Don't Starve Together state

[Mysterious box]

9 hours ago, Insaginary said:

I hope they reconsider how some of the new mobs spawn and interact with the world. Mobs like Rictus have interesting mechanics and show great potential, yet they kinda suffer being a mob attached to a location you yourself have to go to.

Honestly I feel like that was the original intention but then Klei probably saw the feedback from brightshades and decided to limit the spawning locations of the shadow rifts as much as possible. Considering how many mobs the shadow rift introduces it definitely feels like a good deal of them were originally meant to spawn through out the caves and not just at afew set locations but they probably thought it'd simply add to the complaints of how invasive the rifts are.

[Mysterious box]

6 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

... Aren't skill trees some of the most popular updates Klei ever delivered?

They get way more engagement in beta than updates without skill trees, and if an update has both skill trees and non-skill tree stuff, the beta usually has way more threads about the skill tree IIRC.

So uhn... I think the game is fine?

To be fair refreshing characters is always a popular event for games unless it's beyond saving as people are often invested in getting new powers to play with it's how some games get stuck in a character refresh/new character loop. New content gets less players because it's often not as large scale a change as character refreshes as we've been getting very small pieces each time that can be fully explored in hours or less so outside of bug fixing there's not as much to explore vs characters where you can see how the new abilities interact with each piece of the world.

I don't hate the direction the game is going but I do wish they fleshed out the post rift world more. The surface is very lacking in planar content and the cave planar content feels like it tries too hard to stay out of the player's way.

[Steorra]

10 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

think it was because most people despised the ocean. It still had no reward, so for a lot of people ocean updates were no update i would guess.

Ocean had its' own flavor and fun for those who could enjoy them with a relaxing, slowing playstyle. Until the raid ruins it. (Annoying drops from raid which force you to clear them by wasting a whole day for saving your server from the latency; And the random spawn direction of raid would have a chance to cause a sudden death once you just see them appear in your view; and the cursed amulet is a design which discouraging you to kill those pirates)

[YouKnowWho142]

It really does seem like what puts a lot of people off is how old content is being refreshed. New content can usually at least be ignored if you don't want to participate with it, but having older things change means you're forced to live with it. I hate saying "just don't use it" and will not be using it for the sake of this discussion but at the very bare minimum, if you do not like the skill trees, you're not forced to interact with it necessarily (i know this point doesn't fully work especially in multiplayer, it's more just saying that skill trees are less obtrusive than reworks outright) somewhat similar idea with rifts, as they are specifically designed to let you decide whether or not you want the rifts to be active in the first place (hammers it in with an are you sure, same idea, idea of just not activating them doesn't work in multiplayer but they become optional and unobtrusive if you don't want them). The way I see it, if it's content you aren't forced to interact with in any way unless you go out of your way for it, it doesn't really subract from the game to me, even several years later you can still paly the game as if none of the lunar stuff existed since a lot of it you need to go out of your way for, which at that point it's just DST as it was before

Me personally, I would prefer that DST stayed in its current direction, as I personally think that this focus is much better from a multiplayer perspective and has let me get people into the game that otherwise hate DS. Meanwhile, I think the original Don't Starve is the more survival focused experience that people generally miss, the fact that everything has several times less health in that game means that a lot of fights aren't even particularly challenging so survival is the clear intent. More survival elements in DST is always welcome, but I cannot blame Klei at all for not making it their focus. I personally like skill trees largely for the purpose of their current direction, it greatly improves character expression which lets every character approach the same issues and enemies in ways that are unique to them (even if it is overpowered, I typically do not mind as long as it is fun to use, I don't need to sweat every time I play the game), not to mention just making the game significantly more approachable to newer players. I really do think that the forum forgets sometimes how harsh the game is for new players, so I'm sure they can appreciate the added help.

