The ultimate Great Depth Worm feedback

[Milordo]

After a lot of discoveries and discussions around him, I genuinely believe, he's one of the most beautiful things introduced in this last period on DST. And he can be better, thanks to our feedback, by making also Caves, finally better. 
I know, I know. He alone, will not resolve all of the Caves problems. I'm sad too this update tackled so so much little of it. Trust me, I'm a #CavesandRuinsTeam since 2014.
But we must not waste this giant opportunity at our hands, to make the Caves, jussstt better than before.  

This post is made for the purpose to collect all good and excellent ideas from the community, to not loose them in all the numerous posts and save them here, so that Klei might see them and think about possible changes and make great worm boi, even greater.  
I will try to bump this post till the end of the beta and update it, as best as possible, if someone on the community found more interesting things to say.

1) Fighting. This boss has been a really cool throwback to the original Don't Starve. You need to study him and create weird strategies to found and exploit his weaknesses.  Therefore it's only natural people want more interactions from it, with some alternative attacks to make it less repetitive. Such as; the duration of the eating animation depends on the quantity and the quality of what it eats (20 carrots, 3 meatballs, 40 lightbulbs...)? Maybe if he eats explosive items or spiky items will stun him perhaps? Or maybe damage him? Other attacks in his arsenal such as spitting the poop to the player, after digestion, that would lower the sanity of the player? Or instead block him like Ewecuss? And this "spit" could change into other special spits, depending of what it eats. Adding some melee attacks? He could start moving the opposite direction using the other mouth after it stops moving?

The possibilities are limitless and it's a lot of ideas. So it's better I link these discussions instead of giving an enormous list =

https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/159257-great-worm-digestion-is-awesome-lets-expand-on-it/

 

2) Drops. This point has been the most discussed about the giant depth worm because people want atleast one new unique drop from him. I defend this by saying we don't need to always bloat the game, more than is it already. Also just because there are far better methods for the drops he gives, it doesn't diminish the giant value the worm is bringing. More choices and alternatives are always better than having only one or two. While I still stand to my points, a discussion changed my view completely and it could be the perfect solution for this worm.

In short, from -->

• << 6 Monster Meats, a lot of bone shards, 1 Glowberry, rocks, red gems, blue gems, purple gems and some random chance of Thulecite units >> 

to

• << 6 Monster Meats, a lot less bone shards, 1 Giant Glowberry, random chances of all Caves and Ruins minerals, random low chances of Caves and Ruins common world items >> 

The giant glowberry is a new giant crop, that if you smash it, will give you some glowberries and new seeds that you can plant on the farming system. Once they fully grow, they do become exactly glowberries (or maybe lesser glowberries to balance them out?) and never go away from the farms (unless you remove them with fire or shovel), meaning you will always re-obtain the fruit but they only give you glowberries, no seeds. To even balance them out more, not only to grow them is maybe slow? and very difficult so that you need to be skillfull with the farming minigame, we can also make them withered and die, if you don't tend them constantly their needs with darkness, water and many other essentials. In this way exploring for lesser glowberries and killing depth worms for glowberries will not be powercreep by this. 
I let Klei decide what options of balance they want to go for a possible farmable glowberry.                                         
I couldn't put all of it, so for more details, link to the original discussion post ---> 

3) Damage. Lower the damage while he eats and digest you, just a little bit. Not too much.      

4) Sanity. He needs to have sanity drain and probably give sanity loss to the player while he eats and digest you.

5) Spawning. It might be, that spawning the great depth worm (or worms in case of multiplayer setting or advanced waves I guess) through waves might not be good idea. Don't get me wrong. I'm still not against the idea of rennovating the waves with some bosses in it, but the potential destruction this new giant boi has is immense. I warned and said it on day 1.
To fix this, the community found, for now, only three possible outcomes:

• A) The great depth worms can spawn in specific biomes or specific events, no more linked to the depth worms waves. This way the player can have more control of it and lead him to "safer" places  
• B) Make the warning of his wave louder and most importantly longer, so that players have more time to prepare themselves.
• C) Changing his A.i to make him, when meeting the players, more "relaxed" or "lurking" (similar how dragonfly behaved in the original DS) so that he doesn't immediately destroy and attack the environment, how he does it now, and we have a choice if engage and fight with him or run and hide to force him leave and despawn. 

