Depths of Duplicity post-mortem feedback

[Milordo]

I didn't expect this day to come like this, but oh well. The famous caves rework + shadow rift patch has been shadow dropped, along from my understanding, with other shadow changes in the released version. For those who don't know, I made a general post during beta, to gather the most exquisite and excellent ideas and feeback from the community about the wormy boi. This is the same. I really don't like cliffhangers and I will not leave Klei without a final answer, especially if there's still so much to do in the patch, after all the wonderful feedback received from the community.

I hope that when Klei reads this, he will carefully consider making some final changes in the coming days/weeks and/or possibly introducing them in future patches.

I will update this post, as best as possible, if someone on the community found more interesting things to say.

 

                                                                                       1. Big worm boi

For this I'll just copy and paste my previous post and cross the points Klei have done and add some comments about it. 

<<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.>>

From my understanding, nothing has been done on this. Big letdown. Not that the worm is boring, bad or unfinished. It's a letdown because more interactions would have make it perfect by following the original Don't Starve spirit, and 1 more attack pattern wouldn't have hurt and made him less repetitive, that's all.   

 

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.

Yes, yes, yes. They didn't gave us a special unique drop. They didn't gave us the giant glowberry. Guys, it's fine. The loot is already incredible and strong, don't put bacon and eggs on your eyes. We thanks Klei for have listened us and changed the loot in our vision and a reminder that by being a depth worm, he already has an unique drop called glowberry. It's fine. The last and only criticism I can give to Klei, is not putting slurper pelts and other flavour caves items in the loot table.

 

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

Needs some heavy fixes about it. More on that under the post. Please Klei, reconsider it.

 

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

Needs some tuning on the sanity drain. More on that under the post.

 

<<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.>> 

This is weird. Jason discussed about it and stated that they want to leave it as it is and suggest to megabase players to change their base to it (pratically a git gud). While it's true that megabase players should adapt, since the playstyle already implies that you have finished the game, more than once, and have all the resources needed, Jason the problems still remain and people brought up a lot of good points. Again from my knoweldge (feel free to correct me on this) the warning phase for the great worm is the same of the normal waves. This is wrong and should be at minimum like point B) and also @Malfario proposed idea of making the great worm spawn under the player, instead of the player screen edge, would make this situation mucchhh better. Also @BezKa pointed out the importance of a rework/refresh of the telelocator focus/lazy deserter. Worm battle arenas could be designed to fight the worm destruction. Please Klei, reconsider on this. 

 

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.>>

I think this may be bugged, because it only plays for great worm. I test it and killed treeguards, spider queens and deerclops but the new music didn't play. Can someone on Klei confirms it? 

 

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?

 

9) Dying. This point is new. The worm should not delete all your inventory, atleast the non edibles one, if you die during eating/digestion or if he eats your stuff on the ground. Too much punishment, for literally a normal boss, of the second level of the game in terms of game progression.

 

                                                                                  2. Bridges     

The bridges have been a great addition to the game. However there has been some fair criticism about them that should have take in account. Small changes like reducing the crafting recipe cost, since they breaks overtime, or making their lifetime longer to reflect the cost or making mobs that burrow through the ground not being able to pass through thin or super hard floors, like bridges.    

 

                                                                                  3. Atrium 

I was going to write this chapter as "Klei you promised us! You should have listened! Bad, bad bad! bla bla bla bla..." but Jason gave us a surprise and answer it. They discussed about it and even working on it! But then forgot it during development.... So, now the feedback for you Klei is: When this change will come? In these days or weeks? In the last update of December? Together with all the others changes that you couldn't put in the ocean rework? Or maybe in a possible future beautiful Ruins rework update? (who am I kidding, it will never happen...) 

Anyway, this point is very important and should be a priority. People who posted about it reached more than 40 likes and was an almost unanimous agreement in the community. We're entitled to have some answers about it.

 

                                                                                         4. Rabbit King

I do not hate rabbit king, nor its concept. He's weird, but a nice welcome addition that resembles the weirdness of old Don't Starve.

I hate the implementation of his spawn methods and the way Klei handled it. I know many of the community don't care about rabbit king, but we have to outline this problem to Klei, not only for the various errors it brings with it at the moment but also because paradoxically, changing its spawn, could benefit the game and us a lot. A small recap of the problems our liege has brought in the costant:

1. By being in the surface, it breaks the game progression established by you Klei! If and when new players will discover him blind or not, by giving carrots to a rabbit hole or finding the lucky rabbit, the chances of fighting him instead of interacting with him are very high, because they will probably have meat in their inventory or other reasons explained later. New players aren't at all acquainted with the "don't have meat in your inventory" mechanic, since they still have not yet met bunnymens, which are in the caves!!!
2. Even more game progression broken by his Royal Rabbit Enforcerers, who drops normal bunnymens loot!! Which make sense, but it implies players can now farm them and build bunnymens houses, without ever experiencing caves and be rewarded through its dangers!!! Which also directly undermines the already decadent desire to stay and engage with caves content and balance in general of the game.  
3. Why oh why the rabbit king has a special naughtiness meter when you kill rabbits and bunnymens! WHY. There are zero motives to this, if not for fun and see what will happen. Which is not expanding the gameplay or fixing the game (which I suppose was your intentions Klei). It steals the special role already occupied by Krampus and give another high chance of fighting him as said in point 1) 
4. If now we put together all points 1), 2) and 3) this new content we're giving to all new, mid, good, experienced and old players, will results in an undermined experience that will turn more people away from content that is relegated to rabbits and bunnymen in general, if we add in consideration his 5 minutes cooldown for him to spawn.
5. It wastes creativity space and role in the game for the Lucky rabbit, who instead should be detached from the king and gives his special rewards. What rewards, I don't know, but the point is giving another way of spawn for the king, where the other 2 are more prominent, faster and better, doesn't make sense. Also another way for new players to encounter the wrathful king without knowing why.                         