Also, this game is a decade old, I'm sure that doesn't really help with people who think the game is easy or different, probably a bad take but I don't really think a ton of people would be talking about this game (or at least, nowhere near as many) if they just stopped adding content after ANR, I think it's completely okay for the game to change

I know the comparison is cheap and easy, but the easiest comparison is Terraria. That game isn't really survival, but it does follow the general idea where in the early game you survive, explore, build, etc, and when that's all done you switch to mostly combat. This likely isn't favorable to say, but I feel like the only way DST can go in that direction is to distance itself from the original Don't Starve and maintain the idea that DS and DST are two entirely different games.

43 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

I don't hate the direction the game is going but I do wish they fleshed out the post rift world more. The surface is very lacking in planar content and the cave planar content feels like it tries too hard to stay out of the player's way.

I just haven't liked how unfocused the updates are, which isn't entirely their fault. Squeezing skill trees in between rift content has caused the issue of skill trees being balanced around incomplete content while powercreeping everything else. I genuinely think that everything will mend together much better once everything is complete, but right now it looks very rough with a third of the skill trees missing and basically no rift content still

[Steorra]

The only shining point I could see from the "updates of the new era" is the changes and tries of combat designs. 

The scrappy werepig, the refreshed CK, the frostshark got may new interaction logic for the combat. They may still have many problems, but they hinting a good change of combat design of DST.

However, at the same time, we could found how Klei abusing the knockdown attack mechanic on other many combat designs. It's boring, silly and lacking of creativity I have to say.

[YouKnowWho142]

also, I didn't want to add this in my take but I did want to bring it up, I have a minor bias as if DST didn't take its current direction I would have stopped playing a long time ago. I like survival games a ton and therefore DS and DST, but I have a hard time replaying survival games as they mostly play the same to me. I'm one of ten people in existence that doesn't like minecraft (though that game barely counts as a survival game in the first place), and I can only have a hint of enjoyment playing it with friends. Zomboid is one of the most interesting survival games I've ever played, but I didn't feel very challenged by it unless I imposed my own rules with horde night mods since every game with a focus on survival has a point where you're not surviving anymore but thriving, and that's when I check out. Survival games just tend to not be super replayable, which is moreso about their reliance on knowledge checks than anything.

DS and old DST were the same way before RoT and almost even up until FB to me, but I've played more DST in the last year or two than the 7 or so years before combined, and I find the game to be at a peak for my own enjoyment. Obviously my opinion isn't shared by everyone which is why this topic exists in the first place, but I wanted to express that the game changing its identity isn't necessarily for the worse, and even if I did get tired of the current direction of DST for any reason I already know that DS is complete and has the full intended survival experience

[Cassielu]

11 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

... Aren't skill trees some of the most popular updates Klei ever delivered?

They get way more engagement in beta than updates without skill trees, and if an update has both skill trees and non-skill tree stuff, the beta usually has way more threads about the skill tree IIRC.

So uhn... I think the game is fine?

I think that's the effect, not the cause. The developers are clearly intent on making everything rewarding, unique, and interesting into character specific content in the skilltree. And the persistent lack of rewards in generic content gives players less incentive to engage with them.

Just compare Winona's founder's keepers and WARBIS items/junk yard daywalker loot, Walter's Ickies and Icker Jars/Icker Preserve, Wigfird's new spear shields and those new plane weapons that are basically just reskin dark swords. 

[Anis5240]

5 minutes ago, Cassielu said:

WARBIS

WARBIS sucks ass, the end

[Mysterious box]

3 hours ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

I just haven't liked how unfocused the updates are, which isn't entirely their fault. Squeezing skill trees in between rift content has caused the issue of skill trees being balanced around incomplete content while powercreeping everything else. I genuinely think that everything will mend together much better once everything is complete, but right now it looks very rough with a third of the skill trees missing and basically no rift content still

My worry is that they've announced the arc is ending in afew more updates it'd be one thing if they expand on it more in the next arc but I don't think a few updates is going to be enough time to flesh out both the shadow and lunar rifts. At least not at the scale the updates have been going at. I like what's currently been setup for the most part but it feels like all they're planning to leave it incomplete to and extent to avoid further backlash from the rifts and if that does end up being the case by September it makes me wish it was just worked on in the background and released as one big update following their original idea for it.

