Celestial Portal is a crafting station.

[Hungry French]

How do you like the idea that instead of changing characters, players could use other characters' crafts?
 

So instead of using the best tactics to take Wolfgang to fight against bosses, could you craft his dumbbell and pump up Wilson's muscles to x1.5 damage, for example?

Or could you use a Woodie axe to effectively chop down toadstool trees without too many glass axes?

Or use Winona catapults to deal with Bee Queen.

Or use shadow Maxwells to fight against Crab King's summoning creatures?

What some characters have is a giant hole between the main task of DST - boss battles and battles is not very good. This forces you to either abandon the character or give up the potential that the Celestial Portal provides.

[ShadowDuelist]

I think that would go against all that the reworks and skill trees tried to do. I even think that character swapping abuse is bad to begin with.

[Hungry French]

15 minutes ago, ShadowDuelist said:

Я думаю, что это противоречит всему, что пытались сделать разработчики с помощью редизайна и древа навыков. Я даже считаю, что злоупотреблять сменой персонажей изначально плохо.

Yes, but changing characters makes the game more fun for solo players. What's the point of fighting against bosses not for Wolfgang?

[Jakepeng99]

Mighty Wilson.

[Evelo]

I think the Celestial Portal should be deleted...

[GrapeVruit]

3 minutes ago, Evelo said:

I think the Celestial Portal should be deleted...

No offense to people who like the portal but I believe adding that thing into the game was a mistake.

[ShadowDuelist]

22 minutes ago, GrapeVruit said:

No offense to people who like the portal but I believe adding that thing into the game was a mistake.

At the time there was this issue, where in very long lived worlds, people would eventually get bored of playing as the same character.

I used to run a dedicated server back then and after 200ish days or so, people would ask admins if they could be despawned through commands, just to change their gameplay a bit.
So I think they meant to address that concern, and avoid very long lived world becoming stale.
Except that they never added any limit to it, and crafting the portal and a bunch of idols is probably a 10 days activity at most, meaning that if you go that route you may bypass all limitations each character has since pretty early in the game, basically "cheating" your way through.

I know a lot of people got used to that now and it's probably too late to change it entirely, but what I mean is that the fact that they implemented a way to switch characters was not bad really, it's the fact that they added no limit to it, what made it "bad".
A cooldown per player of X amount of days should have been placed from the start IMO.

[Echsrick]

2 hours ago, Hungry French said:

Yes, but changing characters makes the game more fun for solo players. What's the point of fighting against bosses not for Wolfgang?

700 days into a world and not even made the change portal, i killed pretty much all the most importand bosse alone, and fun is subjective, there probably people out there that dont even get fun out of anything of a boss no matter what, and no i am not using wolfgang

[Maxil20]

Given that this is rapidly turning into another celestial portal thread, and that this has, quite frankly, been discussed to the end of the universe, I'm going to leave a quote post from a thread I made That I still think about a lot when I suggested the idea of adding a cooldown in world options to it:
 

Quote

This wouldn't fix anything. It's very clear from these sorts of discussions on the forums that the sides aren't simply "I like to use the celestial portal!" and "I don't like to use the celestial portal!", but instead the sides are "I like the celestial portal existing as an option" and "I hate when I see other people use the celestial portal, because it makes me mad they're having fun wrong."

Adding a self-imposed toggle won't fix anything for that latter side, because the issue doesn't have anything to do with if they personally find the feature fun or not, but instead that it makes them angry whenever other people have fun with something that they don't like. There's no solution to this short of entirely ripping out the thing some people find fun so that those who don't like it don't have to see people playing the game wrong. I hope Klei will stick to their guns and leave the celestial portal in its current state.

I really dislike using the argument of "if you don't like it, don't use it" for a mechanic... but the celestial portal quite frankly is the only example of where I feel like this will work somewhat, especially in a solo context (and in co op, you likely have multiple players who are playing characters you would want to swap to in the first place...). Nobody is going to force you to use the portal or any of it's perks whatsoever unless you, yourself, want to do this. If anything, I think it's quite a cool flex when people do a megabase tour and they didn't upgrade the portal to show they have been that character for the whole game. Jazzy in particular comes to mind, as he made a massive base with over 3K days as Warly and never built/upgraded the portal the entire time.