Now, there are tons of way to fix this issue and one my favourite is locking rabbit king in the caves, more specifically at the centre of a bunnymen village, in a special structure, like pig king. If rabbit king was locked in the caves the advantages we get are:

1. More Caves content that the game is desperately lacking. Simple as that. 
2. World building. It makes more sense, he's in the Caves inside his kingdom, where all Bunnymens live, of which we knew already a little since the beta of Don't Starve, but could be expanded on it.
3. Game progression and Caves progression in general. This is something I care very deeply, because it could tackle so many caves problems of the game right now. If the Rabbit king gives a bunch of items that helps a lot for bunnymens, why he's not in the caves, where it's most needed? If the Rabbit king gives a bunch of items that helps for rabbits, why he's not in the caves, where rabbits fall down and don't have burrows and we need to run at them to catch them, while in the first level we catch them with traps as always since day 1? If his new item helps in having a good chest for you and your friends, why he's not in the caves, where there are far more animals/enemies that steal your loot compared to the surface? This is more ostensible in point 5 too. 
4. Following the design principles of Don't Starve. You found a new place (caves) and a new threat appears, bunnymens. Through a lot of deaths and trial and errors, you found the game gives you some solutions and one of them is Rabbit king. This design has been in the game since its creation; science machines, tooth traps, ice boxes, lanterns/miner hats, ecc... 
5. A possible new normal sandbox cave boss, while we hope and wait that Klei will give him his boss tag and status.
6. By him being Caves content locked, we're also giving more reasons to stay in the caves and helping the longevity of the game in the process for various reasons, such as farming and killing bunnymens.

 

We have nothing to loose it from a change like this, except gain. Please Klei, reconsider this.

 

                                                                   5. Lurking nightmares and Mimics 

Why Mimics are still not pre-rift? There are still zero reasons for it and Jason even forgot to talk about them in the stream (not surprised...). The "challenge" and additions they provide to the game, would benefit much more earlier in the game than later, in the literally finale of the game.

 

Instead for Lurking nightmares, a lot of people, and I mean

LOTS of people, felt the sentiment of adding lurking nightmares as normal shadows sanity enemies. In case this could be a possibility, there has been tons of discussions of how do it. Nerfing a little bit his stats, to not to disrupt the normal progression of the game too much. Locking him to the ruins progression, so that after you reached some important points locations (like crafting in the ancient pseudoscience station or killing Ancient Guardian) they will start to spawn when you're low sanity. Giving them a weight to spawn when you're crazy, so that they don't spawn together with too much terrorbeaks and crawling horrors. Or better yet, use all three points together.

I want to reiterate, as others also said. It's totally perfect if lurking nightmares would remain as ruins locked shadow, it only gives pros for us and the betterment of the game. This sentiment Klei comes from the community because the sanity mechanic is stuck from 2012 and never got updated since then and never reached its true potential. A possible window for the mimic, I would add.......

 

                                                                                      6. Post-Rifts Content

I'm very very sorry If I can't talk and show more details and informations on this topic, but I'm blind to rifts and still not indulging in their content. I'm not qualified to discuss about them. I can only push the message to Klei that are still tons of tweaks to be made to items and enemies post-rift and weird mechanics post-rift that force you on defeating...the final boss three times or so? (like wth is this xD?)

 

[Malfario]

Thanks for the quote, means a lot. 

[Jakepeng99]

1 hour ago, Milordo said:

The famous caves rework

 

 

This update did not really touch up the caves impactfully besides from riff content so its not really a cave rework, and was famous for not being one.

[Milordo]

2 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Liar!

Ahahahah. Look man, I know. It's not big like the ocean. They gave us only a sandwich bite of update. But goddammm, if it is a good sandwich. Now, come. Hug me and say after me "Klei will update the caves and ruins, Klei will update the caves and ruins, Klei will update the caves and ruins....."

[Jakepeng99]

12 hours ago, Milordo said:

Ahahahah. Look man, I know. It's not big like the ocean. They gave us only a sandwich bite of update. But goddammm, if it is a good sandwich. Now, come. Hug me and say after me "Klei will update the caves and ruins, Klei will update the caves and ruins, Klei will update the caves and ruins....."

I hope they do. Though, they only added the worm boss this update as an impactful thing for pre-riff.

[arubaro]

Good foundation but half cooked as usually since RoT started...