Also while I am one of those who enjoy the skill trees it's hard not to notice that they have a lot of fault in messing with what this arc could have been when you consider how much of a already reduced team had to go into refreshing characters over fleshing out the arc.

 

[Jakepeng99]

16 hours ago, PunkShark said:

Cause at least we're getting something out of it. Lots of it. If you want to always look at the negatives of things then you will only notice those things and dwell on it.

I do.

I like the marotters and rabbit king. Some skilltrees are at least good, there are some ideas I find interesting in riffs.

But not liking something doesn’t mean you’re being negative. I see the positives and negatives, and I believe dst’s direction is not that good.

(Also, adding content isn’t always good. The game can feel over bloated, or the new content I find unfun like riff content which takes away from the full game experience for me)

 

 

[Valase]

21 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

(Also, adding content isn’t always good. The game can feel over bloated, or the new content I find unfun like riff content which takes away from the full game experience for me)

I agree on the first part, but I like that the rifts and the rift stuff does not interfere in the overall gameplay until I activate them. Which is why I stopped making worlds with them activated day one.

[YouKnowWho142]

26 minutes ago, Valase said:

I agree on the first part, but I like that the rifts and the rift stuff does not interfere in the overall gameplay until I activate them. Which is why I stopped making worlds with them activated day one.

this is a big thing imo. The game lets you fight cc and fw without activating the rifts, so it's not something you're forced to participate in if you don't like it

it's hard to say the game feels bloated when most of it isn't things you're forced to participate in, it just gives you more options if you do want to do than just the same few things, there's nothing really stopping you from playing the game the exact same way as 7 or so years ago and not interact with 90% of the stuff added since then

[Jakepeng99]

1 hour ago, Valase said:

I agree on the first part, but I like that the rifts and the rift stuff does not interfere in the overall gameplay until I activate them. Which is why I stopped making worlds with them activated day one.

I used to almost exclusively play longterm multiplayer servers. Now i don't play then for that long because riff content eventually activates and im not much a fan with the way it interacts with the world. (Shadow riffs are pretty much good thematically, with some of the most well designed enemies, its just the powercreep from the gear i find a problem, and the "final boss" activation which i debate if i like)

I also believe "hardmode" from terraria doesnt fit well in dst. The ds boss system in the dlcs worked really well in hamlet where you just fight whoever you want when you want. The final boss is up to you. There is no complex quest or anything i kinda liked that, made the game more replayable, and worlds feel like they can last longer. Also moves away the rouge like element a bit, but its fine.

[Milordo]

19 hours ago, Dr. Safety said:

I think a big problem is that they are squeezing character refreshes, content updates (both early and late game), and story progression all into these updates. The gameplay is the main priority, so the "story progression" has actually just been content updates disguised as story progression. Beard brings up an interesting topic at the end of the video, and that is the finale when it comes to story and lore.

How would you all feel about the story of DST being finished?

Okay I'll give you my 1000% on this one. 

How would I feel if the story is finished? Great! Even satisfied after waiting all these years! We're that close to finish, and it's obvious as the sky that Klei prolonged/milked the hell out of it during 2023-2025. 

How would I feel if the game continues after the story has finished? Enthusiastic! You said it yourself. Gameplay IS really the main focus of Don't Starve. Story, Lore, ambience are on the background. Plus I already stated here that I want rebalancing/reworks/tons of fixes (and super btw, adding new content IS balancing in certain aspects, for like caves, ruins, ocean and lunar island....) so I can hope for some of that in this hypotetical future. 

How would I feel if the story finishes but the game too, with no more support/updates? Hmnnn. Sad, but still satisfied. 

How would I feel if abruptly the game is stopped with also no story finished? I would be very bittersweet, maybe angry for a moment, but realistically? Content in the end! Because..... Dst already has been finished! Long ago with Ancient Fuelweaver being the canonical ending and now split between him and the lunar path. So they can leave all the charlie and wagstaff thingamajig open to a third installment. 

