suggestion Could we have Misery Toadstool drop the Mushlight blueprint alongside its current loot?

[kikia]

Some friends and I actually prefer Mushlight over Glowcap for a few reasons:  

1. mushlights are shorter than glowcaps, making them less likely to dominate the visual focus of a base. They don’t "steal the spotlight" or obstruct items behind them as much.  

2. mushlights have a slightly larger light radius visually.  

3. mushlights emit pure white light, which is brighter and more practical when using them with festive lights purely for illumination.  

Because of this, we don’t consider glowcap a strict "upgrade" to mushlight. However, since the Napsack blueprint (needed to mass-produce shroom skin with the green staff) drops from only the misery variant, we often end up fighting both toadstool variants. The frustrating part is that the regular toadstool still has a 33% chance to drop the glowcap blueprint.  

This creates a counterintuitive situation: obtaining the "slightly less preferred" reward ironically requires more effort.

[DegenerateFurry]

Honestly, Toadstool's another of the A New Reign bosses that needs a bit of a rework. The boss itself is okay (although it'd be really nice if the number of sporecaps scaled to the number of players present like Klaus's magic attacks, and the number that spawns for one player should be lower than it currently is) for the most part, it just needs, like, 50% less health than it has. A relatively unchallenging and mechanically simple fight that just drags on for 20+ minutes isn't fun.

Maybe they could rework him to not get stuck on ponds, but chop his health in half and implement player-based sporecap scaling? They could scale in the number of chops to down them instead of the number of trees per player if we wanted to incentivize actually using axes instead of weather pains if you're solo. Then they should make Misery guaranteed to drop both blueprints since it's the harder fight. Other than that, I think he's an okay boss. 

[dois raios]

8 minutes ago, DegenerateFurry said:

Toadstool's another of the A New Reign bosses

What other boss from ANR were reworked?

Also, pls no more boss reworks

[DegenerateFurry]

5 minutes ago, dois raios said:

What other boss from ANR were reworked?

Also, pls no more boss reworks

 

I misspoke about the ANR ones, I meant that Toadstool's one of a few that could use changes.

And, why not? It's good for the game to update outdated mechanics, especially when they're just boring like Toadstool's massive health pool (he'd be a substantially better boss if they literally just made him have less HP and fixed the blueprint RNG with Misery). 

[Dingle]

In our servers, we save Toadstool as the final boss, because the loot sucks.

The lamps are mega highly valued by the developers. Infinite light! Well, if you also kill celestial champion.

The reality of it is once my friends and I got used to getting starcallers fast, we mostly just don't even make the lamps anymore.

[YouKnowWho142]

12 minutes ago, dois raios said:

Also, pls no more boss reworks

Probably a hot take but I really wish the older bosses were more in line with the new bosses, probably in the form of reworks after FB. I find a lot of the ANR bosses to be lock and key to an extent (not in the most literal phrase). Dragonfly is really hard without the wall cheese, and really easy with it. Bee queen is really hard without panflute or no aoe, but if you have aoe (which basically everyone has been getting) it becomes easy, in the case of some characters it basically invalidates her entirely. I think bosses like Klaus and Antlion is fine in large part thanks to their simplicity, but there are definitely a couple bosses that were designed with very specific strategies in mind when they have the potential to be a lot more interesting and engaging

Even, like, the shadow pieces would be better if you were more encouraged to kill them in a different order, I know they're intentionally simple but they should probably be a little more avoidable at least especially the Bishop so that the Rook isnt always just beaten with speed. A lot of those bosses are a decade old and are just not keeping up with the current game philosophy and characters

[Dingle]

Then combine that with some of the new character reworks and skill trees having their own solutions for light. The Toadstool lamps get less and less valuable. And yet, they're still so valuable that each one needs an enlightened shard for infinite light.

[kikia]

5 minutes ago, Dingle said:

In our servers, we save Toadstool as the final boss, because the loot sucks.

The lamps are mega highly valued by the developers. Infinite light! Well, if you also kill celestial champion.

The reality of it is once my friends and I got used to getting starcallers fast, we mostly just don't even make the lamps anymore.

Yes, to some extent, its aesthetic merit outweighs its practical utility.

[DegenerateFurry]

3 minutes ago, Dingle said:

Then combine that with some of the new character reworks and skill trees having their own solutions for light. The Toadstool lamps get less and less valuable. And yet, they're still so valuable that each one needs an enlightened shard for infinite light.

Didn't they also add literally better mushlight/glowcap replacements as part of the Year of the Depths Worm update? 

[Frosty_Mentos]

I feel like resource bosses that take so much effort to kill should be worth a ton more of their respective resources.

Imo dragonfly either could drop more gems or more scales as a result, toad should give a LOT more skins considering their use is mostly for lighting than crowd control. The actual crowd control of his sleep bombs is not that great against bosses.

