Please make Rabbit King's naughtiness actually decrease over time, like Krampus's

[CaptainChaotica]

I don't use rabbits as my primary/only meat source, but I'd like it if they were AVAILABLE, without my having to constantly feel paranoid each time, like...is that fast jerk who spawns henchmen so quickly that I can never hit actually HIM, going to spawn this time? ...is it THIS time? Maybe it's this time...?

Over the years, it feels like many updates to Don't Starve Together have been getting in the way of playstyles like mine--mostly peaceful, non-combat-focused. But for the most part, they're optional, and I can continue to MOSTLY get around them. But this new one doesn't just _encourage_ you to play more combat-oriented by dangling better loot. It FORCES you to! Don't Starve Together is supposed to be a sandbox game, now, it feels like "git gud at combat or ELSE" is not optional anymore.

The Wrathful Rabbit King, can happen at ANY time and to ANY player--and I'd think, _especially_ new ones, since one of the very first things most new players do is try to catch rabbits with their bare hands, and the moment that they find traps on the crafting menu and realise that putting them over the rabbit holes thermselves actually WORKS, it's a big revelation! And they're so happy!

...and then what, they're gonna die in like, a couple days, because of the gloriously renewable food source they just found? It's not as if most noobs are carrying around boss-level gear at all times. Heck, many veteran players don't. Inventory space is limited, after all.

And we already HAVE trade-offs for not visiting the caves. It's called: If  you don't want to get insta-gibbed by a gang of angry rabbitmen who leap out of the shadows just because you're carrying a meatball to snack on, then you don't get cave TREASURE. No militant vegan rabbitmen, spitting spiders, and stealing monkeys? Then no Thulecite, lazy deserters, telepoofing, etc.

But now it's "No awesome Thulecite crowns, and ALSO here's angry rabbits ANYWAY. Oh, also you can never placate them like a treeguard or just wait a while for them to calm down, like Krampus--it's on your Permanent Record. You're welcome."

PLEASE at least make "Rabbit Naughtiness" drain over time, or make him easier to catch and hit less hard, or optimally, give us a setting to turn off the mechanic entirely. I've been playing and loving the game since 2016. I've recommended it to friends. I've BOUGHT it for friends. I've spent real life currency on cosmetic skins. I've done FANART of it.

I know I'm only one player, but PLEASE don't make me have to give it up entirely because of just ONE update.

...Notorious

[Chewabacca]

Adding to this: the Rabbit King probably hits players migrating from the base game of Don't Starve the hardest, since without any of the DLCs rabbits are an extremely good passive meat source (never die in chests, rabbit holes never seal up, available in both seasons). It's fine for DST to be its own game, and I wouldn't argue for rabbit holes to be as ludicrously productive as they are in base DS, but devs should keep the solo game's mechanics in mind when thinking about how players might interact with the world.

[Auth]

I honestly couldn't believe that it doesn't already work like naughtiness. This just feels like a huge oversight.

I'm only one player, but I agree with you.

[CaptainChaotica]

I was shocked to find out it doesn't! I mean, you'd just assume, right? And people say you can just despawn the Wrathful Rabbit King himself by jumping into the caves and back...okay...that's good for that exact moment, great. But:

Does despawning him _reset the naughtiness meter_? Does it do ANYthing to make it so that the _next_ time you try to get a rabbit as a meat ingredient in a crockpot dish, or for a small piece of non-monster jerky, or just to make simple warmth for winter when you haven't found the beefalo yet, the scruffy undead jerk won't just insta-spawn AGAIN? Is it such that once your Rabbit Naughtiness (why do we need a seperate one anyway, we already have Krampus) hits that level, that's IT, that _entire_ source of potential food is just GONE for you, forever? Do the rabbit holes turn into essentially decorative objects that you can look at but not touch, for the entire rest of that run?

And it's not as if the rabbits haven't been nerfed quite a bit anyway--and I'm OKAY with those nerfs, because they are reasonable--they don't take them away as a resource, entirely, forever. The earlier rabbit nerfs are:

Nerf 1: Rabbits are not available in spring in DST/Reign of Giants. I'm fine with this one, RoG is my fave version of the game. Next.
Nerf 2: When you go insane, they turn into beardlings and drop monster meat instead of good meat, so their ability to make regular jerky isn't always. I'm already used to trying to maintain/keep a watch on my sanity, that's fine. Next.
Nerf 3: You can no longer make filling meatballs in winter with just one morsel and three ice. This one's a little annoying, but....yeah, I get it, that WAS kinda broken. Okay.