That's my personal take. I would also remind to all the community that literally in Don't Starve 1, we had a start, a really cool ass mystery developing, adventure mode and the story was finished. Does that stopped Klei doing Don't starve in general? No! We had after Reign of Giants, Caves, Shipwrecked, Hamlet. So in this regard, no, I don't think either it would be the worst thing if the game ends now, even ambiguously and maybbeee still update it.

(Overall excellent analysis/discussion Dr.Safety! )
 

[hyoton123]

I think the game is doing OK. I play much worse and more unfinished games and have a good time with them.

[Milordo]

19 hours ago, BezKa said:

That's not to say I don't believe in Klei. Everyone makes mistakes, skill trees are one, but they did make literally the rest of the game. There's still thousands of things I love about it. I still boot it up and hum along to the music, and I still love the gameplay loop, and the characters are still deep and interesting. The mobs are still beautifully designed. The rifts, while unfinished and feeling eh on some fronts, have their good sides. There are many things we got these past few years I really liked.

Whatever Klei makes, we can only really judge it once we get it, so there's no point despairing about what we don't know, and they have said many times they do want to hear constructive criticism on what we have now, we just have to do it without being nasty towards anyone.

And if it comes to the worst... Don't Starve is right here, exactly the way I love it, with no changes in sight.

 

Yes, we should never forget this. 

I obviously made this post and others in the past and future because I love Klei and Don't Starve and I want the best for them, otherwise I would not waste my time I have on this earth to write long posts on the forum ahahah. I still play the hell out of the game to this day, for even all the reasons you listed!

[Swiyss]

I watched this video too, and I agree with most of what he said. He's completely right in most aspects of the game being forgotten, and how nothing makes sense, it's just a bunch of randomness put together. This arc is all over the place.

[Milordo]

@PunkShark @Maxil20
Sorry for the late response, work is killing me.

 

First and first, I really don't know where you're getting "literally happens with every single arc". Dude. We had literally only 2 arcs. What others arcs are you talking about?
Then, Return of Them was great and people in general received it very well, again where do you get people hate it? Return of them was: 1) Complete rework of characters 2) 2 new levels, ocean and lunar island, with all its content 3) A lot of rebalance/reworks 4) various others small stuff. Maybe when new revolutionary stuff were added like the farming one, people were weird out as it was something new. But literally after 2 weeks, the community praised it well and appreciated it.
So the real culprit of """complaining""" (as you literally pointed out in your post) was and STILL IS the dst ocean andddd you really can't with a straight face tell me "no no, ocean is fine! everything is fine! It's a you problem!" is completely ridiculous, when (in terms of content) the dst ocean is the WORSE aspect in the entire franchise PLAGUED with errors and problems. 

I handle a community of over 50+ people. All started as new fresh super hyper mega blind players. No backseating. No wiki, no guides, no forum. Shielded from every external source. All and I repeat A L L, give me cries of pain and horror as soon as they touch the water and face the ocean. Going back to the topic, in contrast we have From Beyond with: Skill trees, Rifts, """"New player experience aimed features"""" (of which only I care..) and theoretically progression of the story/lore that it didn't, thus all of these 4 becoming heavily controversial and far worse with us knowing their problems and all. How in the Altar is this rose tinted glasses when in comparison the situation is worse. The comparison  also doesn't stand when you compare it with Toadstool or Bee Queen, of which yes, they need some tunements, but not complete overhauls. They have small problems, not big ones and are not imposing gigantic mechanics that covers all the game but just bosses. Not comparable.

 

Second, perceiving even the slightly of distress or preoccupations or dissatisfaction or criticism as childish complaining is frightening and worrisome. I don't get why we should diminish these feelings and these points brought with factual logical objective thruth. This just reeks of toxic positivity. 

Also PunkShark "an arc that isn't finished..." I don't even want to respond on this, it's been debunked too much time and I'm tired about it. Live in your "rose tintend glasses" home but you're right. Maybe in these two last updates they will fix everything! Balance/fix all skill trees and rifts! Yeeeeeeee! But no sorry. I can't be this naive after I know too damn well Klei, know coding, know how working works and know the schedule of last years. 95% these last two updates will just be new content and preparing the big guns for later. We can only hope it's good new content.