Regarding the post itself, I don't really think it would accomplish much that you can't already do with the portal. It's totally possible to temporarily swap to the characters that make a task easier and swap back if you don't personally find enjoyment in something. I know a friend of mine who has been playing 98% beta Wortox and while he enjoyed fighting most of the bosses as him, he swapped to Winona for catapults because he despises fighting bee queen otherwise, and he found more personal enjoyment swapping to someone else to get the parts of the game he doesn't like over faster than sticking with the character and needing to drag through a fight he does not personally enjoy. It worked for him and I'm sure does for a lot of people who do this type of thing.

[ZeRoboButler]

Character choice is something that ultimately matters and is something that is an appeal to the player game design wise (whether they are aware of it or not). It gives the player the choice and in this case it offer the player a option to specialize, similar to why a game like tf2 might have the player pick between 1 of 9 options at one time to play, and then making the experience more diverse or complex via itemization or weapon choice. 

A lot of games are fun due to restriction, because said restrictions change how you play the game and tackle problems, if you are really bored and want to toss said rules to the wind, mods are plentiful that do was you just said, but don't be surprised when you get bored sooner or later. This stuff was designed this way for a good reason.

[Evelo]

3 hours ago, ShadowDuelist said:

At the time there was this issue, where in very long lived worlds, people would eventually get bored of playing as the same character.

Maybe then they should have made a new world then? But the past is the past... We are here now.

3 hours ago, ShadowDuelist said:

It's the fact that they added no limit to it, what made it "bad".

Though I do agree with you here.

[Steorra]

4 hours ago, ShadowDuelist said:

A cooldown per player of X amount of days should have been placed from the start IMO.

I personally prefer to unlock the celestial portal by defeating CC. (To make the celestial portal as a reward of CC battle)

[Mike23Ua]

There are several reasons you’d want to switch characters, from using Woodies TreeGuard Idols (yes they work for other non-Woodies) to needing to rebuild certain biome resources (like wormwoods bush crafting, or Wurt and Merms)

Not everyone who plays dst is a elite MegaBaser 5000.

And so even after 10,000 days they can and do make mistakes, Klei lives on these mistakes… You kill Deerclops or Bearger with Rifts open? GG prepare to have your base destroy by lunar moon variants.

This is Dont Starve… And if you want to put Merms back in your world after they are Destroy, you Will switch to Wurt, there is no other option.

[Guille6785]

4 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

I really dislike using the argument of "if you don't like it, don't use it" for a mechanic... but the celestial portal quite frankly is the only example of where I feel like this will work somewhat, especially in a solo context (and in co op, you likely have multiple players who are playing characters you would want to swap to in the first place...). Nobody is going to force you to use the portal or any of it's perks whatsoever unless you, yourself, want to do this. If anything, I think it's quite a cool flex when people do a megabase tour and they didn't upgrade the portal to show they have been that character for the whole game. Jazzy in particular comes to mind, as he made a massive base with over 3K days as Warly and never built/upgraded the portal the entire time.

not trying to bash people for having a different opinion than me but something that irks me to no end is that a lot of the same people who think the celestial portal is a bad addition to the game tend to also be the same people who think the game should have health scaling, in spite of the fact that the celestial portal is inarguably a built-in health scaling option for players since they can simply swap to a character with damage multipliers for a specific fight and switch back at will to keep playing whoever they want without being stuck with x1 damage

[Picklesaurus]

I would just like a server setting that would give me the option to add a 5 days,10 days,15 days cooldown or disable it. Or a setting to change the idol cost to be something more significant/impactiful so choosing a character or changing it is seen more as a commitment to a change in gameplay.

[reddocc]

I instead think every other's survivor's exclusive items that don't have an interaction have one, like if a player doesn't have the tag to lifts dumbbells instead the item slip of the players hand.

trying to use Walters slingshot as other player ends up hitting yourself.

Wanda's alarming clock does minimum dmg + attack slower+ loses twice durability also should drain sanity when held.

trying to use the codex umbra spawns a terror beak that instantly hits you and despawn.

Trying to use Wickerbottoms could either make you lose sanity or burn yourself.

I'm annoyed that only Lucy the axe is the only character exclusive item that gets privileges

[Reiko24]

The celestial portal probably should have like a 100 day cooldown or something

[Swiyss]

21 minutes ago, Reiko24 said:

The celestial portal probably should have like a 100 day cooldown or something

no.