But..."You get maybe 20 rabbits for any purpose ever and that's IT, even if your run lasts hundreds or even thousands of days"....nah. That's just unreasonable.

Spoiler

And if nothing ever happens with this, if it STAYS as dumb as "You have to go to the ruins and do part of Pearl's quest to be able to freaking make FUNCTIONALLY USELESS, DECORATIVE _ONLY_ FURNITURE" (another one that strikes me as especially "Eff you, peaceful players! If you want this thing that I KNOW is up your alley, you will HAVE to play the OTHER way! STOP HAVING FUN WRONG, DAMMIT!") then...

Modders, whoever finds a way to mod this out, I will be grateful to you FOR. EV. ER. It will become a mod I _never_ go anywhere without, from now on, ever. Every single last game of mine going forward, will have the No Rabbit King mod enabled. I don't even care if it the mod in question also gets rid of the good parts of the Rabbit King mechanic--the Peaceful Rabbit King and the Lucky Rabbits. I hate the downside of this new thing SO much, that I am more than willing to chuck away the upsides.

I'd do it myself, but I have no idea how to mod.

...Notorious

[FillerText]

I really dislike Rabbit King. I think it's ridiculous he can just drop on you from an earthquake, and immediately start fighting you for having a proper weapon(hambat) during an early game ruins rush. He is a random curveball the game throws at you, that is honestly infinitely stronger than Hounds or Depth Worms(Or any individual enemy in the ruins, really). He can spawn as early as first autumn, while being stronger than Deerclops.

The amount of time you are forced to spend just to kill him is unbearable within the context of racing against the clock to get Thulecite gear before Winter starts. You run a lot, so he burrows, get like 4 hits in, then do it all over again. Any other strategy will cause you to take a significant chunk of damage. And after he finally dies, you have to now make it all the way back to your original location. He actively requires prep time, while being able to spawn randomly to kill you. I don't want to carry a Pan flute just in case he spawns. Having slots for ruins loot is very valuable.

Most newer players struggle with Deerclops, god forbid they have to deal with a stronger enemy they can't even run away from without making boats/hiding in caves.

Krampus is practically impossible to summon without being a mass murderer taking way more than you need from innocent creatures. Even if you end up aggravating him, he doesn't kill you, steals a bit of stuff, then leaves. While being tankable with a spear, and a log suit. If you met the conditions to summon him, chances are, you are in position to kill him. After all, you were just terrorizing the constant a few moments ago.

Rabbit king is summoned by living off scraps trying to make ends meet. Most new players probably can't even craft a boat, or don't play with caves. And even if they do, probably have a lot of sinkholes closed. Have fun escaping with 3 stronger bunnymen, and a dropkicking short king hot on your tail. I got instakilled as Wanda upon entering a cave after having crafted the alarming clock, because the sinkhole was too close to a bunny village. The moment the loading screen faded, I was bitten by 5 of them at once. I wasn't even old age. Decided to spawn a Life giving amulet with a console command afterwards. Making players fight stronger versions of them with double the health doesn't seem like a good idea.

While most of my post is a salty rant about one ruined ruins rush. I am concerned for new player experience of not even being able to trust basic food sources. Brightshades at least spawn, and re-contextualize the world after you opened rifts.

The game outright misleading you, by characters saying "I should pick up that rabbit!" doesn't help either. It may be on me for not keeping up with patches enough, but that's just cruel. It honestly feels like Krampus and Rabbit King need to actively swap places. Make the other drop something better, than a Wigfrid spear reskin.

[Anis5240]

 

1 hour ago, FillerText said:

Rabbit king is summoned by living off scraps trying to make ends meet.

The other big problem with Rabbid King was after you kill him, it's just gonna take 5 minutes or so for the timer to go into cooldown. Basically for all hardcore le funny shadow prison lovers, you just cage him, kill him, then wait 5 minutes for it to RESPAWN. Like what the hell, man.

If the timer is once every 20 days (like other bosses' respawn times) then it's um uh "not really the best, but also not the worst thing possible" mechanic. BUT it's at least a mechanic that most players are familiar with, so that's that.

That said, I agree for this whole thing AND PLEASE, PLEASE PLEASE make masqued bunnymen NOT count toward the rabbit naughtiness meter.

[CaptainChaotica]

I mean, seriously. Every part of this thing's implementation is just...odd. He breaks SO many unspoken (or even spoken?) rules and precedents. Like...