The weapon dropped by the king rabbit is pointless. Takes less effort to get a hambat

Ickers could be cool but they have many design problems. Also they should add more design variations even if is simply reorganizing the mob parts 

Ink snakes mouth mechanic could be a cool mechanic but they are another optional fight...i wish they hunt the player when rifts are open. Also idk how to feel about being forced to bring AoE damage items/BS staff in my inventory, it would be okey if they hunted you so you need that to counter them like how you need an umbrella to counter rain but right now is just an indirect way of making ink trio easy since you wanna bring a BS staff in case they appear.
And i dont understand why they were added to compete with the ink trio.. if they cant be added to hunt the player, atleast they should spawn in other place or under other circunstances but making them and the trio share the spawn mechanic only means that we dont experience as much content at once. I dont see why we have very little rift mechanics and 2 of them are applied in the same spot isntead of spreading them to different places

The worm needs a closer to the player spawn mechanic 

Icker preserver isnt that useful when you can simply store 32 stacks forever in a single chest

Mimic chests are, hopefully, unfinished. Is one of the most meh fights in the game which is worrying considering this is rift content and seeing klei making a spider-reskin fight...also the possesse mechanic only affecting one single item feels forced

Mimics are funny,  i wish they could affect more stuff in the future

The only new item im interested is the beefalo bell but only in the current iteration, i hope they dont buff it in ridiculous as suggested by some

 

To say something good. I like that are adding decorative items, the new shadow for the ruins and that the art is, as always, wonderful, the bunny king trades are cool

 

I think klei should take some time without releasing content for the sake of it to think well were to go and how to integrate new content together. Also come back to the roots of adding threads to the player, hopefully giant worm were added (1st boss that hunts us since RoG), instead of adding tons of optional bosses and optional easy encounters

[Bumber64]

17 minutes ago, arubaro said:

Icker preserver isnt that useful when you can simply store 32 stacks forever in a single chest

You have to remember what is in each wrap, and then re-wrap them after (which costs grass). Preserver is less of a hassle in that regard.

Polar bearger bin is more convenient, but doesn't completely stop spoilage, costs way more, and exclusively stores prepared meals.

I think it's really intended to be display furniture for perishables. Being able to store and grab your preferred seeds, etc., immediately is a bonus.

[arubaro]

9 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

You have to remember what is in each wrap, and then re-wrap them after (which costs grass). Preserver is less of a hassle in that regard.

Polar bearger bin is more convenient, but doesn't completely stop spoilage, costs way more, and exclusively stores prepared meals.

I think it's really intended to be display furniture for perishables. Being able to store and grab your preferred seeds, etc., immediately is a bonus.

Minisign and irl memory exists. I would need 32 ink preservers just for my large meat, i think is cheaper to expend some grass, boards and flowers/honey combs than 160 dreadstone plus the ammount of space 

Is nearly useless. 1 stack of something is nothing and nobody needs to preserve just 1 stack since you can simply farm it

[Milordo]

KLEI PLEASE READ THIS

Okay, update. Yesterday I had the luxury to play and test more the new content, in a normal run/world, for a long period of time alone and with friends.

Compared to the beta, I had a lot more practical experience (the most important and final one to decree things in video games) and I made a terrible discovery. The artificial numbers of the worm are toooooo high. Too high. I don't even understand how this got through, not only from the beta with the continuous feedback, but how it got through the minds of the developers. It's terrible. Not only does it denote, as always, no practical testing by Klei, but this time also no thought behind it. We would have give more feedback and help to Klei to understand these errors, if the patch hadn't been dropped immediately in this way and given more time.... 

In short, I want to reemphasize how wrong these numbers are and give Klei an indication of how much they need to change.

• 560 digestion/eating damage --> to 300 digestion/eating damage.

This is really simple. Klei. KLEI. 560 damage? Are we crazy? This isn't a final boss fight, but a regular boss fight at a regular rate.

• 20 thorns damage --> to 10 thorns damage

YES. You read it right with your own eyes. 10 damage. Why? Game designs principles. You want to teach the player "No, no, no! You can't hit the worm while he's moving. You need to wait when he's idle!" but if you make, just few mistakes (which will happen when you will encounter him your first time), new players and other types of skilled players will die countless times before learning, leaning into a more confused, frustating and awful experience and since Don't Starve still doesn't have a poise system, being torn to pieces, thrown in all directions and constantly hurt without being able to do anything is no fun, especially when the slightest mistake can destroy many of my resources to defend myself or even lead to certain death.

• The random shockwave damage? --> to a fixed 25 or 30 shockwave damage
• And final, tuning a bit the sanity drain. Not the sanity loss when he eats you. No, no. 40 sanity loss is perfect. Is the sanity drain being a bit too much. You loose 10-13 sanity in about 3-4 seconds if you're near his head, right? It should be a bit less, if the main way to fight him is by positioning food/items near his head + all the sanity dangers in caves.

 

Conclusions. These numbers, the method how the giant worm spawns and the punishment of deleting all your inventory, especially the non edibles one, if you die during eating/digestion or if he eats your stuff on the ground should be the TOP PRIORITY in patches these days and weeks, and we have every right to complain and demand changes about it. We are not fighting a super powered up shadow version of Toadstool. We are not triggering a special event considered as part of the game's progression as the endgame. We are fighting or surviving a normal boss that always comes every day. Yes, it's a normal boss from the second and also possible third level of the game. It should be harder, scarier and more fearsome, but not in an artificial way. We specifically requested a super important point from the beginning of the beta about it;                             

On 9/13/2024 at 7:12 PM, Milordo said:

<<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.>>

From my understanding, nothing has been done on this. Big letdown. Not that the worm is boring, bad or unfinished. It's a letdown because more interactions would have make it perfect by following the original Don't Starve spirit, and 1 more attack pattern wouldn't have hurt and made him less repetitive, that's all.   