[goblinball]

I think swapping characters is fun I don’t think the celestial portal needs to be changed. By the time you’re able to abuse the celestial portal most character perks and downsides don’t really matter too much. 

13 hours ago, ZeRoboButler said:

Character choice is something that ultimately matters and is something that is an appeal to the player game design wise (whether they are aware of it or not). It gives the player the choice and in this case it offer the player a option to specialize, similar to why a game like tf2 might have the player pick between 1 of 9 options at one time to play, and then making the experience more diverse or complex via itemization or weapon choice. 

Idk why you’re bringing tf2 up as an example when you can literally swap your character whenever you want mid-match this seems very counter intuitive to the argument you’re making

 

13 hours ago, ZeRoboButler said:

don't be surprised when you get bored sooner or later. This stuff was designed this way for a good reason.

You do realize that most of the ppl who use and enjoy the celestial portal are ppl who mega base and/or use long-lasting servers… AKA ppl who do not get bored sooner or later… right?

[AriaMain]

Doesn't celestial portal specially help the solo players keep up with the co op players? The survivors were made to synergize with each other and with the portal you don't miss out on the support perks just because you don't have anyone to play with

[Evelo]

14 hours ago, Guille6785 said:

not trying to bash people for having a different opinion than me but something that irks me to no end is that a lot of the same people who think the celestial portal is a bad addition to the game tend to also be the same people who think the game should have health scaling

Tend is doing a lot of work here. I don't believe that is true, but I can only speak for myself in thinking the game shouldn't have health scaling nor should it have the celestial portal. (Though if health scaling were a thing, it should only increase the hp the more players, not decrease the fewer players.)

[Chewabacca]

I think the Celestial Portal is best for multiplayer, where there's an obvious reason why you wouldn't want to start a new world for a new character: because it disrupts playing with your buddy. And I begrudgingly respect that it's the only way to respecc a skill tree mid-world, which is annoying. Outside of that, though...swapping to a character just to use them as a tool feels like metagaming in the worst way. A long cooldown is probably the way to go.

[Mysterious box]

22 hours ago, Hungry French said:

Yes, but changing characters makes the game more fun for solo players. What's the point of fighting against bosses not for Wolfgang?

I'd say because it's easier to fight bosses with different characters there's even characters who kill bosses faster and safer than him.

[Well-met]

6 hours ago, AriaMain said:

Doesn't celestial portal specially help the solo players keep up with the co op players? The survivors were made to synergize with each other and with the portal you don't miss out on the support perks just because you don't have anyone to play with

All the good intents of the C portal are drowned out by the lazy human nature of seeking the path of least resistance.

Multiple-player servers will still abuse it as much as they would offline.

The obvious fixes are to implement a passive cooldown, move the round boulder to the moon island, and significantly increase the crafting ingredients of idols.

[ZeRoboButler]

8 hours ago, goblinball said:

I think swapping characters is fun I don’t think the celestial portal needs to be changed. By the time you’re able to abuse the celestial portal most character perks and downsides don’t really matter too much. 

Idk why you’re bringing tf2 up as an example when you can literally swap your character whenever you want mid-match this seems very counter intuitive to the argument you’re making

 

You do realize that most of the ppl who use and enjoy the celestial portal are ppl who mega base and/or use long-lasting servers… AKA ppl who do not get bored sooner or later… right?

I've got no issues with character swapping, with the proposed topic of the post being any character using any other characters effects and items, I feel like it would be a bit of a detraction from why a person would pick a character in the first place. 

I brought it up because I felt it was a good example of how a game designs characters at a base level to do a very particular task, not due to the freedom at which you can change those characters. That game does have freedom of character choice mid game due to fast paced nature of it, where dst is much more the opposite in most cases. 

And yes I am aware that some people who play in long lasting worlds like to play as other characters down the line due to them being bored of that particular playstyle and not desiring to just start a whole new world, it makes perfect sense why a person would want that. 

My statement on getting bored was more so aimed at mods that I feel don't compliment the way the game was made but rather alter it to the point of removing threat, progression or otherwise. I'm certain I saw a mod that does exactly what is being proposed initially by the post, but I felt that if a person where to play the game this way it would be a detraction from the original intention of a survival game in which character choice is supposed to matter.