 

Third, more != better. Quantity != Quality. Your something is worse if it doesn't mean anything and does terrible damage. I prefer the nothing of gorge and forge because atleast was better in quality then now and much better I prefer the something of 2019-2022 because it had the best of two worlds.

 

That said, I get what you're also expressing. I know how the forums got worse by time with negativity (which again should tell you that something is actually not going well with the game, don't you think?) but we're not all the same. Please don't generalize. I didn't come here with bad intentions or bait to have clicks on my post I don't care. I wrote this post in the most chill way possible. You can separate the difference between a genuine normal post and post number #423472 why Ancient Fuelweaver is bad or really rage baiting Wendy skill tree post and for more context you can check more of my perceptions/opinions/thoughts in other responses. 
The point of the post is; 1) discussion in general, which I don't think it's a crime 2) letting me know what you genuinely think about the general state and 2023-2025 3) maybe suggestions to give Klei about the recent, very serious, actual problems of the game  

Btw I could easily turn the tables with the same reasoning as "People lovvvee to praise about the present and act like the future is a cakewalk. Rifts base design and their core mechanics such as planar damage being useless and bad? Heresy. Skill trees ruining so many aspects of the game spirit? Despicable. The game is more and more too fighting focused? The Horror." Am I right? 
Which is funny because it's an other spectrum of the community that I encountered, ESPECIALLY when skill trees dropped, I was the first to create awareness of the problems, got crucified and now a lot of you that I know at first went against me, but now regret it with a big "I told you so" from me. 

 

I will not stop critize and love the game in general. Anyway, I'll take your responses for dst state as "No, everything is fine, no problems." I guess.

[Milordo]

 

On 3/12/2025 at 2:50 AM, AliceShiki said:

... Aren't skill trees some of the most popular updates Klei ever delivered?

They get way more engagement in beta than updates without skill trees, and if an update has both skill trees and non-skill tree stuff, the beta usually has way more threads about the skill tree IIRC.

So uhn... I think the game is fine?

Nope. Not skill trees, characters! Big difference. If skill tree were for, I dunno, other things like science machinces they would never had this popularity. 

Characters and bosses are always the prime big lure attention in the dst community. That's why more traffic is involved there.

 

Btw

On 3/12/2025 at 2:50 AM, AliceShiki said:

and if an update has both skill trees and non-skill tree stuff, the beta usually has way more threads about the skill tree IIRC.

This shows also another aberrant problem about it

[Milordo]

 

On 3/12/2025 at 2:57 AM, Walrusst said:

--snip--

 

I don't mind some of the new content inside skill trees, I can see me and everyone having fun with it. It's the outside the problem.

I too loved marotters and rabbit king albeit with others hard criticisms that you would found shocking at first glance, like marotters should be in the ocean in some biomes, not the first level. I LOVE tho Great Depth Worm <3 

Another another btw btw btw ahahah

 

On 3/12/2025 at 2:57 AM, Walrusst said:

The one thing I think klei needs to get on though is server performance. Stumps, spider brains, and people dropping trash on the floor shouldn't be able to kill the server so quickly.  When we have random entities like grass gekkos and twiggy trees littering like this and the spider nests grow without bound, its tragic to lose a world cause someone walked to the swamp and it was so entity ridden that everyone needed to fully abandon a survival world (Thus resetting our progress.) If the servers aren't more memory leak resistant/performant, the focus on late game will be less useful as servers rotting will make people who don't play solo struggle to experience the game in its full.

Yes! This is also often swept under the rug and I must admit I tend to forget about it but yes! Optimization another big problem to not pass of and WOW.