[DegenerateFurry]

29 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

Probably a hot take but I really wish the older bosses were more in line with the new bosses, probably in the form of reworks after FB. I find a lot of the ANR bosses to be lock and key to an extent (not in the most literal phrase). Dragonfly is really hard without the wall cheese, and really easy with it. Bee queen is really hard without panflute or no aoe, but if you have aoe (which basically everyone has been getting) it becomes easy, in the case of some characters it basically invalidates her entirely. I think bosses like Klaus and Antlion is fine in large part thanks to their simplicity, but there are definitely a couple bosses that were designed with very specific strategies in mind when they have the potential to be a lot more interesting and engaging

Even, like, the shadow pieces would be better if you were more encouraged to kill them in a different order, I know they're intentionally simple but they should probably be a little more avoidable at least especially the Bishop so that the Rook isnt always just beaten with speed

Yeah, this is pretty much my view of it. The only one I wouldn't really change at all is the Shadow Pieces, though. Bishop being more avoidable I could maybe be on-board with, but for most characters, it just doesn't do enough to you that you'll be struggling (assuming you have at least some armor, which should be a safe assumption) in stage 1 or 2? The Shadow Pieces do actually encourage you to do them in a different order depending on your character and strategy. Anyone who's got companions (Webber, Wurt, or even Wendy and Abigail to an extent, as well as anyone who happens to like using bunnymen or pigs) should consider not doing the Rook last, for instance, and Walter should definitely target the Bishop first. 

Bee Queen is doable solo without much difficulty if you make an X out of fences or walls with the hive as the center and kite her around it, but it's kinda silly that we have to do that and I do think she needs some alterations.

Dragonfly without walls would be a viable option if they just made the ice staff one-shot lavae instead of taking three hits per each, Dragonfly spawns way too many for that to be viable against them as-is. 

Fuelweaver [redacted sentiment that is essentially a copy of the "HATE" speech from I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream directed at Ancient Fuelweaver instead of humans]. 

Klaus is literally perfect and I wish they used attack scaling way more in boss fights, I have no idea why they haven't done that.

And like Dragonfly and the Shadow Pieces, Toadstool's got an okay design that just needs some relatively easy/minor adjustments. 

[Guille6785]

51 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

Probably a hot take but I really wish the older bosses were more in line with the new bosses, probably in the form of reworks after FB.

please no, do not turn good bosses into more terraria-esque slop that consists of dodging attacks for a bit before you get 10 seconds where you hold F

[HowlVoid]

I was just thinking this lmao. I also think all the hats should be just one recipe. The red mushcap is more important to wormwood than other hats while it's probably the least important hat to other characters.

Also, I don't know if this still happens but I've gotten repeat hat recipes which is a huge bummer.

[WilsonHiggs]

1 hour ago, DegenerateFurry said:

although it'd be really nice if the number of sporecaps scaled to the number of players present like Klaus's magic attacks, and the number that spawns for one player should be lower than it currently is

Why? We have glass axes and weather pains

[DegenerateFurry]

23 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

I was just thinking this lmao. I also think all the hats should be just one recipe. The red mushcap is more important to wormwood than other hats while it's probably the least important hat to other characters.

Also, I don't know if this still happens but I've gotten repeat hat recipes which is a huge bummer.

Alternatively, they could just make Toadstool dump a bunch of recipes on us like Nightmare Werepig does. 

[HowlVoid]

44 minutes ago, Guille6785 said:

please no, do not turn good bosses into more terraria-esque slop that consists of dodging attacks for a bit before you get 10 seconds where you hold F

What bosses are you talking about specifically?

Are you comparing bosses to terraria or the terraria collaboration bosses? Because in Terraria boss fights consist of continuous movement iirc. I haven't played in a while but that's how I remember them.

[DegenerateFurry]

1 hour ago, HowlVoid said:

What bosses are you talking about specifically?

Are you comparing bosses to terraria or the terraria collaboration bosses? Because in Terraria boss fights consist of continuous movement iirc. I haven't played in a while but that's how I remember them.

Yeah, in Terraria, you are literally constantly moving during a boss fight or you're dying (at least on expert mode). The game even has a bullet hell boss now (Empress of Light) with an optional variant where it will one-hit-kill you. There's nothing where "dodge attacks for a bit before you get 10 seconds where you hold F" (or left click in Terraria since that's the default attack button there). You can attack and move at the same time as Terraria and the game fully expects you to do so, and you can damage the boss the whole time you're doing that.

The Terraria crossover bosses also don't really follow that pattern? You dodge a few attacks in a unique pattern compared to other bosses, kite minions or slaughter them, and the time where you can hold F gets shorter as the fight progresses and you have to dodge more attacks.