--Don't mess with the really early basegame stuff.
--Don't give NEW players NON-OPTIONAL bosses that they can indeed run into on their FIRST season. Bearger is the fall boss. He does NOT defaulty appear on the FIRST fall
--No other punishment creature is this difficult to catch/hits you this hard.
--No other punishment creature has PERMANENT badness points.
--No other punishment creature is non-placatable.

I swear, this whole thing feels like ONE PERSON was like "Let's troll them all, lol! It's just a prank, bro!" and calmer heads WERE probably also there at that meeting, but they did not prevail.

And the part about "it punishes poor players who are living off scraps trying to make ends meet" REALLY hits hard. A, that's been me IRL most of my life, and B, YEAH! It _does_ punish the worst-off players the most! What the hell?

On a more humorous? note..is it just me, or does it kinda feel like the tone of some updates is SPLIT PERSONALITY sometimes? It's like freakin' Human Charlie and Shadow Charlie fighting against each other in that one animated short. Like...

Human Charlie: Let's give them adorable little salamanders on the moon island!
Shadow Charlie: And ROTTING ZOMBIE HOUNDS WITH WAY-TOO-OPEN MOUTHS.

Human Charlie: Ooh, I know! Cute little kittens of all different kinds that you can find in different biomes and collect, and they follow you adorably for free!
Shadow Charlie: And then we'll PUNISH THE PLAYERS PERMANENTLY FOR USING A BASIC RESOURCE.

Like what. :P

...Notorious

[ElleVee]

Hi forum folks! 

I wanted to thank y'all for the info. I am a returning player (2-3 years since I last played) and did I ever get surprised by the wrathful bunny. I am so confused about why you can't even turn off the mechanic in world gen, if I'm gonna play Russian roulette with rabbits, I want it to be by choice, you know? It was a sad and confusing moment that I legitimately had to internet search for answers to because I had no idea what happened. 

I have been enjoying the relearning curve overall (I also made the switch to console from PC but THAT'S a whole other thing), but yeah was not expecting to be obliterated by a heat-seeking angry bunbun.

[CaptainChaotica]

That's exactly what happened to me! Technically it was added to the game in...September, last year? Maybe August? but I hadn't played or looked things up about DST for months, and so, when I was playing in January and Wendy checked her rabbit traps as she does every day, BAM! Dead!

I normally don't like rolling back but this one was so....wtf?! that I felt it was a little unfair...especially when I found out THERE IS NO SETTING TO TURN IT OFF. Even worse, I was doing a challenge in this particular world, and wasn't _allowing_ myself to use any even slightly advanced gear. So even if I HAD thought to myself "Welp. It's time to get breakfast. Better throw the ol' armor on!" (and if you DO think that, WHAT do you EAT?!) it wouldn't have been much.

Seriously, we need a way to turn it off at least AFTER we've had the jumpscare "It's just a prank, bro!" ha ha gotcha moment. We've BEEN got. You've pranked us. Can we maybe stop now?

...Notorious

[Beetrice]

How are you losing to this guy? He's easier than the previous easiest boss in the game (Eye of Terror). I also don't get this complaint of him randomly jumping you during a ruins rush - not only have I never seen this happen to anyone before, but the odds of the rabbit king spawning in the caves AND falling close enough to you that he gets aggravated AND you having meat in your inventory are so incredibly slim that it's baffling that you argue this point.

This game is not centered around the combat. But it is still an important aspect of it, has always been, and always will be. For you to avoid it like the plague is silly, especially when it isn't even that hard to learn either. That's like if I completely avoided making a base, and just recrafted an alchemy engine, crock pot, etc. whenever I needed to use them. Sure, I can do that, but it's a lot easier to just learn how to base properly.

I agree with your main point of making rabbit naughtiness go down over time, but the rest of this is rather unfounded.

[Anis5240]

1 minute ago, Beetrice said:

I never seen this happen to anyone before

You'd be so surprised. Just because you hadn't had it happen to you doesn't mean it's not there. Here's another thread for you to feast on: 

 

2 minutes ago, Beetrice said:

For you to avoid it like the plague is silly

I literally found a guy on Klei's Discord server who's so afraid of spiders they're willing to resort to stupendous mods just to avoid seeing those critters in the first place. Is that silly of them too?

[Beetrice]

Yea.