Edit: Oh whoops! Just look at that, it did happened while I was writing this post ---> https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/159354-would-you-just-stop-destroying-my-base-pls/

6) Boss status. Just give him the boss tag. He has all the requirements; from the health pool, appearance, damage, uniqueness in the fighting and drops.  He's 100% a normal sandbox boss just like treeguards, spider queens, deerclops, bearger, ecc... It will also give us, finally, for the first time, after 10 years, since 2014, a goddamm decade, the first cave boss.

7) Music. This comes from me. If Great Depth Worm will be categorized as a normal boss, I wish if it is possible to add finally an ost for caves bosses. I know this is too much to ask, since making music in general is difficult, but it would very appreciated.

8) Wetness. He really should be wet all time. And maybe add a little flavour that if he eats you, you will become wet as well? Or gain 10 wetness? 

[Milordo]

Fix it a mine mistake about the original drop. 

[Milordo]

Added slurper pelt as a possible drop for the << random low chances of Caves and Ruins common world items >> loot table                                  

You can see the full description here ----> 

 

[Kondr_]

5) Spawning

C) less destructive phase 1

for example: 1 segment at a time and only beneath player. or lurking behavior.

like you can avoid it if just stand still for a time in right time. you do not avoid it completely just for some time. or you can avoid it in pure darkness or bait with light sources. (do not get how they do see)

 

A) and do not like how "A)" goes far from waves (states  "no more linked to the depth worms waves") it still may be special conditions. like no rain and wet ground(like rain-worms) - it cannot happen fast because first rain have to start. and second it have to stop. you have plenty time if you aware. (didn't see wave for some days and it is not spring for example)
another condition-idea: it appears only after earthquake if you didn't stay still. (stand still during earthquake and it will not come. but earthquakes will be more frequent until worm dies)

[Milordo]

1 hour ago, Kondr_ said:

5) Spawning

C) less destructive phase 1

for example: 1 segment at a time and only beneath player. or lurking behavior.

like you can avoid it if just stand still for a time in right time. you do not avoid it completely just for some time. or you can avoid it in pure darkness or bait with light sources. (do not get how they do see)

Uhhhhhhh!!!! I liikkee it! I like it, I like it! It remembers me a lot of Tremors 

So instead of specific biomes or events/items and different wave, we can change his A.i. Hmnnn, if done well, this could be interesting/cool as heck for the quality of the game and most importantly better than option B)        (Btw me and my community always called depth worms as tremors xD)

1 hour ago, Kondr_ said:

A) and do not like how "A)" goes far from waves (states  "no more linked to the depth worms waves") it still may be special conditions. like no rain and wet ground(like rain-worms) - it cannot happen fast because first rain have to start. and second it have to stop. you have plenty time if you aware. (didn't see wave for some days and it is not spring for example)
another condition-idea: it appears only after earthquake if you didn't stay still. (stand still during earthquake and it will not come. but earthquakes will be more frequent until worm dies)

Not my words. Community choice. This post collects every possibile great ideas and solutions from the community. Removing him from waves to move it on specific biomes (such as the cave swamp) was a popular choice. Of course every point can be still mixed up, as you did in your comment. I also like the idea of having more frequent earthquakes thanks to him, very cool.

[Milordo]

Added @Kondr_ spawning idea in the list as option C)

[Milordo]

Updated the drops loot table in -->

to specify an alternative for bone shards

[Milordo]

This is almost common knowledge by now, but I'll write it to keep people updated and informed.

In the last patch/hotfix, Klei has made a lot of changes of shadows and stuff as we saw, but also changed ""secretly"" the great wormy boi. 

They changed his loot similar to point 2) but without the giant glow berry/new plant drop ---> a lot less boneshards, rocks, flint, nitre, a lot more monster meat, gold, broken shells, tentacle spots, lightbulbs, glowberries, guano, red gem, blue gem, purple gem, orange gem, yellow gem, green gem, 2 trinkets, thulecite and fossil fragments! To give you an idea, here is what you can have now, if you just kill four of them

     

Not bad! Not bad at all! Then added point 4) but only when he eats and digests you, added the worm in the world settings, along with the others new creatures and final added new sounds and animations! Very cool, especially for point 2). It seems Klei loved a lot our idea to make the worm into a general dump of renewable resources! 

Now, now. Don't ruffle your feathers in excitment, remember. This is all a secret in the patch and it is a common practise of developing, to add these unfinished work. Klei never said or stated anything in the patch notes, only 2 weeks before "a great worm hotfix will come!". We don't even know if these "early access" changes are final in the hotfix or will be changed when the patch will come. We can only speculate for now. I will wait the patch before crossing out the points.

 

With that being said, I'll add a new point 8) from @DegenerateFurry because it's true. Why the worm is not wet? lol