What he's describing only really fits the Werepig bosses, the Frostjaw, and the post-rift lunar bosses where they have a stun mechanic, but it's also an oversimplification in the case of the latter since they don't just automatically enter the stun state after you dodge them like the Frostjaw and Werepig. Crystal Deerclops requires a well-timed fire staff (or torch) hit while Armored Bearger requires baiting out a butt-slam, dodging it, and then hitting with a planar weapon before it gets back up, and you have to bait out a frost breath attack from the Possessed Varg before hitting it with a planar weapon, too. 

Like, the newer bosses are some of the most creative and best work Klei's done, period. I don't get this criticism and the comparison to Terraria is... a choice.

[Masked Koopa]

2 hours ago, Guille6785 said:

please no, do not turn good bosses into more terraria-esque slop that consists of dodging attacks for a bit before you get 10 seconds where you hold F

Gully that's not Terraria at all. Like not even slightly. Terraria bosses erratically move around the screen spewing out projectiles and/or dealing contact damage. You can dislike the boss design Klei has chosen to go with without insulting something you pretty clearly don't have any actual experience with. Honestly I wish Terraria bosses WERE designed how you describe, one of the game's biggest issues is Melee attackers not being able to safely get in range.

1 hour ago, HowlVoid said:

I was just thinking this lmao. I also think all the hats should be just one recipe. The red mushcap is more important to wormwood than other hats while it's probably the least important hat to other characters.

Also, I don't know if this still happens but I've gotten repeat hat recipes which is a huge bummer.

I'd honestly rather the hats be buffed to have better secondary effects to make them more worth using. I think perhaps the RNG of the hat colour could perhaps be turned into something more sequential and/or deliberate - like maybe you can plant a mushroom spore in an empty Misery Toad hole and you'll get a Blue/Green/Red capped Toadstool that guarantees the particular hat Blueprint.

I recall an idea I conceptualised alongside some other folks was that wearing the respective Mushcap would remove the downsides of eating a particular Mushroom, whilst enhancing their upside to be stronger, so:

• Raw Redcap satiates 50 hunger
• Cooked Redcap heals 20 HP
• Raw Greencap satiates 25 hunger
• Cooked Greencap provides 33 sanity
• Raw Bluecap heals 40 hp
• Cooked Bluecap provides 15 sanity.

4 hours ago, kikia said:

2. mushlights have a slightly larger light radius visually.  

3. mushlights emit pure white light, which is brighter and more practical when using them with festive lights purely for illumination. 

Honestly I think these should be remedied regardless. I think it is incredibly silly that we are currently punished for using tinted lights, it makes the entire mechanic feel like a waste of time which is a real shame since it's such a neat concept. Glowcaps also probably deserve a bonus light radius over Mushlights.

[Guille6785]

5 minutes ago, Masked Koopa said:

Gully that's not Terraria at all. Like not even slightly. Terraria bosses erratically move around the screen spewing out projectiles and/or dealing contact damage. You can dislike the boss design Klei has chosen to go with without insulting something you pretty clearly don't have any actual experience with. Honestly I wish Terraria bosses WERE designed how you describe, one of the game's biggest issues is Melee attackers not being able to safely get in range.

35 minutes ago, DegenerateFurry said:

Yeah, in Terraria, you are literally constantly moving during a boss fight or you're dying (at least on expert mode). The game even has a bullet hell boss now (Empress of Light) with an optional variant where it will one-hit-kill you. There's nothing where "dodge attacks for a bit before you get 10 seconds where you hold F" (or left click in Terraria since that's the default attack button there). You can attack and move at the same time as Terraria and the game fully expects you to do so, and you can damage the boss the whole time you're doing that.

The Terraria crossover bosses also don't really follow that pattern? You dodge a few attacks in a unique pattern compared to other bosses, kite minions or slaughter them, and the time where you can hold F gets shorter as the fight progresses and you have to dodge more attacks.

What he's describing only really fits the Werepig bosses, the Frostjaw, and the post-rift lunar bosses where they have a stun mechanic, but it's also an oversimplification in the case of the latter since they don't just automatically enter the stun state after you dodge them like the Frostjaw and Werepig. Crystal Deerclops requires a well-timed fire staff (or torch) hit while Armored Bearger requires baiting out a butt-slam, dodging it, and then hitting with a planar weapon before it gets back up, and you have to bait out a frost breath attack from the Possessed Varg before hitting it with a planar weapon, too. 

Like, the newer bosses are some of the most creative and best work Klei's done, period. I don't get this criticism and the comparison to Terraria is... a choice.

2 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

What bosses are you talking about specifically?

Are you comparing bosses to terraria or the terraria collaboration bosses? Because in Terraria boss fights consist of continuous movement iirc. I haven't played in a while but that's how I remember them.

