calling out every flaw Klei make because they don't know it, don't care about it, or they can look past it, which mean Klei must don something right. And what do you consider flaw?

Why do you consider he skill tree to be so flaw?

They will likely revised either Wilson or Wolfgang skill tree in the future, that what some QOL update are for, but I don't really see many people complaining about Wolfgang skill tree.

[Pcwer]

1 hour ago, Theukon-dos said:

but it's still missing a real capstone. A selling point that makes exploring the ocean a must-do in every world.

If unlimited bananas, reeds, docks, above average trees, night vision and free gems aren‘t enough encouragement for you to explore the ocean, then I don‘t know what could be.

 

1 hour ago, Theukon-dos said:

As for the part where I claimed that the updates where just to sell skin packs? Well part of that is because- I mean. It's just true.

This is just an assumption on your part, you can‘t know this. From what we‘ve seen in streams to me at least it seems like the devs still enjoy working on the game, and are updating it at least because they want to. If their goal was really only to make money wouldn‘t they just make what people expect from them? Why would they add controversial things like the rifts or random things like the rabbit king if they just wanted to make as much money as possible. It seems like they really have a vision for this game, and if that vision doesn‘t align with yours that‘s fine, but accusing them of just wanting money seems pretty baseless.

 

As for the combat mechanics, what you stated were just opinions so if that‘s how you feel about them I understand, but I enjoy them. Planar weapons add progression to weapons and mobs without making older threats completely irrelevant, and at least some of the skilltrees are really enjoyable. Winona, Wurt and Wormwood‘s skilltrees are really fun in my opinion, and they don‘t exclusively add combat capabilities. Sure, Winona‘s catapults are extremely powerful boss melters thanks to planar strike, but she also got great cross-map teleportation and resource-gathering.

So, I still have faith in Klei, and maybe you should too. I still believe this game is working toward a definitive end-point, give it another year or two.

[BabaFisi]

21 minutes ago, Waoling said:

They aren't calling out every flaw Klei make because they don't know it, don't care about it, or they can look past it, which mean Klei must don something right. And what do you consider flaw?

Why do you consider he skill tree to be so flaw?

They will likely revised either Wilson or Wolfgang skill tree in the future, that what some QOL update are for, but I don't really see many people complaining about Wolfgang skill tree.

Wilson’s Skilltree is fundamentally flawed, and it’s because it was the first one made.

The only advantage he gets is 3 extra inventory slots for food specifically, which is immediately replaced with Bundling Wraps. The Torch tree is mostly just number increases, which are boring, and the Alchemy Tree, while a novel concept, has only one real effect on gameplay, which is skipping the Moonstone, but not the Ruins. You still have to go to the Ruins in order to get the Gems for Crab King.

The affinity skills, while a bit boring, at least have one use, specifically with the Lunar side. It allows Wilson to craft Infused Moon Glass whenever he wants, as long as he has a supply of Pure Brilliance, and vise versa. This is good for making Brightshade Bomb, which, ehhh, is alright.

TLDR, they could’ve done something  like what they did with Wormwood, where the skills have a noticeable effect on gameplay, rather than a few “okay” skills, that honestly could’ve just been built in, instead of making a whole skilltree.  

[Zima Blue]

This is the first beta in maybe years that makes me not want to play DST. Whenever a new beta comes out, I'm always super excited to play it but this one I think I'll just pass, imo the only cool thing about this update is beingle able to revive beefalos, but that is not a big change enough to make me go play the game. The axe is alright, it deals a good amount of damage but it's the same boring weapon as always, the design is so ugly that I already want a skin for it. The boomerang is awful, and rabbit king is "ok" only because of that item that allows us to burrow items. The new worm boss design is kinda cool but the loot is terrible, why would I want a billion bone shards? I will not waste my time with a difficult enemy with bad loot, I will just let it spawn and teleport away from it with a lazy explorer or Winona's tp. Bridges suck because there's a range limit, and the new ink blight does the same thing the others do, why did we need a fourth one? I know Klei said there's a "stealth" mechanic to it, but why wasn't he added with the other 3? Why are we spending time on a new mob that's virtually the same thing as them? Mimic is cool I guess but an enemy I can kill stepping on it? Sorry but it just feels kinda lazy, he's cute but he barely count as something new since it only takes walking to kill him. All of this just feels like a super short update and I don't get why everything is kinda unfinished, why did it take this long to Klei to release only this? It's disappointing to say the least, I'm sorry. And I don't even wanna mention that more than half of the update is accessible only after killing Fuelweaver. Who cares about early game, right?