It happened to you too? With the swamp thing and all. I had something similar in 2019 and I was very confused. I contacted Klei but they couldn't help me and my megabase is long forgotten :c

[Milordo]

On 3/12/2025 at 10:35 AM, YouKnowWho142 said:

It really does seem like what puts a lot of people off is how old content is being refreshed. New content can usually at least be ignored if you don't want to participate with it, but having older things change means you're forced to live with it. I hate saying "just don't use it" and will not be using it for the sake of this discussion but at the very bare minimum, if you do not like the skill trees, you're not forced to interact with it necessarily (i know this point doesn't fully work especially in multiplayer, it's more just saying that skill trees are less obtrusive than reworks outright) somewhat similar idea with rifts, as they are specifically designed to let you decide whether or not you want the rifts to be active in the first place (hammers it in with an are you sure, same idea, idea of just not activating them doesn't work in multiplayer but they become optional and unobtrusive if you don't want them). The way I see it, if it's content you aren't forced to interact with in any way unless you go out of your way for it, it doesn't really subract from the game to me, even several years later you can still paly the game as if none of the lunar stuff existed since a lot of it you need to go out of your way for, which at that point it's just DST as it was before

 

Thanks you on the "just don't use it"! Agreed and yup I can see it too, although personally I have more other reasons that puts me "off". It's not always one thing that cause the problem! 

[cybers2001]

On 3/11/2025 at 3:55 PM, Milordo said:

Man, I just want some some cloths, foods, crock pot, caves, ruins, ocean now, bosses, fighting and other items/structures rework/balancing. I'm literally STARVING it since 2019. Depth of Duplicity and the previous one about the ocean were a godsend 

Thanks very much for your open minded response. I again too, never expected this from Beard and it's not about agreeing or disagreeing with him, me vs them, right or wrong. It's about serious constructive criticism about the game and Klei.

This is something I've pushed for a while back as well. I'd love to see an overhaul for the food system to put more emphasis on cooking and, you know "not starving", though last time I brought that up, it devolved into another "Oh this guy just wants to nerf bundle wrap ::eyeroll::"

I'm glad my time-freeze box idea did get implemented at least, in the form of the icker preserves (though I still wish I had a way to preserve birds, hambats, and other spoilables without bundling wrap).

[Milordo]

On 3/12/2025 at 10:37 AM, Steorra said:

The only shining point I could see from the "updates of the new era" is the changes and tries of combat designs. 

The scrappy werepig, the refreshed CK, the frostshark got may new interaction logic for the combat. They may still have many problems, but they hinting a good change of combat design of DST.

However, at the same time, we could found how Klei abusing the knockdown attack mechanic on other many combat designs. It's boring, silly and lacking of creativity I have to say.

For me, in primis, is not the knockdown attack mechanic (I see your point tho) but the "super boss" status that crab king, scrappy werepig and frostjaw should have. Klei is making this "third wave" of boss design for raid bosses and I hate it for the concept of balancing them around 1 player. We're literally going backwards, instead for the million time adding A GODDAMN AUTOBALANCE IN THE GAME (asked by the community since 2015 btw). Do I really need to remind that the game incentivize playing together? *drums sounds* And people who plays in groups of 4,5 and 6 people (of which I have in my community) found this extremely unhealthy, boring, sad and bad in general, as they can't enjoy what essentially @YouKnowWho142 was talking about before. Plus their design are now exactly like normal bosses such as treeguards, spider queens, deerclops, ecc... which is just --> pick armor, weapon and healing and then just dodge the patterns. It's fine for normal bosses, not for raid ones. I'm very sad that they're abandoning their philosophy of A new Reign. It gave those special bosses, something special :c

At the same time, can't complain on the new normal bosses, like big wormy boi! I very like him :3

 

On 3/12/2025 at 2:28 PM, Cassielu said:

I think that's the effect, not the cause. The developers are clearly intent on making everything rewarding, unique, and interesting into character specific content in the skilltree. And the persistent lack of rewards in generic content gives players less incentive to engage with them.