I meant terraria-esque in the sense that the main focus of the fight is on dodging the attacks (e.g. a fight like nightmare werepig where the main gimmick is dodging his attacks vs fuelweaver where his attacks are easy to dodge but the main challenge is all the other mechanics), I know terraria is more bullet hell-ish, holy **** you do not need to write essays to tell me that I'm pedantically wrong when it was obvious what I was referring to (I guess I could've used the term souls-like although that isn't exactly accurate either)

[DegenerateFurry]

1 minute ago, Masked Koopa said:

I'd honestly rather the hats be buffed to have better secondary effects to make them more worth using. I think perhaps the RNG of the hat colour could perhaps be turned into something more sequential and/or deliberate - like maybe you can plant a mushroom spore in an empty Misery Toad hole and you'll get a Blue/Green/Red capped Toadstool that guarantees the particular hat Blueprint.

I recall an idea I conceptualised alongside some other folks was that wearing the respective Mushcap would remove the downsides of eating a particular Mushroom, whilst enhancing their upside to be stronger, so:

• Raw Redcap satiates 50 hunger
• Cooked Redcap heals 20 HP
• Raw Greencap satiates 25 hunger
• Cooked Greencap provides 33 sanity
• Raw Bluecap heals 40 hp
• Cooked Bluecap provides 15 sanity.

 

Ooh, those are all very good ideas, and I like your creative method of guaranteeing blueprints a lot more than the idea of just having Toadstool dump out a ton of blueprints like Nightmare Werepig. The buffs to mushrooms as a food source would be nice, too, it'd encourage mushroom farming and give longer worlds a reason to use living logs more. 

[Masked Koopa]

1 minute ago, Guille6785 said:

I meant terraria-esque in the sense that the main focus of the fight is on dodging the attacks (e.g. a fight like nightmare werepig where the main gimmick is dodging his attacks vs fuelweaver where his attacks are easy to dodge but the main challenge is all the other mechanics), I know terraria is more bullet hell-ish, holy **** you do not need to write essays to tell me that I'm pedantically wrong when it was obvious what I was referring to

Gully, I think if three different people all misunderstand you, it probably wasn't obvious what you meant.
Anyway in respect to that - I think that it is overall a little more of a snapshot of Don't Starve's history rather than the game being influenced by external design. I wouldn't exactly call the Base Game, ROG or Shipwrecked bosses akin to foes like BQ/FW/Toadstool/DSTFly. In Hamlet something like Iron Hulk feels right out of the current design, where Mant Queen and Ancient Herald are in the opposite direction.

I think my main gripe with the current system wouldn't be that dodging attacks is encouraged, but that alternative solutions aren't really facilitated. The fact that (for example) NMWP's exhaustion mechanic requires him to not hit anything means that strategies involving Minions are severely diminished, or his moving at mach 10 making any more static strategies like Tentacles or Gunpowder practically unusable.

Overall though I think you'd be better off making a dedicated post about the boss design, because we're kind of derailing this one. I think that there's probably a lot of room for compromise between the elements lost via the new direction and the issues people have with that particular subset of older bosses.

[Guille6785]

1 minute ago, Masked Koopa said:

Overall though I think you'd be better off making a dedicated post about the boss design, because we're kind of derailing this one. I think that there's probably a lot of room for compromise between the elements lost via the new direction and the issues people have with that particular subset of older bosses.

I did make this thread a while back (if people want to read more without derailing this any further) but I'm realizing just now that this was close to a year ago by now so I shouldn't have assumed people would know what I was referring to when I compared the new bosses to terraria: 

 

[Cheggf]

6 hours ago, DegenerateFurry said:

I misspoke about the ANR ones, I meant that Toadstool's one of a few that could use changes.

And, why not? It's good for the game to update outdated mechanics, especially when they're just boring like Toadstool's massive health pool (he'd be a substantially better boss if they literally just made him have less HP and fixed the blueprint RNG with Misery). 

The last time they "reworked" a boss fight what they actually ended up doing is removing that boss from the game entirely and replacing it with another one. 

[DegenerateFurry]

10 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

The last time they "reworked" a boss fight what they actually ended up doing is removing that boss from the game entirely and replacing it with another one. 

Are you talking about the well-received Crab King? Or, maybe about the widely liked Ancient Guardian?

[Cheggf]

6 minutes ago, DegenerateFurry said:

Are you talking about the well-received Crab King?

Yes. I like the new Crab King fight, and I like the old Crab King fight, but they are completely different and have nothing in common with each-other. Had they not reworked Crab King and instead put in a similar amount of effort to making an entirely different boss, we could have had both fights. The old CK only needed a few tweaks to become a great fight so we could have two different fun fights instead of only one, but instead they undid all the work they did on it and just replaced him with a different boss.

Also, only 50% of people voted that it's better than the original. That's exactly half.