And if Klei wants difficulty in the worm, it should be through this thinking behind these ideas, not adding high bonk numbers.

 

Please guys, bump this post and like it as much as possible. We need these issues fixed ASAP in these days!

 

Post notes: I'll add @BezKa consideration of teleportation in point 5) Spawning, because we need now more than ever, a rework to the telelocator focus. Think about it! The worm drops purple gems and red and blue gems to make purple gems!! It's perfect as a synergy!

[arubaro]

6 hours ago, Milordo said:

560 digestion/eating damage --> to 125 digestion/eating damage.

Horrible

Is hard to get eaten plus 125 is ridiculous, thst is only 25 damage with log suit....

6 hours ago, Milordo said:

20 thorns damage --> to 1 thorns damage

Why no 0? Dude, is a boss

 

And the insanity shouldn't be nerfed neithet. Is a giant worm

6 hours ago, Milordo said:

Please guys, bump this post and like it as much as possible. We need these issues fixed ASAP in these days!

I hope nobody wants such horrible difficulty nerf

 

[00petar00]

24 minutes ago, arubaro said:

Horrible

Is hard to get eaten plus 125 is ridiculous, thst is only 25 damage with log suit....

Why no 0? Dude, is a boss

 

And the insanity shouldn't be nerfed neithet. Is a giant worm

I hope nobody wants such horrible difficulty nerf

This is dst, not hello kitty rainbow island

This is a mandatory boss that comes to the player, these changes are reasonable.

According to your logic If deerclops never existed and klei added him today with 10k hp and 400 damage per hit you'd argue that it should stay like that even though it spawns and chases player.

[arubaro]

34 minutes ago, 00petar00 said:

This is a mandatory boss that comes to the player, these changes are reasonable.

According to your logic If deerclops never existed and klei added him today with 10k hp and 400 damage per hit you'd argue that it should stay like that even though it spawns and chases player.

Deerclops comes always at day 21 during winter

This is a boss that you mostly will encounter past many seasons in a shard people barely stays for long periods of time 

Isnt reasonable to ask for such damage nerf

Maybe for you is reasonable since you only want to remove difficulty of each stuff you give feedback, reducing every cost of non expensive item, defends one shot cheap exploits on bosses or ask for 10 day cooldown on beef reviving itrms (maybe needing a revive every 10 days explains why you ask for nerfs on difficulty) but some people wants to play dst not animal crossing

You can reduce the damage receive in world settings

[00petar00]

1 hour ago, arubaro said:

Deerclops comes always at day 21 during winter

This is a boss that you mostly will encounter past many seasons in a shard people barely stays for long periods of time 

Someone just had greater depth worm spawn on day 16, I usually am at ruins at that time or fighting nightmare werepig without having a base yet.

Now I can only imagine how it would feel to have worm eat me or any player going to ruins and delete all items and literally over 2 most important first autumn hours. I wouldn't want to continue playing without rollback or regenerating the world.

To be honest If at any point I lose every item I am carrying to worm boss, I'd want a rollback. This was used as a punishment for void walking but now we have an intended and very unfair way to lose all items at once besides lureplant that is easily avoidable.

Deerclops can be predicted or spawned with flares to kill him but he is much weaker so it really doesn't matter.

[Milordo]

Hey there, @arubaro! You've known me for a long time but I'm available to give you a summary about me, to avoid any doubts and confusion. Do I hate difficulty? No. Do I want to make the game easier? No. Objectively the game is becoming even easier and remains increasingly in an unbalanced state. We can safely classify the worm as an easy difficulty tier right now. So what happened? Why am I advocating to give these changes?

First of all the digestion/food damage. I don't really think this needs to be seriously discussed, but it's obvious it isn't. 560 damage. From an enemy, that you face every time, not locked in an arena as an optional challenge. There is no one in the game that does this much damage, except maybe Toadstool fully powered up with mushroom trees (we'll get back to this point in a moment). Sorry, but there is really no compromise here, it is overtuned in damage and an enemy type like this absolutely shouldn't have it. I can stay at 150 if you want. Maybe maybbee 175 damage, but not beyond. 25-30-40 damage seems little, until you do many mistakes and/or you're in a terrible situation.

For thorns damage and sanity, I knew they would be controversial at first but even here. I explained myself really well in the points I listed before, so I don't know what else to tell you. I can show you boss game design like the example before with Toadstool, where the game shows you that the main mechanic of the enemy is to stand still and summon mushroom trees from nowhere. His appearance now changes significantly and you also notice his attacks are definitely stronger in all aspects and if that doesn't make you understand yet, the damage of the mushroom bombs that one-shot you is more than evident. If you take the worm now, apart from the visual design of the thorns that I would like to remind you, many other animals/enemies/entities in the game also have it but they do NOT do damage on contact, so it could be a false visual design, there is nothing else Klei wants to teach you except with pure damage and that is why 20 repeated damage is wrong if it becomes 40,80,100,140,160,200.... 