[Guille6785]

8 minutes ago, Beetrice said:

How are you losing to this guy? He's easier than the previous easiest boss in the game (Eye of Terror). I also don't get this complaint of him randomly jumping you during a ruins rush - not only have I never seen this happen to anyone before, but the odds of the rabbit king spawning in the caves AND falling close enough to you that he gets aggravated AND you having meat in your inventory are so incredibly slim that it's baffling that you argue this point.

this exact scenario happened to someone in a live tournament lol

[Chewabacca]

2 hours ago, Beetrice said:

How are you losing to this guy? He's easier than the previous easiest boss in the game (Eye of Terror). I also don't get this complaint of him randomly jumping you during a ruins rush - not only have I never seen this happen to anyone before, but the odds of the rabbit king spawning in the caves AND falling close enough to you that he gets aggravated AND you having meat in your inventory are so incredibly slim that it's baffling that you argue this point.

This game is not centered around the combat. But it is still an important aspect of it, has always been, and always will be. For you to avoid it like the plague is silly, especially when it isn't even that hard to learn either. That's like if I completely avoided making a base, and just recrafted an alchemy engine, crock pot, etc. whenever I needed to use them. Sure, I can do that, but it's a lot easier to just learn how to base properly.

I agree with your main point of making rabbit naughtiness go down over time, but the rest of this is rather unfounded.

"How are the type of people who are mostly relying on rabbits for food losing to a boss who takes you by surprise and has 3 immortal bodyguards, when he's easier than a boss who spawns at a time and place of your choosing?" is kind of a weird question. Sure, learning combat is important to the game. But that's why we have Deerclops and the hound waves. Deerclops has twice this guy's health but is also much slower and easier to get hits on and doesn't come with regenerating backup. People should be learning how to fight bosses with something like Deerclops instead of getting thrown in the deep end.

[Porkus]

3 hours ago, Beetrice said:

How are you losing to this guy? He's easier than the previous easiest boss in the game (Eye of Terror). I also don't get this complaint of him randomly jumping you during a ruins rush - not only have I never seen this happen to anyone before, but the odds of the rabbit king spawning in the caves AND falling close enough to you that he gets aggravated AND you having meat in your inventory are so incredibly slim that it's baffling that you argue this point.

My first experience with such rabbit king

[Aester]

On 2/4/2025 at 9:02 PM, CaptainChaotica said:

having to constantly feel paranoid each time

Unpopular opinion, but honestly I wish the game had more stuff like this C: 

I didn't have any big troubles with him but i don't like that poor newbie fellas will be obliterated by him if they learned how to catch bunnies. It happened once on the public server when one unexperienced guy desperately tried to gather some meat here and there and then was crushed by RK. 

The ideas in this thread about the ability to toggle RK in the world settings, increasing the respawn time, not counting those wearing masks are pretty good.
And i don't like naughtiness drop idea(it is better then current system tho). Maybe we can calm his anger with offering him something? We already have similar mechanic with Antlion tho... but it still sounds more appealing to me personally. 

And maybe he shouldn't spawn early if you just killing small bunnies sometimes, anger should grow slow, but when you filtering out whole hamlets of bunnymens with a hammer and steel THEN RK should be very angry. Anger shouldn't drop by itself, it should grow slowly with minor crimes and it should grow rapidly with genocidal actions.

As for his inevitability in pursuit of you it is a fair price for HEAVILY depending on one of the strongest source of resources.

[Bumber64]

38 minutes ago, Aester said:

As for his inevitability in pursuit of you it is a fair price for HEAVILY depending on one of the strongest source of resources.

Strongest source since when? Bunnyman drops were nerfed at some point, IIRC, if those were ever good. Rabbits were never really strong.

(Wiki says you need 15 rabbit holes to survive winter? You need grass for the traps, which doesn't regrow in winter. RK will just kill you now instead.)

[Aester]

50 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

Strongest source since when? Bunnyman drops were nerfed at some point, IIRC, if those were ever good. Rabbits were never really strong.

Since they are not only cheap food sources(especially properly cooked in the Crock Pot), but also nightmare fuel and hair(which essentially gives you immortality). And for this you just need to set a trap and wait. Traps also break very slowly. Also it usually close to base(for me at least). 

Bunnymen drop fur for you for new homes, which can be OP depending on the situation, and even MORE hair.

 

50 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

(Wiki says you need 15 rabbit holes to survive winter? You need grass for the traps, which doesn't regrow in winter. RK will just kill you now instead.)

You just took it out of context and didn't take into account all the other possibilities in the winter with your passive food farm. 