Just compare Winona's founder's keepers and WARBIS items/junk yard daywalker loot, Walter's Ickies and Icker Jars/Icker Preserve, Wigfird's new spear shields and those new plane weapons that are basically just reskin dark swords. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

(lol cassielu I didn't recognize you with the new profile pic)

[Jakepeng99]

5 hours ago, Milordo said:

Also PunkShark "an arc that isn't finished..." I don't even want to respond on this, it's been debunked too much time and I'm tired about it. Live in your "rose tintend glasses" home but you're right. Maybe in these two last updates they will fix everything! Balance/fix all skill trees and rifts! Yeeeeeeee! But no sorry. I can't be this naive after I know too damn well Klei, know coding, know how working works and know the schedule of last years. 95% these last two updates will just be new content and preparing the big guns for later. We can only hope it's good new content.

We are still waiting for the "it all makes sense" from the Moon Quay. It feels like the lore was forced on it for no reason, i don't understand the point of it other than "Wagstaff made a weird portal that doesnt have lore significance". Could have just been monkeys who like the moon because it is sometimes banana shaped, which i find funny. 

5 hours ago, Milordo said:

Then, Return of Them was great and people in general received it very well, again where do you get people hate it? Return of them was: 1) Complete rework of characters 2) 2 new levels, ocean and lunar island, with all its content 3) A lot of rebalance/reworks 4) various others small stuff. Maybe when new revolutionary stuff were added like the farming one, people were weird out as it was something new. But literally after 2 weeks, the community praised it well and appreciated it.
So the real culprit of """complaining""" (as you literally pointed out in your post) was and STILL IS the dst ocean andddd you really can't with a straight face tell me "no no, ocean is fine! everything is fine! It's a you problem!" is completely ridiculous, when (in terms of content) the dst ocean is the WORSE aspect in the entire franchise PLAGUED with errors and problems. 

Forgotten knowledge was identified as an amazing update back then and to this day. 

[Milordo]

On 3/12/2025 at 10:54 AM, YouKnowWho142 said:

also, I didn't want to add this in my take but I did want to bring it up, I have a minor bias as if DST didn't take its current direction I would have stopped playing a long time ago. I like survival games a ton and therefore DS and DST, but I have a hard time replaying survival games as they mostly play the same to me. I'm one of ten people in existence that doesn't like minecraft (though that game barely counts as a survival game in the first place), and I can only have a hint of enjoyment playing it with friends. Zomboid is one of the most interesting survival games I've ever played, but I didn't feel very challenged by it unless I imposed my own rules with horde night mods since every game with a focus on survival has a point where you're not surviving anymore but thriving, and that's when I check out. Survival games just tend to not be super replayable, which is moreso about their reliance on knowledge checks than anything.

DS and old DST were the same way before RoT and almost even up until FB to me, but I've played more DST in the last year or two than the 7 or so years before combined, and I find the game to be at a peak for my own enjoyment. Obviously my opinion isn't shared by everyone which is why this topic exists in the first place, but I wanted to express that the game changing its identity isn't necessarily for the worse, and even if I did get tired of the current direction of DST for any reason I already know that DS is complete and has the full intended survival experience

It depends. I think this problem is on the devs and how they make their game.

On 3/12/2025 at 2:37 PM, Mysterious box said:

My worry is that they've announced the arc is ending in afew more updates it'd be one thing if they expand on it more in the next arc but I don't think a few updates is going to be enough time to flesh out both the shadow and lunar rifts. At least not at the scale the updates have been going at. I like what's currently been setup for the most part but it feels like all they're planning to leave it incomplete to and extent to avoid further backlash from the rifts and if that does end up being the case by September it makes me wish it was just worked on in the background and released as one big update following their original idea for it.

Also while I am one of those who enjoy the skill trees it's hard not to notice that they have a lot of fault in messing with what this arc could have been when you consider how much of a already reduced team had to go into refreshing characters over fleshing out the arc.

Yup, these last two updates will not make that much of a difference. As already said, we can only hope these last content will be a good one. For the rest, super agreed.

On 3/12/2025 at 7:22 PM, YouKnowWho142 said:

it's hard to say the game feels bloated 

The criticism in general towards Rift is not about the game feeling bloated. Ironically I would tell you that the game feels too much empty and barren in certain parts xD