You are also making a bad judgment, without considering the new and blind player experience, which I am sure and I bet you have no experience in this field compared to me. "Should videogames be balanced around new players and such?" Absolutely not, that's a recipe for disaster. A lesson that too much modern developers don't learn. What new players and such always need in videogames is learning. Understanding how the videogame works and therefore having intuitive gameplay elements. I thought I explained myself well on this before.

Will a veteran/expert/strong player have problems with thorns? No. They will never even let themselves be touched by thorns. So what difference does it make to you, if you think you are strong (from what I gather) to not let yourself be touched by them? We could make a compromise of 5 damage from 1 damage, but we can't do more.

3 hours ago, arubaro said:

Deerclops comes always at day 21 during winter

This is a boss that you mostly will encounter past many seasons in a shard people barely stays for long periods of time 

You can reduce the damage receive in world settings

I will not comment about the bad takes of world settings and public servers but is super wrong to assume that the worm comes past many season. @00petar00 already said it but trust me, I saw it and confirm too that the worm can spawns even at the first winter and compared to the other giants counterparts, he could spawn in large quantity!

In fact let's compare to Deerclops since you mentioned it. Deerclops has 4000 hp, 75 damage, only moves straight normally, a big insanity aura drain (bigger than the worm) and can only hit in a cone in front of him + freezing status to give you another 75 damage. In contrast the worm has 5000 HP, 560 DAMAGE if eaten, 20 thorns damage all around him which seems little until you realize that depending on the situation and position he can spam them in your face and you can't respond in any way except hoping he throws you into a safe area, he moves very strangely and super unique compared to anything you've seen in the game and sure understanding and getting used to it is not easy but in any case it is not as stupid as "walking straight", a big insanity aura drain, especially near the head, not quite strong as the Deerclops one, but close + when eaten you lose straight 40 sanity and can only be hit with all the mechanics you know. Already basically the worm is more difficult than the Deerclops and even here there is no question about it, not only in numbers but also in the design of its attacks. Only, again, those numbers are clearly already in the overtuned department and added into the game without any thought.

If the worm were a super boss like the Dragonfly or Toadstool, there would be no problems like this because it would be confined to an arena. Instead, the great depth worm is a normal sandbox boss. Therefore, its difficulty does not come primarily from itself (indeed after having ascertained the factuality of its ease) but from what is around it. Earthquakes, other depths worms, hunger and food, batilisks, the constant sanity drain of caves, rain, winter, bunnymens if you have meat, clockworks, splumonkeys, shadow creatures from sanity and ruins, yada yada. If you were an experienced/veteran player like me, you would understand this notion right away

And if I think about all this together with HOW it spawns and WHERE it can spawns, together with the possibility of eliminating hours and hours of grinding or farming to make items like thulecite, gems, walking canes, tam o' shanters, eyebrellas, moggles.....his case just gets worse and worse.

 

 

In conclusion you are only defending artificial difficulty and punishment instead of providing real difficulty and challenge. If you want the last 2 things (as I would also like eh, understand me) bump and like this post or create another one to push to Klei all the other ideas we had pushed in the beta, like him changing direction with the other half of his body, even more interactions with objects, animals and structures that he eats or other attacks in his arsenal. 

I'm happy to discuss it objectively and if you have points that could rival mine, I would be more happy. However you failed and from your few words I get that you don't want to understand the intrinsic problem behind it and also you skipped half of my speech, when I even mentioned and encouraged the desire to buff it through point 1) fighting xD

[arubaro]

3 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

Someone just had greater depth worm spawn on day 16, I usually am at ruins at that time or fighting nightmare werepig without having a base yet.

Now I can only imagine how it would feel to have worm eat me or any player going to ruins and delete all items and literally over 2 most important first autumn hours. I wouldn't want to continue playing without rollback or regenerating the world.

To be honest If at any point I lose every item I am carrying to worm boss, I'd want a rollback. This was used as a punishment for void walking but now we have an intended and very unfair way to lose all items at once besides lureplant that is easily avoidable.

Deerclops can be predicted or spawned with flares to kill him but he is much weaker so it really doesn't matter.

We can suggest to change such punishing mechanic but doesnt make sense to nerf their damage and sanity drain.  People can lose their inventory if they die nearby even if they deal 1 damage...makes no sense to remove the 1st non optional challenge in decades 

1 hour ago, Milordo said:

Hey there, @arubaro! You've known me for a long time but I'm available to give you a summary about me, to avoid any doubts and confusion. Do I hate difficulty? No. Do I want to make the game easier? No. Objectively the game is becoming even easier and remains increasingly in an unbalanced state. We can safely classify the worm as an easy difficulty tier right now. So what happened? Why am I advocating to give these changes?

First of all the digestion/food damage. I don't really think this needs to be seriously discussed, but it's obvious it isn't. 560 damage. From an enemy, that you face every time, not locked in an arena as an optional challenge. There is no one in the game that does this much damage, except maybe Toadstool fully powered up with mushroom trees (we'll get back to this point in a moment). Sorry, but there is really no compromise here, it is overtuned in damage and an enemy type like this absolutely shouldn't have it. I can stay at 150 if you want. Maybe maybbee 175 damage, but not beyond. 25-30-40 damage seems little, until you do many mistakes and/or you're in a terrible situation.