[Anis5240]

49 minutes ago, Aester said:

hair(which essentially gives you immortality

And? So what? Is Wilson too OP for being able to have his beard grow faster and just shave them for meat effigy?

[Aester]

2 minutes ago, Anis5240 said:

And? So what? Is Wilson too OP for being able to have his beard grow faster and just shave them for meat effigy?

Wow. So edgy. 
Yeah it is pretty strong ability. Not exactly OP but very good.

[Charlie Dark]

GOSH, I actually accidentally summoned the wrathful rabbit king when I was with my friend in the caves... It was a disaster! I didn't expect him to show up like that, Wes gaming... I picked up a weird rabbit that fell during earthquake just to check it out, i had meat in my inventory for extra hambats, we were going to the ruins.

[CaptainChaotica]

Reading over some of the later replies (since the last time I commented here), I DID also think of being able to placate the Rabbit King in some way, such as with carrots. The only problem is, though, how would this physically WORK? To placate a treeguard, if you're not at all in a position to fight it right then (low HP, your armor broke), you plant some pinecones near it...

...and then, since you ALWAYS need wood for one thing or another, you go _out of its line of sight_ to chop more trees.
My question here is:

WHERE is the Rabbit King's "line of sight"?
Because it seems like it can appear from ANYwhere, at any time you happen to be murdering another rabbit past the limit. You can be in a whole other savannah miles away, and you'll still get punished. You can in fact be in a whole other SHARD--the caves--and get him, apparently.

And, so that's why I originally thought of placating but then didn't put it in my first post, because I'm not sure how getting out of his attention SPACE wise, would work.  
As far as I can tell right now, only _time_ might calm him down.

Even if you're great at combat, that would get OLD, to have to deal with that every single time you get another rabbit! In the end, it would wear you out and annoy you, as a player....and therefore the _permanence_ of the punishment would still...work. It's too much annoyance to get another rabbit? Well, guess I won't be eating any of THEM for the rest of the entire run, even if it lasts hundreds or thousands of days!

Whether it's fear of death or annoyance, it would still freaking stop you...FOREVER! And _permanent_ punishment, other than death without any other means of reviving, is just not a THING in this game?

And my overall question is: WHY does this even HAVE to be a thing?
Also it seems especially cruel, since it will be MOSTLY noobs who run into him. This is _very_ much a "somebody forgot new players exist at all" mechanic.

So....I'm down with the placating idea, as long as there IS some way to get Out of His Jurisdiction so that you can still have rabbits in peace somewhere else...
Failing that, again, "rabbit naughtiness" (rolls eyes) should go down over time.
I'm fine with BOTH of those.

I'm also very very VERY for giving us a setting to turn it the frick off entirely, because sometimes you just DON'T want to be BOTHERED with a certain thing. Because WHY???? Some people _want_ mean-spirited eff-you-player mechanics, I get that. I understand that.

But some people just want to freakin' gather easy resources without constantly having to worry that The Bunny from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" will shank them at any random moment.

All I'm asking for is a freaking OPTION.

...Notorious

[Anis5240]

On 2/5/2025 at 5:11 AM, CaptainChaotica said:

Does despawning him reset the naughtiness meter?

As far as I know, probably yes.

Now just imagine if you run to surface/caves or jump on boat to get away from him but when you return he also respawns/waits for you. That'll be one whole another level of horror.

[Edible Coal]

59 minutes ago, Anis5240 said:

As far as I know, probably yes.

Now just imagine if you run to surface/caves or jump on boat to get away from him but when you return he also respawns/waits for you. That'll be one whole another level of horror.

new update, rabid king will always stalk you even if u go in caves or boats

[kiem_tra]

Hello!
First time user here. I played DST a few years back. Had a lot of fun with it. Now I decided to start back. With an easy preset. Cool world to prep myself to a tougher game maybe. 
I'm in day 20, and I'm harvesting rabbits (like I always did) and now this wrathful rabbit king appear. OK... I understand the concept. But, is it just me or there's NO preset to remove it. Like at all? You can remove all Giants (and most hostile creatures if you want), but nothing you can do for this wrathful king? Am I missing something? Please help! This completly kills the idea of having preset.. why have them at all then?... If there's not, I will have to stop playing the game. I know I could try to kill it or do eat something else (like frogs). But I'm no hardcore player, just want to take my time and enjoy the game. Maybe not for me after all!
Let me know if I miss something.