For thorns damage and sanity, I knew they would be controversial at first but even here. I explained myself really well in the points I listed before, so I don't know what else to tell you. I can show you boss game design like the example before with Toadstool, where the game shows you that the main mechanic of the enemy is to stand still and summon mushroom trees from nowhere. His appearance now changes significantly and you also notice his attacks are definitely stronger in all aspects and if that doesn't make you understand yet, the damage of the mushroom bombs that one-shot you is more than evident. If you take the worm now, apart from the visual design of the thorns that I would like to remind you, many other animals/enemies/entities in the game also have it but they do NOT do damage on contact, so it could be a false visual design, there is nothing else Klei wants to teach you except with pure damage and that is why 20 repeated damage is wrong if it becomes 40,80,100,140,160,200.... 

You are also making a bad judgment, without considering the new and blind player experience, which I am sure and I bet you have no experience in this field compared to me. "Should videogames be balanced around new players and such?" Absolutely not, that's a recipe for disaster. A lesson that too much modern developers don't learn. What new players and such always need in videogames is learning. Understanding how the videogame works and therefore having intuitive gameplay elements. I thought I explained myself well on this before.

Will a veteran/expert/strong player have problems with thorns? No. They will never even let themselves be touched by thorns. So what difference does it make to you, if you think you are strong (from what I gather) to not let yourself be touched by them? We could make a compromise of 5 damage from 1 damage, but we can't do more.

I will not comment about the bad takes of world settings and public servers but is super wrong to assume that the worm comes past many season. @00petar00 already said it but trust me, I saw it and confirm too that the worm can spawns even at the first winter and compared to the other giants counterparts, he could spawn in large quantity!

In fact let's compare to Deerclops since you mentioned it. Deerclops has 4000 hp, 75 damage, only moves straight normally, a big insanity aura drain (bigger than the worm) and can only hit in a cone in front of him + freezing status to give you another 75 damage. In contrast the worm has 5000 HP, 560 DAMAGE if eaten, 20 thorns damage all around him which seems little until you realize that depending on the situation and position he can spam them in your face and you can't respond in any way except hoping he throws you into a safe area, he moves very strangely and super unique compared to anything you've seen in the game and sure understanding and getting used to it is not easy but in any case it is not as stupid as "walking straight", a big insanity aura drain, especially near the head, not quite strong as the Deerclops one, but close + when eaten you lose straight 40 sanity and can only be hit with all the mechanics you know. Already basically the worm is more difficult than the Deerclops and even here there is no question about it, not only in numbers but also in the design of its attacks. Only, again, those numbers are clearly already in the overtuned department and added into the game without any thought.

If the worm were a super boss like the Dragonfly or Toadstool, there would be no problems like this because it would be confined to an arena. Instead, the great depth worm is a normal sandbox boss. Therefore, its difficulty does not come primarily from itself (indeed after having ascertained the factuality of its ease) but from what is around it. Earthquakes, other depths worms, hunger and food, batilisks, the constant sanity drain of caves, rain, winter, bunnymens if you have meat, clockworks, splumonkeys, shadow creatures from sanity and ruins, yada yada. If you were an experienced/veteran player like me, you would understand this notion right away

And if I think about all this together with HOW it spawns and WHERE it can spawns, together with the possibility of eliminating hours and hours of grinding or farming to make items like thulecite, gems, walking canes, tam o' shanters, eyebrellas, moggles.....his case just gets worse and worse.

 

 

In conclusion you are only defending artificial difficulty and punishment instead of providing real difficulty and challenge. If you want the last 2 things (as I would also like eh, understand me) bump and like this post or create another one to push to Klei all the other ideas we had pushed in the beta, like him changing direction with the other half of his body, even more interactions with objects, animals and structures that he eats or other attacks in his arsenal. 

I'm happy to discuss it objectively and if you have points that could rival mine, I would be more happy. However you failed and from your few words I get that you don't want to understand the intrinsic problem behind it and also you skipped half of my speech, when I even mentioned and encouraged the desire to buff it through point 1) fighting xD

Im not defending artificial difficulty, im defending an enemy with an easy to evade atack having huge damage. Im open for it to be nerfed to maybe 300 but asking for less than 150 is just a non sense, will make it less punishing than fighting regular worms. You cant be serious about being hit by 150 for making such mistake as being eaten...

The thorns damage is very low and if you get caught in the middle of the worm which would make you bounce between spikes is fair since position is really important in this fight, which isnt a common skill in this game

If they add more variety of atacks that make the fight more dynamic and hard i can accept a nerf but never to such low and pointless number as 150... the point for the attack is being hard punished for making a huge mistake as no moving to evade such slow attack 

Why i defend such high numbers for a hunt type encounter? Because is in the caves and, even if someone might experience it like you can experience early varglets, is very unlikely and dont forget that the caves are the hard aspect of the game and were the best gear can be obtained 

As i said to the other user, they should change how the worm deletes player's inventory when dropped when dead. Maybe they can change it so only digest basic materials but everything else can be dropped upon killed. Also make it so they doesnt despawn so the items wont banish with them

They can be improved without nerfing their challenge, the only challenge in eon in a game that only received buff after buff after buff to the point of making optional challenge like BQ a cake walk

[Milordo]

I'll tell you what @arubaro in a re-analysis the damages I proposed are too low but my points remain. Let's do this: 

560 digestion/eating damage --> to 300 digestion/eating damage.
20 thorns damage --> to 5 thorns damage

What do you think about this compromise? You made good points on "if you get caught in the middle of the worm which would make you bounce between spikes is fair since position is really important in this fight, which isnt a common skill in this game"and "the point for the attack is being hard punished for making a huge mistake as no moving to evade such slow attack"

You didn't mention anything on the sanity drain or the random shockwave damage, so I take that as a yes.

7 hours ago, arubaro said:

As i said to the other user, they should change how the worm deletes player's inventory when dropped when dead. Maybe they can change it so only digest basic materials but everything else can be dropped upon killed. Also make it so they doesnt despawn so the items wont banish with them

Yes, as @dois raios said + yours of not letting him despawn.

Now I'm editing the previous post with the new values.

[arubaro]

1 hour ago, Milordo said:

560 digestion/eating damage --> to 300 digestion/eating damage.
20 thorns damage --> to 5 thorns damage

The thorn damage is low, that is like 1 or 2 damage with armor. Also someone can instantly know how the spikes works because they will try to hit the worm so i dont see a problem with people that never experienced it. Is true that isnt very clear that it wont damage you when eating because the thorns are still there but well, the design isnt perfect

300 with armor equiped wouldnt be horrible, i prefer the current but wont be mad about it, less if they add more attacks since right now is the only direct atack they have and, as i said, is really easy to telegraph 

1 hour ago, Milordo said:

You didn't mention anything on the sanity drain or the random shockwave damage, so I take that as a yes.

The sanity drain should be, atleast, a little more than a regular worm. I would like it being 200 or so to dont be as much as deerclops but makes sense that the sight of such ugly behemoth will carry you to the deepness insanity like Deerclops or spiderqueens but i get that it might be too much considering the ammount of threads are getting the caves. Still, im form of it having a high sanity drain for consistency sake

Sorry but i think i don't understand what shockwaves are you talking about. I didn't notice any on the few encounters i have

[SilverSpoon]

16 hours ago, arubaro said:

I hope nobody wants such horrible difficulty nerf

 I feel so sorry for you.

My biggest complaint is that Great Depths Worm is not designed as a strong boss, but as the most griefer boss.
He will catastrophic destroy on bases you've spent hours building, devour all items you've spent hours collecting, and currently has very limited options for countermeasures. Currently, he is not "Fun accident", only serves as just "Rollback Bait".

Honesty I don't really care about his combat ability, but base and item destruction needs to be fixed with ASAP.

[Milordo]

23 minutes ago, arubaro said:

The thorn damage is low, that is like 1 or 2 damage with armor. Also someone can instantly know how the spikes works because they will try to hit the worm so i dont see a problem with people that never experienced it. Is true that isnt very clear that it wont damage you when eating because the thorns are still there but well, the design isnt perfect

Damn it, it's true. 10 damage then. No more. With 10 damage, if you have the first armors in the game, log suits/football helmets, you will lose just 2 hp but in reality with the thorn spam attacks and constant stunlocks, you would realistically loose 8 to 12 hp. Worse cases 24-30 hp at once, if your armors are not all broken.... 

24 minutes ago, arubaro said:

300 with armor equiped wouldnt be horrible, i prefer the current but wont be mad about it, less if they add more attacks since right now is the only direct atack they have and, as i said, is really easy to telegraph 

25 minutes ago, arubaro said:

The sanity drain should be, atleast, a little more than a regular worm. I would like it being 200 or so to dont be as much as deerclops but makes sense that the sight of such ugly behemoth will carry you to the deepness insanity like Deerclops or spiderqueens but i get that it might be too much considering the ammount of threads are getting the caves. Still, im form of it having a high sanity drain for consistency sake

Yes more than a regular worm agreed but again less than what he has now. Losing 5 sanity in circa 1.5 seconds is not balanced. 

25 minutes ago, arubaro said:

Sorry but i think i don't understand what shockwaves are you talking about. I didn't notice any on the few encounters i have

Understandable, I didn't notice either the first times in beta. When the worm emerges from the ground or goes underground from its head, and only from its head, it launches mini shockwave attacks, very similar to those of the bearger, but smaller. I still haven't figured out how the damage behaves because I had, without armor, 31,33,28,24,22 damage. Very strange. I'm theorizing that they are ranged based? But still bizarre by don't starve standards. This attack I wanted to buff it to 25 or 30 flat damage, no random.

 

Also update for you, I didn't mention it because it came to me as a stroke of genius later. The digestion damage needs to be decreased and also THE times it eats you. You see, we were racking our brains with the damage because we thought 1 eating hit = 300, but that's not the case! Because then with the damage he has now, 560, it should leave you with log suits and 38 health, yet it doesn't happen because when it eats you, they developed (always something new and unique) that every segment of his body hurts you and because of how the armors were programmed, this worm grinds them. You remain with 38 health IF you have 2 log suits and you are left with only one at 56%. You can't tell me that this isn't punishing and shouldn't be changed on a boss too, again, normal. Not raid boss, normal.

[MasterDos]

On 9/15/2024 at 7:48 AM, Milordo said:

Please guys, bump this post and like it as much as possible. We need these issues fixed ASAP in these days!

I really don't understand what problems you have with the worm that you want to weaken it so much.

I killed the worm in beta in wooden armor and with a spear, never getting into its stomach. This game is supposed to be difficult and players need good skill to cope with threats and survive.
If you don't know how to play - it is not the developers who should fix it. It is you who should fix it)

Nothing personal and no aggression, you just so ardently ask to change the boss who is good enough in itself. Obviously, you do not need to go into the caves with bare hands and without armor.
It is the same as starting a journey across the ocean without armor, weapons and food, considering that there are many random threats in the ocean. For example, a raid of monkey pirates who will simply strip you naked and at best leave you with nothing on a leaky raft. But if you are ready for the threat - you can handle them. It all depends on skill and understanding of the game.

[Bumber64]

15 hours ago, arubaro said:

makes no sense to remove the 1st non optional challenge in decades

Varglet was two years ago. Tracks the player down, swims, and keeps summoning hounds until killed. Can spawn after 20 days. Not quite as destructive, but will kill you.

2 hours ago, MasterDos said:

I killed the worm in beta in wooden armor and with a spear, never getting into its stomach. This game is supposed to be difficult and players need good skill to cope with threats and survive.
If you don't know how to play - it is not the developers who should fix it. It is you who should fix it)

You can't be a new player again. Anyone entering caves for the first time is also figuring out how to deal with permanent cave darkness, etc. We don't need more reasons for players to Nope out of the caves the second they step foot in. (I'm assuming the 16 day limit starts with the world, not upon entering the caves the first time.) The regular depths worms are fine because they're just hounds, but GDW isn't a varglet.

Monkey pirates aren't a boss-level threat for first-time sailors. Plus you can get your items back later even if you fail.

[arubaro]

2 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

Varglet was two years ago. Tracks the player down, swims, and keeps summoning hounds until killed. Can spawn after 20 days. Not quite as destructive, but will kill you.

What? Varglets were added to nerf hound waves. Not only they reduced how often we can get a wave but made it so, instead of fighting a lot of hounds, you simply fight few ones and a varglet

Varglets dont spawn hounds non stop, they just spawn 2 a couple of times...

[Milordo]

10 hours ago, MasterDos said:

I really don't understand what problems you have with the worm that you want to weaken it so much.

I killed the worm in beta in wooden armor and with a spear, never getting into its stomach. This game is supposed to be difficult and players need good skill to cope with threats and survive.
If you don't know how to play - it is not the developers who should fix it. It is you who should fix it)

Nothing personal and no aggression, you just so ardently ask to change the boss who is good enough in itself. Obviously, you do not need to go into the caves with bare hands and without armor.
It is the same as starting a journey across the ocean without armor, weapons and food, considering that there are many random threats in the ocean. For example, a raid of monkey pirates who will simply strip you naked and at best leave you with nothing on a leaky raft. But if you are ready for the threat - you can handle them. It all depends on skill and understanding of the game.

I have actually explained over and over again in great details why and what the reasons are. If your answer is just "cope" "git gud" "you can't play" then you obviously didn't read the speech, maybe saw the first three words and skipped the rest. I can't help you by writing another poem, I've said enough about what there was to say. 

By the way, no, I'm not the only one who wants to change the worm in one way or another, but the entire community since the beginning of the beta. A beta that remained as such in the release for reasons not yet explained by Klei. You're the only one, the first person I see, who doesn't want to change it at all.

Also, very horrible bad take introducing the monkey pirates, of all possible examples that you could have pulled out. That does not help at all your case man 

[Milordo]

All of this made me forget to answer all the other comments, lol.

On 9/14/2024 at 8:53 AM, Jakepeng99 said:

I hope they do. Though, they only added the worm boss this update as an impactful thing for pre-riff.

I mean yes but come on. Poor bridges and Lurking nightmares. They are big in their own ways, especially bridges if more caves rework come to touch the biomes. 

On 9/14/2024 at 2:01 PM, arubaro said:

Good foundation but half cooked as usually since RoT started...

Ickers could be cool but they have many design problems. Also they should add more design variations even if is simply reorganizing the mob parts 

Mimics are funny,  i wish they could affect more stuff in the future

True, it irkes me that they don't have design variations and are the same Control + C, Control + V. And mimics should be pre-rifts :c 

On 9/14/2024 at 2:17 PM, Bumber64 said:

You have to remember what is in each wrap, and then re-wrap them after (which costs grass). Preserver is less of a hassle in that regard.

Apart from mini-sings, I use wrap skins to make me remember which one is it. Though I understand very well the hassle.

8 hours ago, arubaro said:

What? Varglets were added to nerf hound waves. Not only they reduced how often we can get a wave but made it so, instead of fighting a lot of hounds, you simply fight few ones and a varglet

Varglets dont spawn hounds non stop, they just spawn 2 a couple of times...

True! And I want to add, more than a nerf, it was a rework, because since varglets are stronger hounds, it nerfed directly a little, things like wendy or beefaloes.

[Jakepeng99]

52 minutes ago, Milordo said:

. Poor bridges and Lurking nightmares.

The lurking nightmares are fun to fight, but offer no pull to the caves. No new rewards.

The bridges are still poorly implemented. They shouldn't break.